वासवदत्ता (महाकवि सुबन्धु - श्लेष-प्रधान शास्त्रीय गद्यकाव्य सान्वय सटीक)

A SANSKRIT ROMANCE 57
intense passion in the waning night; [50] when damsels were
tuneful¹ with the jingle of the bracelets on their tremulous,
slender arms while they illumined their apartments by the light
of the rays² of their milk-white teeth, revealed through their
sobbing at the pain caused by the loosening of the hair which
adhered to the fresh³ nail-marks⁴; [51] while their attendants,
wearied with importunities for another glimpse, saw lovers con-
stantly; while (the damsels themselves) felt bashful just for an
instant at the endearing words of the house-parrots who had
remembered⁵ a hundred shameless speeches uttered in the night⁶;
[52] when they (the damsels) had the beauty, as it were, of an
autumnal day with ⟨clouds not adorned by sky⟩,⁷ for their ⟨bosoms
were adorned by the marks of nails⟩; when they seemed nigh
unto death and had their faces set toward the ⟨city of the Lord
of Life⟩,⁸ for their faces were set toward their ⟨lovers' persons⟩;
when they resembled a row of trees in a forest in the spring-tide
abounding in ⟨sap⟩, for they abounded in ⟨anxiety⟩; when they
were embraced by their lovers; when there blew a wind that
rocked the filaments of the flowers and removed their pollen
from the hair [53] of damsels wearing delightsomely tinkling
jewels, whilst it had an abundance of expanded white lotuses,
and caused pleasure, and rejoiced in union, and rained down
a fire of chaff,⁹ as it were, on lonely¹⁰ girls lightly deserted by
their lovers, and surrendered them wholly to the burning arrows
of love, and carried far [54] the plaint of the Brahminy duck¹¹;

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¹ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘charming.’
² Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit ‘rays.’
³ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit ‘fresh.’
⁴ See Schmidt, Beiträge zur indischen Erotik, pp. 478–496, Leipzig, 1902.
⁵ Tel. ed., ‘who made up speeches of love’s shamelessness’; Srirangam text, ‘who
remembered speeches of love’s shamelessness.’
⁶ The same embarrassing habit of the parrot is mentioned by Amaru (see Böhtlingk,
Indische Sprüche, 2 ed., No. 2710, St. Petersburg, 1870–1873).
⁷ Their beauty was like the dark massed clouds.
⁸ A euphemism for Yama, the God of Death.
⁹ A fire of chaff being proverbially sudden and intense; Tel. ed. and Srirangam text,
‘powder of a fire of chaff,’ also omitting ‘rained down.’
¹⁰ Tel. ed., ‘lonely, deserted.’
¹¹ According to the conventions of Sanskrit literature, two indiscreet lovers were
transformed into Brahminy ducks (Cascara rutila, Pallas) and condemned to pass