The slender young woman who is there would be the premier creation by
Creator in the sphere of women, with fine teeth, lips like a ripe bimba fruit, aslim waist, eyes like a startled gazelle’s, a deep navel, a gait slow on accountof the weight of her hips, and who is somewhat bowed down by her breasts.
You should know that she whose words are few, my second life, is like asolitary female cakravaka duck when I, her mate, am far away.
While theseweary days are passing,
I think the girl whose longing is deep has taken on analtered appearance, like a lotus blighted by frost.
Surely the face of my beloved, her eyes swollen from violent weeping, thecolour of her lower lip changed by the heat of her sighs, resting upon herhand, partially hidden by the hanging locks of her hair, bears the miserableappearance of the moon with its brightness obscured when pursued by you.
She will come at once into your sight, either engaged in pouring oblations, ordrawing from memory my portrait, but grown thin on account of separation,or asking the sweet-voiced sarika bird in its cage, ‘I hope you remember themaster,
O elegant one, for you are his favourite’;
Or having placed a lute on a dirty cloth on her lap, friend, wanting to sing asong whose words are contrived to contain my name, and somehow pluckingthe strings wet with tears, again and again she forgets the melody, eventhough she composed it herself;
Or engaged in counting the remaining months set from the day of ourseparation until the end by placing flowers on the ground at the threshold, orenjoying acts of union that are preserved in her mind.
These generally are thediversions of women when separated from their husbands.
During the day, when she has distractions, separation will not torment her somuch.
I fear that your friend will have greater suffering at night withoutdistraction.
You who carry my message, positioned above the palace roof-top,see the good woman at midnight, lying on the ground, sleepless, and cheer herthoroughly.
Grown thin with anxiety, lying on one side on a bed of separation, resemblingthe body of the moon on the eastern horizon when only one sixteenth partremains, shedding hot tears, passing that night, lengthened by separation,which spent in desired enjoyments in company with me would have passed inan instant.
Covering with eyelashes heavy with tears on account of her sorrow, her eyeswhich were raised to face the rays of the moon, which were cool with nectarand which entered by way of the lattice, fall again on account of her previouslove, like a bed of land-lotuses on an overcast day, neither open nor closed.
She whose sighs that trouble her bud-like lower lip will surely be scatteringthe locks of her hair hanging at her cheek, dishevelled after a simple bath,thinking how enjoyment with me might arise even if only in a dream, yearningfor sleep, the opportunity for which is prevented by the affliction of tears;
She who is repeatedly pushing from the curve of her cheek with her handwhose nails are unkempt, the single braid, plaited by me, stripped of itsgarland, on the first day of our separation, which will be loosened by me whenI am free from sorrow at the expiry of the curse, and which is rough to thetouch, stiff, and hard.
That frail woman, supporting her tender body which he has laid repeatedly ingreat suffering on a couch, will certainly cause even you to shed tears in theform of fresh rain.
Generally all tender-hearted beaing have a compassionatedisposition.
I know that the mind of your friend is filled with accumulated love for me.
Onaccount of that I imagine her condition thus at our first separation.
Even thethought of my good fortune does not make me feel like talking.
All that I havesaid, brother, will be before your eyes before long.
I think of the eyes of that deer-eyed one, the sideways movements of whichare concealed by her hair, which are devoid of the glistening of collyrium,which have forgotten the play of their eyebrows on account of abstinencefrom sweet liqour, and whose upper eyelids tremble when you are near: theseeyes take on the semblance of the beauty of a blue lotus that is trembling withthe movement of a fish.
And her lovely thigh will tremble, being without the impressions of myfingernails, caused to abandon it long-accustomed string of pearls by thecourse of fate, used to the caresses of my hand at the end of our enjoyment,and as pale as the stem of a beautiful plantain palm.
At that time,
O cloud, if she is enjoying the sleep she has found, remainingbehind her, your thunder restrained, wait during the night-watch.
Let not theknot of her creeper-like arms in close embrace with me her beloved, somehowfound in a dream, fall from my neck at once.
Having woken her with a breeze cooled by your own water droplets, she willbe refreshed like the fresh clusters of buds of the malati.
Your lightning heldwithin, being firm, begin to address her with words of thunder; she, the proudon whose eyes are fixed on the window occupied by you:‘O you who are not a widow, know me to be a cloud who is a dear friend ofyour husband.
With messages stored in my heart I have arrived at your side,and with slow and friendly rumblings I urge along the road a multitude ofweary travellers who are eager to loosen the braids of their womenfolk.’When this has been said, like Sita looking up at Hanuman, having beheld youwith her heart swollen with longing and having honoured you, she will listenattentively to you further,
O friend.
For women, news of their beloved thatbrought by a friend is little short of union.
O long-lived one, following my instructions and to bring credit to yourself,address her thus: ‘Your partner who resides at the ashram on Ramagiri, who isstill alive though separated from you, inquires after your news, madam.
Thisis the very thing that is first asked by beings who may easily fall intomisfortune.
He whose path is blocked by an invidious command and is at a distance, bymeans of these intentions, unites his body with yours, the emaciated with theemaciated, the afflicted with the deeply afflicted, that which is wet with tearswith that which is tearful, that whose longing is ceaseless with that which islonged for, that whose sighs are hot with that whose sighs are even morenumerous.
He who has become eager to say what is to be said in words in your ear, in thepresence of your female friends, with a desire to touch your face, he who isbeyond the range of your ears, unseen by your eyes, addresses these wordscomposed on account of his desire, through the agency of my mouth:“I perceive your body in the priyangu vines, your glances in the eyes of thestartled deer, the beauty of your face in the moon, your hair in the peacock’sfeathers and the play of your eyebrows in the delicate ripples on the river, butalas, your whole likeness is not to be found in a single thing,
O passionateone.
Having painted your likeness, with mineral colours on a rock, appearing angrybecause of love, as soon as I wish to paint myself fallen at your feet, myvision is clouded again and again with copious tears.
Cruel fate does notpermit our union, even in this picture.
Watching me with my arms stretched up into the air for an ardent embracewhen you have somhow been found by me in a vision or in a dream, the localdeities repeatedly shed teardrops as big as pearls on the buds of the trees.
Those winds from the snowy mountains which having broken open the sepalsof the buds of the devadaru trees become fragrant with their milky sap andwhich blow southwards—they are embraced by me,
O virtuous one, with thethought that your body might previously have been touched by them.
How can the night with its long watches by compressed into a moment?
Howmay a day become cooler in every season?
Thus my mind, whose desires aredifficult to satisfy, is rendered without refuge by the deep and burning pangsof separation from you,
O one of trembling eyes.
Indeed, ever brooding,
I maintain myself by means of myself alone.
Therefore,
O beautiful one, you also should not fear.
Whose happiness isendless or whose suffering is complete?
The condition of life rises and fallslike the felly of a wheel.
The the holder of the bow called Sharnga rises from his serpent bed, thecurse will end for me.
Having closed your eyes, endure the remaining fourmonths.
After that, we two will indulge our own various desires, increased byseparation, on nights lit by the full autumn moon.”And he said further, “In the past you embraced my neck as we lay on our bed,you called out something in your sleep and woke up.
When I asked over andover, you said to me with an inward smile, ‘I saw you in my dream enjoyinganother girl, you cheat!’Having ascertained from the telling of this account that I am well, do not besuspicious of me on account of any rumour,
O dark-eyed one.
They say thatlove somehow perishes during separation, but because there is no fulfilment,the love for that which is desired with increasing desire, becomes a even moreardent.”’Having comforted her thus, your friens whose sorrow is great in her firstseparation, return at once from the mountain whose peaks were cast up by thebull of three-eyed one.
Then you should prop up my life which flags likekunda flowers in the morning with her words about her welfare, and anaccount of her.
I hope, friend, that you are firmly resolved upon this friendly service for me.
Icertainly do not regard your silences as indicating refusal.
When requestedyou also apportion rain to the cataka cuckoos in silence, for the response ofthe virtuous to those who make a request is the performance of that which isdesired.
Having undertaken this favour for me who bears this request that is unworthyof you, with thoughts of compassion for me, either out of friendship orbecause you think that I am alone, proceed to your desired destination,
Ocloud, your splendour enhanced by rainy season, and may you never beseparated like this even for a moment from your spouse, the lightning.
