The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics Read online

  6

  I have seen you at your source, a child could have jumped over you, O river, a bunch of flowers deflected you. Here you are a wide flood, and might engulf this fine boat. Alas, Dayamati! My love for Dayamati!

  7

  She makes me a precise salute, and withdraws her little feet under her fringes. She looks attentively at the flowers painted upon her fan. If I venture to caress her gazelle, she starts to smooth the feathers of her painted parakeet. If I speak, she asks a question of one of her women. I find a thousand delights in her timidity.

  8

  When you used to make dolls out of wet leaves, they always cried however much you rocked them. And once I told you to put your doll out in the sunlight. You have played with my heart since then and I have wept. But in the end I remembered my own advice, and my tears are dry for ever.

  9

  This is the first time that the wind blows from the east, O Sadami, O precious crown, and brings me the sound of the temple bell of Anagari. Soon the five flowers of spring will be scenting my house, and you, the sixth, will bring me in your hair the odour of the reed mat on which you have wept all winter.

  10

  If I told my pain to the torrent, the torrent would halt for me. If I told it to the palm tree, the tree would bend down about me. But you pass singing, and do not even regard me. I will tell my pain to the torrent. If the torrent does not halt for me, at least its water will refresh my brow. I will tell my pain to the palm tree. If the palm tree does not bend down about me, at least it will shade my grief. Once more I have conquered shame and told you my suffering. You refuse me the water of your lips, the shade of your shadow.

  11

  Your hair climbs down about your shoulders, and the forest of Vishamadita shelters the gilded temple of Misrakesi.

  12

  A swan sought the silvered flowers of the kumuda on a pool at night, and was deceived by the reverberation of the stars in the crystal water. He pecked at the glittering reflection of the stars. At dawn he did not dare to eat the flowers of the sitopala, though they were white over all the pool. He was afraid that they were only stars. Do not go on telling me that you love me, Sarmicha.

  13

  No one has dared to speak of you to me since you went away. But I have said your name to the wind as he passed me, and to a certain man as he lay dying. If you are alive, O my mistress, the wind will some day meet you as he passes, and if you are dead, the dead man will tell you I have not forgotten.

  14

  My thirst has redoubled since first I drank her lips. Nor am I astonished. There was much salt in that kissing.

  15

  O Gayatri, your love is more inconstant than the reflection of a branch in the water of a lake with boats. The lake is a mirror again when the boats have gone, but your heart is suspicious still when you have pardoned me.

  16

  It matters little to me that I shall never behold the thousand gardens and intricate palaces of Hastinapura, since Maya, Illusion, in the likeness of Parvati, stays in my dwelling. It matters little to me that I shall never behold the smile of Siddhartha in the temple of Suddhodana, since the smile of Maya, his mother, is mine in the smile of Parvati. My joy is as unshakable as Meru mountain.

  17

  Since your husband has got to depart at dawn, listen to me carefully. He must not see your joy; you must weep, and keep him; you must tell him that you have not the courage to stay in a room his absence leaves most desolate; you must go out to see to his horse, and bid the servant saddle the fastest.

  18

  I told you that I knew how to make you happy. I said the very old words which put a woman’s fears to sleep. Now your tears smile at me as a child smiles at a dream.

  19

  Birds in all the trees of my garden, will you be able to imprison my longing in your musical net? It breaks out towards my lover whom I have not seen for thirty days. My longing would hasten and make haste and beat against her perfumed breasts, against her scented voice. Hold it not back, good birds.

  20

  She put marguerites into her belt and their petals closed. ‘Oh, what is happening?’ she asked, and I replied: ‘You looked at them with the darkness of your dark eyes and they thought it night.’

  21

  Why have you no pity for my love? The stars do not disdain the sea. They can admire themselves in it.

  22

  I was surprised that the nightingale singing in the little tree did not fly off when I came near it. I stretched out my arm and touched that flower of music, and it had a broken wing. I am still singing of your beauty, Dayamati.

  23

  That voyaging cloud now strands on the root of the moon and is broken in pieces. O you who shall some day sing this verse, seek to find why I sighed in writing it.

  24

  ‘I am no fool, and it is useless for you to lie to me. I see the marks of her kisses on your breast.’ But I strain her violently against my heart, removing those marks of indiscretion, and her memory of them.

  25

  If so many birds sing in the trees of Kavinda, and if the flowers of Kavinda can never die, if clouds are not known in the sky of Kavinda, dear: you once crossed Kavinda.

  26

  ‘You lie in my heart,’ you said, and I thought you commonplace. Now I send you a leaf of balm by Gayatri. Slip it between your tunic and your breasts so that the perfume reaches . . . me.

  27

  Do not speak. Your love words add nothing to my happiness. Do not speak any more. Sit in this sun-ray.

  28

  She has come in spite of the tempest. If you had seen the small rain, Matraya, falling from the tree flowers into her hair and, as if the thread of her pearls had broken, shining upon her breasts. . .

  29

  The snow of loneliness falls on my heart and shivers into white fruit blossom.

  30

  The forest held you prisoner, and the trunks of the trees were the bars of your cage, O dawn. The stream sang a more joyous song to you, dawn, and the mosses were softer. But you broke your cage with light, and went away. I think of Mahadahi who loved me for a morning.

  31

  She is alive no more, and the flowers still appear. O Death, now that you have got this girl how can you find time to go on killing?

  32

  The peacocks cried at nightfall and have beaten their wings and departed. They carried away the last fires of the sun in their proud fans, and the last embers of our love, it seemed to us.

  33

  Perfumes of love and smiles of love, O glory of the sun and splendour of the starry night, as set in the balance against death you fulfil my desire no longer! Girls of Lanka, palm trees of Sartha, streams of Maraki, songs of the wind in the cherry trees of Kamala, I say good-bye.

  Woman

  34

  See how his violence has dispersed my powder of sandal; I spread it with so much art upon my breasts! See how tired my lips are still, and how the down of the couch has been soiled beyond all cleansing, and this veil torn in pieces!

  35

  Whither are you running, O leaping stranger at the borders of this forest? Has love let fly you, fair boy-arrow, and do you hurtle towards the dwelling of your mistress? The ground rejects you as the tambourine rejects the ball. Are you drunken with immateriality, trying to catch yourself away from your body?

  36

  I shall go, I shall find a pretext for being away until the twilight. I shall go. As I want time to lick over my happiness, I shall take the long path that passes in front of the fountain, and there I shall tell my comrades that I walk out to see if my father’s fields have suffered from the flood. O victorious Love, I shall go, O wild heart!

  37

  This is the Winter season of long sleep. I lie down on my couch at twilight and invoke Matha, the god of gilded dreams. I promise offerings and sacrifices and yet I hardly ever dream of Sri Hari. When the storm shakes the walls of my little house, I prefer to lie awake a
nd listen, for the wind walking through the bamboos of my garden says Sri Hari.

  38

  ‘He sleeps, sleep now in your turn,’ said my women, and they left me. Then, in a drunken fit of love, I brushed the cheek of my young bridegroom with my lips. I felt him tremble, and saw that he had only pretended. I was ashamed at the time, but soon I groaned with happiness.

  39

  I now abandon my body to the kisses of the water; soon to the kisses of the hours. O kisses of the hours, will you also leave a perfume of lustral water upon my spirit?

  40

  Sometimes you can be so fair, O day; O night, so desolate. Sometimes so sweet, O night; so torturing, O day. If he means never to come back, I wish you were both dead.

  41

  My father is away on business, and my mother has been out since this morning upon a visit to my invalid sister. Night is falling and I am too young and afraid to stay alone. Come in, O pleasant stranger.

  42

  As the branch bends beneath the weight of that bird, so I bend beneath the weight of your love for me; but when you leave me, I have not the branch’s resilience. Yet what does it matter, O bird? Go on singing. I had forgotten that your song would soon cease and that I had not got it yet by heart.

  43

  She said over and over very tenderly: ‘Come and see my parakeet.’ I followed her into the house, but her women spied on us, and she said: ‘My parakeet must be in the garden.’ He was not under the arbour, for the scent of the jasmine was too strong there. He was not on the bank of the runlet, for a little boy was cutting wood there. We found him at last in a deserted pavilion, on a gilded sofa.

  44

  We are but three, yet we are four, for Love dances beside us. Night has fallen, but the breasts of Narani are light for us. The flowers have closed their petals, but the breath of Priva, as she turns near us, is our refreshment. Araha! Let us dance our most secret dances, let our feet pleasurably bite this moss! Move the tress of hair hiding your throat, O Narani! Priva, come nearer! Look upon our bodies, Love, for we are Narani, Priva, and Domihi. We love, and not even the calling of Night, couched in the forest, can pluck as asunder. Night wishes our plaints to be added to his great murmur, but, araha!, we will dance till the violet morn! Not till then will we carry Priva to our dwelling and drink the wine of her sweat. Araha! Araha! Your belly is like a pool lashed by the storm, O Narani! Why are you already dancing the last dance? And thou, Priva! Priva! O Night, we come!

  45

  I write this letter by the sufficient moonlight. My friends have called me, but I preferred to stay in this room since it is full of you. I am still weeping. I looked into the garden, and the shadow of a leaf of the bamboo wrote out an unknown word on the blue sand. It may have been your name.

  46

  I take a long time in carefully giving a severe fold to my eyebrows, and know how to harden my looks. I am an expert in correcting smiles. When my companions rally me, I fasten an absolute silence upon myself. When my heart is like to break, I tighten my girdle. But the success of these things is in the hands of God.

  47

  O night, you have often come to me softly and covered my face when it was weeping. A nectar glistens in my cup this evening, and my lover lies upon my breast. Stay with me as long as you will tonight, O night.

  48

  This is a Hymn of The Wife of the Buddha: O first and fairest of all men, O moon-featured! Your voice is as sweet as the voice of Kalavinka, the bird whose singing maddened God! O My bright husband! O terror of the armies of the Sages! You were born in the heaven of gardens, eternally sonorous with bees! Great tree of learning, sweetest of saviours, O my husband! Your lips are as purple as the plum, your teeth like frost, your eyes are lotuses, your skin a rose! O redolent of flowers! O my fair season! O perfume in the chambers of the women better than jasmine. . . . O Kanthaka, rarest of horses, whither has he ridden you?

  49

  If you remember my kisses, say my name once very softly as you crush your mistress.

  50

  My blood is calling him but he does not come. That dawn does not rise for me. I said to myself that this is life, that this is the lotus-strewn way. O moon, is it your frozen rays that thus devour my breasts? O breeze of the evening, O freshness charged with garden scents, you burn me terribly. My sight is not what it was. I am going to die.

  51

  She teaches me all her secrets: that it is better to soak our cheek-betel in snow water, that the powdered root of lemon-grass brightens our teeth, that nothing is better than the juice of green strawberries to reaffirm our breasts; but not how to forget a door I wept outside all night.

  Man and Woman

  52

  What is the weather like this morning?

  I do not know.

  What? You have crossed the village and you do not know?

  The land is white with the sun, but I cannot tell

  whether the day be fine or not until I know if you

  are gay or sad.

  53

  My dear, my very dear, where are you going thus in the black night?

  I fly as upon wings to the place where he who is

  more beautiful than the day awaits me.

  And are you not frightened to run alone, my dear, my very dear?

  Love with his terrible arrows keeps me company.

  54

  Have the cocks sung yet?

  The night is still blue above us, and you may sleep.

  I have not slept, my eyes were closed but pictures passed

  beneath my lids.

  What did you see, dear lover?

  A house white with jasmine under the palm trees of Rami,

  and us there very happy.

  55

  A fig of delight!

  Where?

  A fig of delight! You cannot see it.

  Then tell me where it is.

  Between two branches.

  This way?

  No.

  That way?

  No, no.

  Higher? Lower?

  Lower. But do not move!

  You pick it then.

  I shall climb up.

  O miserable! Mother! Mother!

  What is the matter, my child?

  Nothing. I nearly fell.

  How warm a thing is a fig, Sandati!

  56

  I was looking for you.

  I have been here a long time.

  I am sorry. One of my kids escaped.

  You need not lie. I saw you with Madadari.

  I asked her if she had seen my kid.

  And you hunted for it together?

  Yes.

  A long time?

  Quite a long time.

  That explains why she is walking with such difficulty.

  57

  My mother is not up yet. If you wish me to give you that kiss, come through the hedge.

  My hands are already bleeding from the thorny

  branches. Where are you going?

  To fetch my goats.

  Your goats?

  They have not eaten since last night, and will enjoy the

  thorns and the thorny branches. I shall be scolded, but shall

  have had your kiss.

  58

  I fear to be too warm.

  My house is by the side of a river, freshness

  inhabits it.

  People would see me if I went to your house, my friend.

  My house is in the forest, only the orchids will see

  you passing.

  The orchid would tell the bee, and the bee the parakeet, and

  he tells everything.

  The orchids would be dumb for a long time with

  ecstasy after you passed.

  My mother would see my hair unmade when I got back.

  In my mirror you can make your hair again. It will

  keep the shadow of your smile for ever.

  I love you and have forgotten how to smile.

  59

/>   You can ask what you will of me. My husband is far away.

  Alas, alas! I only love the smell of growing jasmine.

  60

  Those love-wetted eyes that shut and half open like the wings of a dove in lust, that say so eloquently all that passes, on whom thrice-fortunate will you fasten them?

  On him who speak to me of my dear love.

  Woman and Woman

  61

  What did he give you?

  A tortoiseshell lyre, two flocks, and a silver mirror.

  How little!

  Rather how much! For he gave me pleasure also.

  You are very young.

  Is it my fault he only gave you a she-goat and a sour memory?

  62

  He has just left me for ever, but I am brave, and none shall notice my despair. I smile. I am smiling.

  Your smile is as sad as the first dawn over a burned village.

  63

  The girls washing their clothes make such a wanton babbling that I cannot hear what you say. Come near. Sit on my bed. Now you were saying? . . . She knotted her arms about my neck, her breath to my breath, and her lips set to mine.

  64

  ‘Caress my breasts with your fingers, they are small and you have neglected them. Enough! Now set your mouth just there immediately. Oh, why have you delayed so long?’ She was stifling her cries in her friend’s hair when there came a knocking at the door, and a voice said: ‘We are the Washers of the Dead. They told us that someone had died here.’ ‘Next door at Harivansa’s, in the name of God, next door! . . . No . . . wait . . .’

  65

  He has fifty flocks, his face is of the true plum oval, his body is incomparable. When he rises from bathing in the dark lake it is as the moon emerging from the night. You must decide!

  You are in a hurry?

  In a great hurry.

  Then tell him that he will have to content himself by playing with my hair.

  Are you mad? Why should I tell him that?

  Because this morning Vajuna offered the same sum, and by a bawd not quite too ugly for me to play with.

  66

  Who is there?

  It is I, and I have been knocking for a long time.

  What is your name?

  Mahadeva, and I know you recognised my voice. I did, for I was dreaming of you.