In public our friend inflicts no harm ⋮ has little heat because she is cool in self-control ⋮ because of the coldness of her conduct; it is her husband who knows her fiery nature ⋮ tormenting heat, for he suffers ⋮ is burnt by her momen- tary perversity.*
By imagining them to be his wife, he achieves his satisfaction even with other women, as if he were looking upon temple statues made of stone as deities and gaining the objects prayed for.*
“Silly boy, if you don’t humble yourself a little you’ll never acquire her deep sweet love, any more than you could acquire the deep sweet water of a river without going down to it.”
45
It ⋮ she needs no extra fragrance ⋮ perfume, no hole for the string ⋮ search for virtuous qualities, and no stringing together ⋮ tricks to ensnare, but by its own nature the ketaka bud ⋮ she forms a head-ornament for young people ⋮ makes the young men bow before her.
“The garland you made with your own hands, lucky man, removes all her pain, and now she wears it as a medication against the recurring fever of sleeping with her husband.”*
By not considering her fine qualities, you handsome man, and treating her with indifference, you left her with no recourse—as a ship is forced into its course by a whirl-pool that is stronger than the ropes and pays no attention to the oars.
Even though you go barebodied, wearing but a single garment, to your rendez-vous with an infatuated woman, you look finer than all other young men.*
I am like Rahu, one half alive, the other half dead: half of him is touched by nectar during an eclipse, half of me was embraced by my beloved when we met on the road.*
50
My beloved, who in her noble heart is gentle, rejected my advances by feigning sleep; I lay awake, and by means of the tear-drenched bed she made me aware of my fickleness.*
Hey, you traveler! The fact that you hurt your tongue when you tried to eat gravel, merely because of the other meaning of the word—sugar candy, will be trifling compared with how people will ridicule you!*
Although her haughtiness is being destroyed by rivals whom due to the freshness of their youth she cannot defeat, the lady of the house still displays the pride of a favorite wife, since her son is dear to his father.
As if it had been insulted by the intense heat of summer, feeble coolness now retreats to the water in the pitchers that are the breasts of young girls eager to bathe.
Making my whole body languid, taking away my anguish ⋮ exhaustion, and delighting ⋮ overpowering my eyes, my lover, like sleep, does not allow me to leave the bed.
55
The hair hanging over your shoulders and clasped by your hand, the lines of nail-marks white and wet from the bath, and lips and eyes sparkling—this body of yours is a freshly sharpened missile of Kama!*
The prostitutes make it seem that their indifferent hearts are devoted to pure young men, as if they were pointing out faces reflected in clean polished mirrors.*
By your shyness you have yourself revealed who your secret lover is, as its fluttering banner draws attention to the pinnacle of a palace.*
Coupled together by a rope, bullocks wear out even a threshing-floor with their many steps, as they have to circle the axis of the central pole. ⋮ Words, through many sentences, can defeat even a rogue, when they are strung together without incoherence, while appealing to a referee who is stupid.*
A backbiter causes more pain by his caustic mumblings than by his unfriendliness. A mosquito that hums in one’s ear is more irritating than when it sucks one’s blood.*
60
One’s initial insignificance is not covered up by later ex-traordinary greatness. Those who know about the ten avataras call Tri·vikrama (“Of Three Strides”) “the Dwarf.”*
In your lap you have your baby; at your feet the servant girl; your beloved husband solidly behind you; what more do you want, lady of the house, that you are still afraid of a girl?
Lips thrust forward, throaty noises, eyes closing, heads shaking—the young couple, even without touching, made it look as if they were sharing the pleasure of a kiss.
This arm which he has impetuously pushed into her dwelling through a hole in the fence cannot come out the same way because it became thrilled at the touch of his beloved.*
When I look at your heavy and swaying buttocks covered in your dress I cannot find any satisfaction, like a chataka bird looking at new clouds, large and fast-moving, covering the sky.*
65
That tortoise, overpowered by the load of the Earth, who herself is overpowered by the load of the elephants of darkness, has raised its face in the form of the Mountain of Sunrise, and is spitting blood, the Dawn.*
The stupid stays enclosed in the stupid ⋮ liquid like the deer in the moon. But when it enters something that is clever ⋮ not liquid, like the moon entering the sun, it soon comes out again.*
Not worrying about people’s censure, excited by the thrill of the touch of your hand, the wretched girl gets her bed ready for the next fever!
See: of the two, though they be born in the same family, the string and the bow, though part of the same weapon ⋮ born of the same lineage, one being important and the other insignificant, and empty, one is the string ⋮ secondary ⋮ what has quality and the other is what bears it ⋮ the master.*
Exhausted from the love-making that was new to her, the young girl began to drip with sweat, just as the bow of Kama, when it is bent to fix the string to it, drips cane juice.
70
When the sexually independent, brave, inventive, passionate woman from next door, who comes from a good family, becomes attached to me, then I shall regard the bliss of brahman as straw.*
This body of yours, on which many tears have fallen, is white and filled with love, and offered to me, like ghee a hundred times purified, white and smooth, which when applied removes the torments of my fever caused by Cupid’s arrows.*
The field, beautiful with the necklace of gunja berries that has fallen in it, looks as if its heart has broken from grief over the loss of virtue of its own guardian girl.*
“This fellow hit me here, and here!” Thus the shameless wife, pretending outrage, wept and revealed each of her limbs to the man next door, in front of her husband.*
I know that there are three things that always appear completely to reveal their inner contents to the outside world: the wanton woman suggesting she is in love, the poem of a good poet conveying emotion, and a glass vessel revealing the liquid in it.*
75
When I look at you, you turn your face away, and never during the day are you kind towards me; even so, it is you alone who removes my affliction, sulking lady! You are like extensive shade that cools one down, facing away from the light, and never facing south during the day.*
How she commands and complains, makes requests and objections, laughs and cries without tears—I can never have enough of mulling over her expertise in making love.
Artless girl, this is not the moment to be angry with your lover: do not nip his love in the bud. The time will come when you can order him about and put your foot on his head. Why are you in such a hurry?
In the dice game, the stake was settled as the game of love which they hoped for. When she had managed to lose, she pretended to be angry, and made her girlfriends leave by saying, “Take these dice away!”
My girlfriend! Since you have praiseworthy qualities, that great man placed you on his head; but that you are fickle is due to your one fault, superficiality, like a flag that an important man has fixed with fine ropes on the top of his mansion, which its