_Maid._ But mistress, see! An untimely storm is gathering.
The clouds may come, the rain may fall forever, The night may blacken in the sky above; For this I care not, nor I will not waver; My heart is journeying to him I love. 33
Take the necklace, girl, and come quickly. [_Exeunt omnes._
[Footnote 50: A name of Kama, the god of love.]
[Footnote 52: That is to say. You are now a legal wife, while I am still a courtesan.]
[Footnote 53: "Rams in India are commonly trained to fight." WILSON.]
[Footnote 54: Virtuous souls after death may become stars; but when their stellar happiness equals the sum of their acquired merit, they fall to earth again.]
[Footnote 58: This shows the excellence of Vasantasena's education. Women, as an almost invariable rule, speak Prakrit.]
[Footnote 59: A gesture of respectful entreaty.]
[_The love-lorn Charudatta appears, seated._]
An untimely storm[60] is gathering. For see! The peacocks gaze and lift their fans on high; The swans forget their purpose to depart; The untimely storm afflicts the blackened sky, And the wistful lover's heart. 1
The wet bull's belly wears no deeper dye; In flashing lightning's golden mantle clad, While cranes, his buglers, make the heaven glad, The cloud, a second Vishnu,[61] mounts the sky. 2
As dark as Vishnu's form, with circling cranes To trumpet him, instead of bugle strains, And garmented in lightning's silken robe. Approaches now the harbinger of rains. 3
When lightning's lamp is lit, the silver river Impetuous falls from out the cloudy womb; Like severed lace from heaven-cloaking gloom, It gleams an instant, then is gone forever. 4
Like shoaling fishes, or like dolphins shy, Or like to swans, toward heaven's vault that fly, Like paired flamingos, male and mate together, Like mighty pinnacles that tower on high. In thousand forms the tumbling clouds embrace, Though torn by winds, they gather, interlace, And paint the ample canvas of the sky. 5
The sky is black as Dhritarashtra's face; Proud as the champion of Kuru's race. The haughty peacock shrills his joy abroad; The cuckoo, in Yudhishthira's sad case, Is forced to wander if he would not die; The swans must leave their forest-homes and fly, Like Pandu's sons, to seek an unknown place. 6