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22
THE NÁGÁNANDA.

lady! is not the sandal-creeper bower in this direction? Come this way, then. (The heroine does so with a meaningless smile.)[1] Here we are at the sandal-creeper bower, therefore let your ladyship enter and sit down on the moonstone seat to recover yourself.

[Both sit down.

Malayavatí (with a sigh, to herself).

Lord of the flower-tipped arrows,[2] against that man who surpasses you in beauty of form you do nothing at all; but against me, though blameless, you are not ashamed to strike, saying to yourself, "She is a weak woman." (Looking at herself, and gesticulating as one in love. Aloud.) Girl, how is it that even this sandal-creeper bower, from which the sun's rays are kept by the density of the shoots, does not alleviate the pain of my fever?


Girl.

I know the cause of this fever, but the princess is unwilling to avow it.


Malayavatí (to herself).

I am seen through by her. Still I will ask. (Aloud.) Girl, what is that which I will not avow? Come, tell me this cause of yours.


Girl.

It is the man placed in your heart.

  1. This is one of the symptoms of love in a Hindu heroine. See Sáhitya-Darpana, sec. 151.
  2. Káma, the Hindu Cupid, bears a bow with its string made of bees, and its five arrows each tipped with a peculiar flower.