The Slaying of Śiśupāla 10
English (machine translation) 10
- Language
- English
10.1
Then the fragrant faces of their beloveds, with shimmering lotus eyes,
became suitable vessels of wine, well fashioned for the life of young men.
10.2
With courtesy, free from doubt, with deep thirst from cup after cup,
they made their wives drink that moment, casting aside their pride, while their joy took embodied form.
10.3
Reflecting the beloved's lovely face, fragrant like broken young mango blossoms,
sweet, buzzing with bees, cool, the wine engaged the entire assembly of senses.
10.4
Fragrant with Kāpiśāyana wine, reeling, intoxicated, the six-footed bee settled down to rest
upon the faces of the women with wide-open eyes and upon the cups lovely as lotuses.
10.5
Mistaking the reflected eye of the woman in the cup filled with liquor for a lotus,
the bee flew down to smell it; for where does discernment exist in one who is deluded?
10.6
The wine offered by his most beloved reached great flavour for the husband who drank it,
which it had attained from her mouth along with the rays of her gold crown, though devoid of consciousness.
10.7
The juice from the lip of the slender-waisted woman, tasted without deliberation, merged into it,
so that the wine offered to the young man a different and delightful sweetness each time.
10.8
Possessing excessive sweetness, it was drunk at the same time by the impassioned lovers—
the sweet liquor through their mouths and the fragrance of the blue water lily through their dilated nostrils.
10.9
When the cherished husband wished to bite her lip that tasted like wine,
though dissolved, the lac dye regained itself through its intense redness on the young woman.
10.10
For someone intent on drinking from the intoxicating face of his beloved with love,
the liquor, tasted only once, served conversely merely as a brief appetizer.
10.11
Left behind within the goblet by the faces of the couples, which were sweet with cool, drunk wine,
the blue lotus sank down, as if weeping in shame with the humming of bees.
10.12
For the fair-browed women who had reached the third cup of wine, full of wit,
there arose teasing laughter, charming with the arrangement of sarcastic words and accompanied by secret smiles revealing hidden things.
10.13
Laughter provoking coquetry, cleverness of speech, and various expressions in the eyes
were produced in the simple bride by young intoxication, as if by a lover.
10.14
When their husbands offended, their hearts had been unappeased, burning with anger, having assumed fortitude;
was it washed, or appeased, or melted away for the brides by the rounds of wine?
10.15
The intoxication of wine brought out the gracefulness in the women's bodies,
which was already there from long practice but had not been revealed, just as a verbal prefix brings out the meaning latent in a verbal root.
10.16
Speech left unfinished, indifference towards falling garlands, garments, and ornaments,
and rising to go without a cause revealed their drunken languor.
10.17
With an eye whose shame slowly faded from the wine and whose lashes were slightly parted,
the newly-wed bride, her face cast down, looked softly at the face of her lover.
10.18
She who had previously, at the advice of her friend, somehow acted boldly towards her beloved,
gave way to the numbness of bashfulness upon drinking wine; for everyone returns to their own nature from intoxication.
10.19
The love for her beloved that had long been concealed within a woman somehow by shame
was made evident by the fearlessness born of the intoxication of wine, just as redness became manifest in her eyes.
10.20
For those who wished to go after their lovers who had come and departed unregarded,
the wine cup found its opportunity in their regretful minds.
10.21
"May I not go again after that wrongdoer, my mind deluded by intoxication!"
Thinking thus, a woman had no desire for wine; for indignation is indeed hard to abandon, even for pleasure.
10.22
It removed the delusion of shame and brought them near to their lovers for the pleasure of love-making;
the wine enjoyed by them bore fruit immediately, as if it had been propitiated with favour.
10.23
Given by the lover, capturing love, and infused with an exceeding sweetness,
the mouth-wine was tasted by the women, and its conventional name was also made meaningful.
10.24
Having acquired the fragrant quality of both the wines and the cup of the woman's mouth,
the fragrance, delighting the bees, attained from their mutual union either a different character or an excellence.
10.25
Clever in breaking pride, extending the desire for lovemaking, spreading passion in the eye,
intoxication, animating the women from within, possessed them at once like a lover.
10.26
With the fresh redness of lac dye washed away by drinking, the fair-browed women, skilled in secret kisses,
reddened their lips with the passion-juice of the lips of their beloveds.
10.27
Though she had tasted wine offered by her lover who mentioned the name of another woman,
she cast off her intoxication; but another woman, merely looking at the wine without drinking it, became intoxicated.
10.28
For the woman who suspected the lord of her heart of having his mind fixed on another woman,
even after drinking plenty of wine, intoxication did not arise; for happiness of the mind is the cause of intoxication.
10.29
Formerly angry and not accepting his conciliations, but now having delusion produced by the intoxication of wine,
she perceived her lover himself as angered, her heart pained by separation, and conciliated him.
10.30
Causing languor of limbs in those whose eyes were half-shut, silencing their voices,
and stealing their bashfulness as if out of envy, intoxication himself produced their elegance.
10.31
On the flat cheeks of the women with uncollyriumed eyes, which were pale before, the reflected moon was not distinguished;
afterwards, when their complexion was reddened by drinking, it took on the appearance of an ornamental mark made of lodhra powder.
10.32
Driven from both sides, as it were, by the clash of mutual contact
between their high, pot-like breasts,
the bodies of the women reeled with great intoxication,
enhancing the supreme charm of their amorous dalliance.
10.33
Loveliness adorned their bodies, and the confluence of flawless, fresh youth adorned that loveliness;
the beauty of the god whose banner is the makara adorned youth, and intoxication, an ornament of union with the beloved, adorned that.
10.34
While they succumbed to drunkenness at every moment, displaying both anger and pleasure,
the Bodiless One did not grasp his bow strung with an arrow, nor did he discard his abandoned quiver.
10.35
Through suspicion concerning another young woman, the beloved was distinctly recognized by the ladies;
for a mind whose self-control is destroyed by jealousy is not capable of examining the truth.
10.36
Their faces blossomed, their bodies stood thrilled toward their beloveds,
their hearts attained tenderness, and anger fluttered in the words of the brides.
10.37
Their irresistible, lovely beauty, their expanding love that looked for no purpose,
and their flattery free from feigned confusion acted upon their lovers as a love-charm.
10.38
Effortlessly weighing it with her charm, although it was weighty,
the heart of the beloved was indeed bought by the slender woman with her face, which knew how to humble pride.
10.39
Fit for touch, lovely with pure radiance, prepared for love-making,
and offering humble yielding: upon the dearest lover and upon the couch, the gazelle-eyed women's glances fell incessantly.
10.40
Though tremulous with passion and directed askance, the eyes of the brides, endowed with far-reaching sight,
did not overstep the ear, while looking at the youth endowed with knowledge of the scriptures.
10.41
Eager for conversation, she was unable to speak; wishing to behold him, she could not look him in the face;
and at the touch of her beloved, the arched-brow woman, though unsteady in limb, trembled.
10.42
Ashamed at the removal of her upper garment, another woman, pretending to block his line of sight,
covered the circle of her breasts with the broad chest of her husband alone.
10.43
When he seized her garment, the newly-wed bride covered the charming tips of her breasts with the cross of her slender arms;
and she was embraced with impetuosity by her husband, so that her conch bangles shattered.
10.44
As hostility vanished among the lovers clasped in embrace,
the Lord of Rati hastily withdrew the great arrow he had aimed at the young men, with anger broken by a smile.
10.45
As her husband embraced her passionately beside her, the slip of the bride's garment
was arrested by her own clever hips clinging to it, as if on its own accord.
10.46
When the young woman's pair of breasts pressed against the front of her husband's chest, brooking no hindrance,
the clear oneness of heart of the rival woman broke in pieces.
10.47
When her lover, his passion kindled, embraced her tightly, pressing against her chest,
the pot-like breasts of the fair-browed maiden did not bend, by virtue of their extreme firmness.
10.48
The women seemed to wish to enter into the heart of their cherished ones as they embraced;
surely they did not know that they were perpetually dwelling within it.
10.49
The bodies of the young women undoubtedly imparted inner moistness through an excess of affection,
since, when the youth embraced them tightly, moisture rained down from them, soaking their clothes.
10.50
The joy born from union with their dearest lover could not be contained within the bodies of the women;
thus, finding an outlet, it spread outward, even reaching their bodily hairs in horripilation.
10.51
Through the touch of their beloved, a thrilling erection of hairs arose on the women's bodies;
by that very swelling, the knots of their skirts swiftly gained release from their bonds.
10.52
When she bowed her head in shame during the embrace, the passionate lover drew the lotus face of the woman by her curls,
and while her eyes fluttered half-closed, he pressed the petals of his lips to hers and drank.
10.53
When her desired lover bit the bimba-fruit of her lower lip, which matched the redness of a sprout,
the young woman's hand, its bracelets jingling, groaned softly, as if in pain.
10.54
Reaching her sprout-like lip, deliciously sweet and richly crimson,
a certain man kissed for a moment the tender eye of the fair-browed girl, which had grown exceedingly hot with tears in separations.
10.55
Emptied of attendants, the spacious chamber, occupied solely by the delighted couple,
attained the likeness of the ocean of cosmic dissolution inhabited by Viṣvaksena, the companion of Kamalā.
10.56
Although entirely covered by the twin breasts of the women,
their hearts were grasped by the hands of the passionate men, searching here and there.
10.57
By the curved fingernail-tips of the lovers, softened by their sweat,
incomplete marks were somehow made upon the hard slopes of the women's breasts.
10.58
From the tips of the hot, stone-like peaks of the breasts, wet with gathered sweat,
the hands of the youths descended into the deep lakes of their navels, lovely with opened lotuses.
10.59
Touching the waves of skin-folds all around with restless hands and outstretched fingers,
the desired lovers realized from direct experience that the waists of the fair-browed women could indeed be measured by a fist.
10.60
After taking a dip in the stream of her navel, as her lover's hand moved swiftly to seize her garment,
the woman, with her own hands, blocked his hand near the knot of her skirt, as if in protest.
10.61
The lower garment, causing a delay in the festival of love for the passionate man,
clinging to the bewildered woman's hands and caught on the string of her girdle, displayed an envious, tedious slowness.
10.62
To stop the struggle between the hand of her beloved, which was stripping off her cloth,
and the hands of the lady, the girdle and the bracelets jingled incessantly, as if intervening.
10.63
When he touched the knot of her garment at her chest in order to untie it,
a furrowed parting of the brows and a thrill of the hairs appeared simultaneously in the pride-rich lady.
10.64
When the desired lover's fingertip swiftly crossed her waist-knot, she, with eyes half-closed,
uttered a delightful soft cry, like the sound of the lower string of a lute plucked by an impassioned player.
10.65
With extended fingers, the hand of the beloved proved too large for the slender waist of the fair-browed woman,
but upon her broad hips it attained contact with its entire palm.
10.66
The restless nails of the passionate men, whose hands were unsteady with longing for touch,
made scratches upon the women's thighs, as soft as the stems of plantain trees.
10.67
The ear-ornament flowers with which the women struck their beloved, whose glances darted toward the root of their thighs,
immediately made true the Love-god's name: Flower-Armed.
10.68
Giving up their bodies, the young women abandoned patience and perversity born of intense passion;
blushing, they displayed a delightful amorous boldness toward the men they desired.
10.69
A restraining of hands that secretly wished no resistance, reproaches pregnant with sweet smiles,
and dry weeping: the woman with thighs like an elephant's trunk performed all these to delight her lover, even in pleasure.
10.70
To the fair-eyed women whose words faltered with syllables of prohibition / out of jealousy and repeatedly out of modesty, / the youths yielded agreeably / precisely by means of opposition.
10.71
What was constantly to be avoided at other times was practiced by that pair as a pair alone: / boldness in secret toward their husbands by the women, / and ruthlessness toward the fragile women by the men.
10.72
Struck by the squeezing of arms and seizing of hair, / and awakened by the impact of nails and teeth, / the god of uneven arrows clearly flared up / within the slender-bodied young maidens.
10.73
Suddenly embraced by his beloved, a certain lover with bold hands wished to take off [her garment]; / but with his vision blocked by her pressed-together breasts, / he did not see that her silk robe had already fallen away.
10.74
As if thinking, "It has been properly endured by this one," / struck by the slope of the maiden's breast, / a shower of pearls fell from the necklace breaking upon her lover's chest, / like a shower of flowers.
10.75
Hissing gasps, soft moans, cries of pity, / tender cries of "Enough!", meaningful words, / and sounds of laughter and ornaments of the charming woman / attained the status of rules in the Kāmasūtra.
10.76
Through many tumultuous and continuous sounds / of sweet-sounding girdles and anklets serving as a disguise, / the solitary, low, muffled moan of the doe-eyed women / was heard without any disruption.
10.77
"Such great lightness of yours in lovemaking, tossed about again and again, is indeed a fault"— / thus, thrown off, the long girdle-string / revealed the vast expanse of her broad hips.
10.78
Wondrous beauty was attained by cheeks marked with moist nail-wounds, / painted as if with varied patterns; / and the ends of their curls, their flowers fallen off in the frenzy, / bore beads of perspiration as their blossoms.
10.79
Whatever pleased their handsome lovers, that the fair-browed women did in secret; / for young women captivate the hearts of men / by their compliance.
10.80
Having reached the utmost height of love's pleasure through the essence of passion, / their heavy breasts hard to carry, / the women with long, dark hair grew weary, / their locks clinging to foreheads moist with beads of sweat.
10.81
Though previously displaced by their beloveds who had joined them, / shame, like a female companion long abandoned, / joined the brides once more at the end of lovemaking, / unable to endure separation.
10.82
The conclusions of lovemaking were indeed a spectacle to behold, / with glances darting and trembling through modesty, / and bodies being veiled / with silk garments hastily snatched up in confusion.
10.83
Her single thigh covered with a silk garment / not extensive enough for the very broad realm of her hips, / the slender woman with agitated hands pulled / at the hem of the garment belonging to her most beloved.
10.84
Wiping away the painted designs of sandalwood paste, / and ruining the wreaths with crushed ornaments, / their lovemaking, through itself alone, / became an ornament for the fair-eyed women, as if it were a fault.
10.85
On the woman's hips whose golden girdle had fallen away / through the extreme frenzy of passionate love, / the varied beauty of fresh nail-scratches shone all around / like a decorative girdle.
10.86
Let the tooth-mark of the fair-eyed women shine indeed, / pale red upon the white surface of their cheeks; / on the lip, though possessing an identical quality of beauty, / it attained, when face to face, a superior charm.
10.87
Even when the necklace-string broke under the husband's squeezings / upon the expanse of the fair-browed women's breasts, / left only with a light thread stripped of pearls, / it nevertheless remained heavy [upon them].
10.88
The continuous embrace given by their lovers for the sake of rest / at the end of the first lovemaking, / with passion rising within the women, / became the very beginning of a second union.
10.89
Even upon beds strewn with fresh sprouts and flowers, / to the women devoted to uninterrupted lovemaking / not a moment was given for sleep / even by the night.
10.90
The body of the women, greatly torn by nails, / was not at all diminished in its radiant brilliance; / and did not the agitation quickly overcoming their hearts / increase the passion of the Yādavas?
10.91
Having thus observed those impassioned men, attached to continuous, splendid lovemaking / through rut and love, their passion made clear, / the night, with her hands thrown down and the moon sinking, / turned away with face cast down, as if in shame.
Commentaries (2)
- Sarvaṅkaṣā — Mallinātha Sūri, Sanskrit
- Śiśupālavadhaṭīkā — Mallinātha, Sanskrit
Linked texts (1)
- Śiśupālavadha — Māgha, Sanskrit