Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.52

v2.c84.52

“O neighbour, will you cast your eyes for a moment here on our house? The father of this child will scarcely drink the tasteless water of a well. Though alone, I go quickly hence to the river whose banks are covered with *tamāla*-trees. Let the densely swarming knots of reeds with their hard projections scratch my body”. Here the reed-knot’s scratching the woman’s body and her going alone to the quiet river-side may be taken as the *linga* of her enjoyment with a lover, which is the suggested sense (*liṅgin*) here. But these alleged reasons, though they help to reveal the unexpressed sense, are not invariable; for dalliance with a gallant is not, from the logical point of view, universally predicable of a woman going alone to a river-side or from her being scratched by the reed-knots.