Translated from Sanskrit by C. John Holcombe
A year from amorousness: it passes slowly.
So thought a Yaksha by his master sent,
for scanting duty, to the Rāmagiry:
to mope in penance groves as banishment
by rivers Sītā’s bathing there made holy.
Āshādha’s ending on the mountain found
him weakened, gold ring slipping from his wrist.
And mixed his pleasure as a cloud came down
so playfully to hug the summit mist,
as elephants in heat will butt the ground.
In tears withheld he took his fall from grace,
from wealth attending on the King of Kings.
The otherworld that brimmed in cloudy air
was still discomfort when far longing brings
a breath to hold him to that neck’s embrace.
With now the rainy month stood close at hand,
to fresh Kutaja blooms he adds his plea,
and asks most courteously the cloud bring news
of welfare to his loved-one—words that she,
revived to hear of him, will understand.
How can a cloud so moving, mixed and got
of water vapour, fire and wind be used
by Yaksha appropriately as messenger?
But he in eagerness and grief confused
mistakes as sentient a thing that’s not.
Such clouds the ending of the world presage.
You minister to form at will. Though kin
I plead for are by power detained, better
to be by majesty refused than win
an approbation of base parentage.
I ask you, shelter from the sun’s fierce glare,
as one apart, beneath Kubēra’s sanctions,
to bear this message to a loved one waiting
in Alakā, where Shiva on those mansions
sheds gardens’ moonlight from his forehead there.
For you the women look through tangled hair
on men-folk travelling, and take their cheer
from unions urged on by your path of air,
while I still distant and to blame appear
a hapless prisoner to another’s care.
A sight of her the open roads impart:
a woman delicate, as flowers are sinking
from want of nourishment. Your brother’s wife,
on days reflecting, of her husband thinking,
awaits, a captive taken at the heart.
10. As wind will move you onward, ever slow,
to greet you on the left you’ll hear the cry
of nesting chātakas, and, all around,
conceiving female cranes will bless the eye,
across the sky in garlands, row on row.
(Excerpted from Part One)
