_The closing Scene_
Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Basohli, Punjab Hills. c. 1730
Art Gallery, Chandigarh, East Punjab
From the same series as Plate 26.
After agonies of 'love unsatisfied,' Radha and Krishna are at last
reconciled.
'She looked on Krishna who desired only her, on him who for long wanted
dalliance,
Whose face with his pleasure was overwhelmed and who was possessed with
Desire,
Who engendered passion with his face made lovely through tremblings of
glancing eyes,
Like a pond in autumn with a pair of wagtails at play in a fullblown
lotus.
Like the gushing of the shower of sweat in the effort of her travel to
come to his hearing,
Radha's eyes let fall a shower of tears when she met her beloved,
Tears of delight which went to the ends of her eyes and fell on her
flawless necklace.
When she went near the couch and her friends left the bower, scratching
their faces to hide their smiles,
And she looked on the mouth of her loved one, lovely with longing, under
the power of love,
The modest shame of that deer-eyed one departed.'
In the picture, Radha and Krishna are again united. Krishna has drawn
Radha to him and is caressing her cheek while friends of Radha gossip in
the courtyard. As in Plate 25, the artist has preferred a house to the
forest--the sharp thrust of the angular walls exactly expressing the
fierceness of the lovers' desires.
[Illustration]