Then she laughed, and said: Fair boy, I am only that bitter-sweet[18], a
woman: and I want no more than what every woman wants, the man she
loves, and that is thou. Aye! dost thou ask me, who and what I am?
Listen then, and I will tell thee. I am a bee, which not like other
bees, roams roving to flower after flower, but confines itself
exclusively to one. I am a breeze, which not like other breezes blows
fickle and inconstant now hither and now thither, but is fixed and ever
steady, coming straight from Malaya laden with the sandal of affection
to lay it at thy feet. I am only the echo of a voice which is thyself,
the shadow of a substance and the reflection of a sun. I am like the
other half of the god that carries the moon upon his head, the twin, the
duplicate and counterpart of a deity who is thou, I am Rati, rejoicing
to find again the body of her husband, and thou art Love himself
returned to life whom I have found. I am an essence of the ocean, but
unlike it, I hold within my heart not many pearls, but only one, which
is thyself. I am a wick, consuming in thy flame, and like the music of a
lute, I am a thing wholly compounded of melodies and tones, whose mood
and being are dependent on the player, who is thou. Art thou sad? then I
am also: art thou joyous? so am I: my soul is tossed about, and hangs on
thy smiling or thy sighing, as a criminal depends on the sentence of the
judge. And like a crystal, I am colourless[19] without thee, but ready
on the instant to assume every tinge of the colour of thyself. Cast thy
eyes upon me, and thou shalt see as in a glass thy every mood painted
on the surface of my face. Ah! dost thou ask me what I am? Alas! I am a
target for the poisoned arrows which Love shoots at me in the form of
thy beauty greater than his own. And I am like a bare and withered,
leafless and frost-bitten tree, which has suddenly shot up into blossom
at the coming of spring in thy form. But as for thee, why, O why dost
thou regard me that live for only thee as if I were a deadly snake, and
thou a startled deer? In vain, in vain, dost thou endeavour to repel me,
for I will not be repelled. I will melt thy cold ice in thy despite, by
the fire of my affection, and drown thee in its flood, and sweep thee
away from the rocks of thy resistance till thou art lost for ever in its
dark and pearly depths.
[18] _Wishámritam_: lit. poison-nectar.
[19] Also means _without affection_.
And as Aja stood, listening in confusion to her words, which poured from
her like a torrent, suddenly she clapped her hands, and exclaimed, as he
started again at her vehemence: Ha! shall I tell thee, thou wilful and
reluctant boy, of what thou dost remind me, standing as it were aghast,
and obstinately set against me, mute, and yet asking what I am? Know,
that long ago there was a King, who had for wives a thousand queens. And
it happened that one day, he went with his wives to ramble in the heart
of a forest. So after sporting for a while, he grew tired, in the heat
of the day, and lay down and fell asleep. Then all his queens stole away
and left him lying, and went roaming up and down, very strange creatures
in that wild rough wood, looking like living flowers of every hue and
kind, that had somehow or other got free from their roots, a body of
deer-eyed decoys let loose by Love the Hunter, to lure into his toils
every man that should behold them. So as they rambled here and there,
they came suddenly on an old ascetic. And he was standing still, half
buried in the hills of ants, themselves covered over by his long white
hair, immersed in meditation. Then all those fair women went up and
stood around him in a cluster of beautiful curiosity, wondering at the
sight of him, and asking each other in amazement, what in the world he
could possibly be. So as they crowded round him, that old ascetic
emerged from his trance, and as thou art doing, stood silent and aghast,
thinking, as perhaps thou dost thyself, that Indra must have sent him
all the nymphs of heaven in a body, to lure him from the path of
liberation. For, O, thou beautiful suspicious youth, what is there so
terrible about me, as to cause thee to shrink from my approach? Know,
that many would be glad to be wooed as was that old ascetic, and as thou
art now.