Kalidasa

4th Century - 5th Century / Ujjain / India

Seasonal Cycle - Chapter 03 - Pre Autumn

"On the departure of rainy season bechanced is autumn with a heart-pleasingly bloomed lotus as her face, betokening the heart-pleasing face of a new bride, and the autumnal fields of white grass with whitish flowers as her apparel, which betoken the whitish bridal apparel of a new bride, and the amorously clucking clucks of swans that have just returned from Lake Maanasa as rains have gone, are the jingling anklets of autumn, which betoken the delightful jingles of anklets of new bride, and now the rice is ready to ripe and thus the tenuous stalks of rice, which have their necks a little bent down, betoken the obeisant face of a new docile bride...

"Blanched is the earth with whitish grass and the nights with silvery and coolant moonbeams of the moon, and the rivers with white swans, lakes with white-lotuses, and that forest up to its fringes with whitish jasmine flowers and with somewhat whitish seven-leaved banana plants that are swagging under the weight of their flowers...

"Presently the rivers are journeying slowly with a strutting of prideful lovely girls, for the raising and falling fishes of rivers seem to be the delightful sets of strings at the waistlines of rivers, like the sets of girdle-strings on the waists of girls, and the ranges of white waterfowls on riverbanks seem to be the whitish pearly pendants of rivers, like the pearly pendants around the bosoms of prideful girls, more so the broad sand-dunes at edges of those rivers appear to be the roundish fundaments of those rivers like that of those girls...

"With clouds that have doled out their waters, the vault of heaven is silvern somewhere, it is like the whitish conch shell elsewhere, and somewhere else it is palish like the stalks of lotuses, and the clouds on achieving their levity and moved by the speed of wind, they are splintered into hundreds of pieces and journeying away, and thus the sky appears to be a king fanned with royal-fans, called the swerving, splintering, and silvery clouds...

"The sky is looking like well-kneaded knoll of black mascara, and the earth is delightfully inscribed with the vermilion colour of safflowers that are flowered up to the visible horizon, and the swaths and even the ravines of earth are surrounded with charming lotuses... and on visualising such an environ, which heart of which adolescent person doesn't get up to a lot of ecstasy...

"When the slothful wind is slothfully stirring up the upper branches of red-golden coloured trees, that are most lovely with peaking tender leaflets, and with muchly outcropped flowers, from which nectar is muchly trickling, that which is overly drunk by the honeybees, and when such a sylvan scenery is seen, whose heart won't be riven...

"A girl burgeons as a damsel day by day, so the autumnal night is lengthening its night-time day by day, and as a damsel wears shiny jewellery on her nubility, this damsel, called the autumnal night, is wearing clusters of twinkling stars as her jewellery, as the veil of a damsel will be unveiled frequently presenting her face, these veils called clouds on the skyscape are now being unveiled to present the moonlike face of this autumnal damsel, and a damsel starts to wear raiment with unblemished whiteness at her pubescence, so also, this autumnal damsel's wraparound is the immaculate moonshine...

"Inaccessible were those rivers in rainy season even for the waterfowls, barring the people, for they were ferocious and feculent, but this autumn made them placid and pure, and hence the rows of ripples of their water are pecked with the beaks of partridges for their feed, and all over on their banks and riversides, flocks and flocks of cranes and drakes are bustling, and muchly cackling are the swans, and the rivers themselves are reddened with the red-pollen grains of red-lotuses, thus those spectacular rivers, riverbanks, and riversides are rejoicingly accessible even for the people...

"These days the moon is an eye-festival and heart-stealing with his profuse moonbeams, and he is the real gladdener for he is the sprinkler of fresh and coolant dewdrops through those moonbeams, but nowadays he alone is becoming an inflamer, for he is burning the bodies of the women, who are already felled by the arrow of Love-god, which arrow is daubed with the venom, which venom is nothing but their own lusting after their itinerant husbands, that are now separated from them...

"The wind being the prime mover in nature is now wiggling the well-ripened rows of rice stalks that are curvy under the weight of their cobs, and the same wind is waggling the best trees that are saggy under the weight of their flowers, and he alone is wobbling the fully bloomed clumps of lotuses in the lakes, moreover, thus he is vehemently wriggling the hearts of young men, with his lilting breezing and lively freshness...

"The limpid waters of lakes are refurbished with bevies of couples of voluptuous swans, amongst the just bloomed white and blue lotuses that elaborate lakes, and the rows of ripples of lake-water are undulated by the oncoming slowish morning breeze, as well as by the ruffles made by swans, thus the all-time ripply lakes are ecstasizing hearts, in a trice...

"Presently evanished are the rainbows in the bellies of clouds, and indiscernible are the skyey flags, called flashes of lightning, and un-winnowed is the aerospace with the windage of wings of cranes, and peacocks are unseeing the sky with their upraised faces, agog for rains...

"The Love-god is drawing nigh of melodiously singing swans, leaving off the peacocks that have ceased to dance anymore, as there is no rain, while the grandeur of the flowers of trees like Kadamba, Kutaja, Arjuna, Sarja, Niipa already drew nigh of the seven-leaved banana plants, that flower and flourish at this time...

"The fragrance of flowers of white-flower trees is heart-stealing, and nowadays birds are not scorched by the sun, thus they are there in fine fettle, and they are calling each other reciprocally, thus those birds and their callings are heart-stealing, and the eyes of she-deer that are abiding all over there are like black-lotuses, thus with all them the woodlands and their fringes beyond ken, are ecstasizing the hearts of men...

"The dawn time breeze on recurrently winnowing the red-lotuses, white-lotuses, and the lotuses that bloom at sunrise, is in contact with those lotuses and thus acquiring more coolness, more so, on sifting the dewdrops that are clinging at the edges of leaves, that auroral breeze is very much exhilarating...

"The precincts of earth are surrounded with exuberant stretches of rice-crops, and they are glistering with stocks of cattle available there, that are robust and multiplying, and that is even reverberated with the callings of swans and drakes, thereby those interior places within the apparent horizon are thus causing an euphoric state to the spectators in this pre-autumnal season...

"The womenfolk's very lissom gait is won by the svelte steps of swans, and moonshine of their faces is won by the efflorescent whiteness of white-lotuses, and their lustful, wily, and sidelong glances are won by the swings and sways of blue-lotuses, and even their eyebrows' subtle flutters are won by rocks and rolls of thin ripples... thus this season is outmoding the most famous beauty of the nature, namely the womenfolk...

"The Shyaamaa climbers are decorated with their tender leaves and flowers, and by the weight these they are flexed and look like the curvaceous arms of women, that are decorated with many an ornament, flowery bracelets and leaf-thin bangles and the like, but stolen is that shine of those arms of women by these climbers of this season... and this broadly smiling season, with red Ashoka flowers as its lips and with delightful and sparkly whitish new jasmine buds as its teeth, is stealing the splendour of toothy grins of womenfolk, with their jasmine budlike teeth and roseate lips...

"These days women are furling up their longish, thickish, and blackish hair termini into buns and overstuffing them with new jasmines, and even if their ears are already inserted with best golden budlike ear-hangings, they are now inserting divers black-lotuses into their hairdo, at the back of their ears...

These days the ladies are with highly gladdened hearts for the climate is equable, thus they are decorating their globelike busts with emulsions of sandal-paste and with pendants of pearls and gold, and their girth-lines are decorated with sets of golden girdles festooned with golden tassels, and even their lotus-like feet are decorated with best anklets that have jingling bells...

"These days the vault of heaven similes with the vast of earth in their forms of exalted splendour... on the earth the lakes are bejewelled with emeraldine waters, similar is the sky with somewhat emeraldine hue... such water is overspread with white-lotuses, similar is the cloudless sky overlaid with stars... these waters are overprotective to kingly swans, similarly the vault of cloudless heaven is holding out the moon, the king of the nights...

"In this pre-autumn its ingredients are heart-pleasing, for the breezes breeze cool for touch by their association with white-lotuses, and the divisions and subdivisions of quarters can be descried, for dissipated are the clouds, and the waters can be enjoyed, for they are devoid of slush, and walkable is the earth, for its slime is dried up, and in nights the welkin is with the moon, with his immaculate moonbeams and medley of stars...

"These days when the sun arouses the lotuses with his sunrays at daybreak, they are shining forth like best damsels with flourishing visages, but when the spherule of moon has gone into faintness at dawn, even those lotuses are becoming smileless and subduing, as with the smiles of youthful women, whose lovers have journeyed away, and who grin and bear it...

"Nowadays the itinerants on noticing the splendour of eyes of their ladyloves with blackish mascara, in black-lotuses, and the chinks of their golden girdle-strings in the clucks of lustily swans, and the endearing gleam of their lower lips in the reddish flowers, they are bewailing disconcertedly, unsure of their homecoming in this season...

"The pleasing exquisiteness that has arrived with this pre-autumnal Sharat season is beating a retreat to somewhere else, on leaving the grandeur of its autumnal moon on the faces of women, and the clucky speeches of swans in their gemmy anklets, and the safflower like flower's reddish hue on their beautiful lips...

"Unfolded lotuses as its face, unfurled blue-lotuses as its eyes, and clothed in the raiment called the outstretched new white grass-flowers, thus this Sharat, pre-autumn is heart-appeasing with the brilliance of its lotuses, and let this very season bring utmost delight to all of your hearts, like your fervent and lustful ladyloves with their visages like autumnal lotuses, eyes with mascara like autumnal blue-black lotuses, with their whitish wraparounds, like the silken white grass flowers of autumn, and let them be romantic, like this romantic Sharat season...
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