A Syrup of the Bees

i. e. Ganesha.

19

See Preface.

20

This is from Kalidas.

21

i. e. one made of the honey or syrup of flowers. (Note, that the first syllable rhymes with luck, and the third with fund.)

22

i. e. Spring, who is Love's companion.

23

This is an allusion to the King's name (see note, ante) the point of which will presently appear.

24

The crabs of Ceylon (presumably the same as those of southern India, whose shores I do not know) are the most extraordinary things I ever saw. They run like the wind, and jump, over immense spaces and chasms, from rock to rock, better than any horse.

25

i. e. the moon.

26

Love, in Sanskrit, means also recollection.

27

A name given only by a wife to her husband, implying the claim.

28

The English reader may be puzzled by the difficulty: how a Widyádharí could ever be a woman. But it is very simple on Hindoo principles. Widyádharas are constantly falling into human bodies by reason of curses, or guilt contracted.

29

i. e. the slave of love, or recollection.

30

The King of Birds. (The final a is mute.)

31

i. e. long-sighted.

32

Balibúk, an eater of daily offerings, is a common epithet of the crow.

33

Meaning either black-wings, the dark half of the lunar month, or time-server.

34

The combined form of Maheshwara and his "other half."

35

A play on words, salt and beauty being the same (lawanya).

36

Kalá means arts as well as digits.

37

Every reader of Scott will recall the "kinless loons."

38

i. e. initiation.

39

The Greek [Greek: adyton], or sanctuary.

40

The Hindoo shrine, says Mr. A. K. Coomaraswamy, is essentially a place of pilgrimages and circumambulations, to which men come for darshan, to "see" the god.

41

(Pronounce dweep) – a far-off continent or island.

42

This cannot be expressed in English with the point of the original, because the word expressing preference means also bridegroom (waram).

43