[18] Wishamritam:  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.

IX.

And then, Aja strove to awake as it were from a dream.  And he shook himself, as if to shake it off, and he said to himself:  I feel that I am falling as it were a victim to the spell of this passionate and subtle beauty; and now, unless I stiffen and steel myself against her, I shall undoubtedly be bewitched and beguiled beyond the possibility of escape.  And he summoned his resolution, and said, with a semblance of composure:  Fair one, thou dost thyself no injustice in comparing thyself alone to a thousand queens:  for thou art a very incarnation of all the bewildering fascination of thy sex.  And yet, potent as they are, thy charms are wasted, and resemble blunted arrows when directed against me.  For as I have already told thee, I am pledged to another, and proof against thy spell, as doubtless was thy old ascetic against that bevy of straying queens.