No. 234:  “Although all (my) possessions were consumed in the village fire, yet is (my) heart rejoiced, (when it was put out) he took the bucket as it passed from hand to hand (from my hand).”

No. 299:  “She stares, without having an object, gives vent to long sighs, laughs into vacant space, mutters unintelligible words—­surely she must bear something in her heart.”

No. 302:  “’Do give her to the one she carries in her heart.  Do you not see, aunt, that she is pining away?’ ‘No one rests in my heart’ [literally; whence could come in my heart resting?]—­thus speaking, the girl fell into a swoon.”

     No. 345:  “If it is not your beloved, my friend, how is it
     that at the mention of his name your face glows like a lotos
     bud opened by the sun’s rays?”

No. 368:  “Like illness without a doctor—­like living with relatives if one is poor, like the sight of an enemy’s prosperity—­so difficult is it to endure separation from you.”

     No. 378:  “Whatever you do, whatever you say, and
     wherever you turn your eyes, the day is not long enough
     for her efforts to imitate you.”

     No. 440:  “...She, whose every limb was bathed in
     perspiration, at the mere mention of his name.”

     No. 453:  “My friend! tell me honestly, I ask you:  do
     the bracelets of all women become larger when the lover
     is far away?”

No. 531:  “In whichever direction I look I see you before me, as if painted there.  The whole firmament brings before me as it were a series of pictures of you.”

     No. 650:  “From him proceed all discourses, all are
     about him, end with him.  Is there then, my aunt, but
     one young man in all this village?”

While these poems may have been sung mostly by bayaderes, there are others which obviously give expression to the legitimate feelings of married women.  This is especially true of the large number which voice the sorrows of women at the absence of their husbands after the rains have set in.  The rainy season is in India looked on as the season of love, and separation from the lover at this time is particularly bewailed, all the more as the rains soon make the roads impassable.

No. 29:  “To-day, when, alone, I recalled the joys we had formerly shared, the thunder of the new clouds sounded to me like the death-drum (that accompanies culprits to the place of execution).”

No. 47:  “The young wife of the man who has got ready for his journey roams, after his departure, from house to house, trying to get the secret for preserving life from wives who have learned how to endure separation from their beloved.”

No. 227:  “In putting down the lamp the wife of the wanderer turns her face aside, fearing that the stream of tears that falls at the thought of the beloved might drop on it.”

     No. 501:  “When the voyager, on taking leave, saw his
     wife turn pale, he was overcome by grief and unable to
     go.”