No. 623:  “The wanderer’s wife does indeed protect her little son by interposing her head to catch the rain water dripping from the eaves, but fails to notice (in her grief over her absent one) that he is wetted by her tears.”

These twenty-one poems are the best samples of everything contained in Hala’s anthology illustrating the serious side of love among the bayaderes and married women of India.  Careful perusal of them must convince the reader that there is nothing in them revealing the altruistic phases of love.  There is much ardent longing for the selfish gratification which the presence of a lover would give; deep grief at his absence; indications that a certain man could afford her much more pleasure by his presence than others—­and that is all.  When a girl wails that she is dying because her lover is absent she is really thinking of her own pleasure rather than his.  None of these poems expresses the sentiment, “Oh, that I could do something to make him happy!” These women are indeed taught and forced to sacrifice themselves for their husbands, but when it comes to spontaneous utterances, like these songs, we look in vain for evidence of pure, devoted, high-minded, romantic love.  The more frivolous side of Oriental love is, on the other hand, abundantly illustrated in Hala’s poems, as the following samples show: 

No. 40:  “O you pitiless man!  You who are afraid of your wife and difficult to catch sight of!  You who resemble (in bitterness) a nimba worm—­and yet who are the delight of the village women!  For does not the (whole) village grow thin (longing) for you?”

     No. 44:  “The sweetheart will not fail to come back into
     his heart even though he caress another girl, whether
     he see in her the same charms or not.”

No. 83:  “This young farmer, O beautiful girl, though he already has a beautiful wife, has nevertheless become so reduced that his own jealous wife has consented to deliver this message to you.”

The last two poems hint at the ease with which feminine jealousy is suppressed in India, of which we have had some instances before and shall have others presently.  Coyness seems to be not much more developed, at least among those who need it most: 

No. 465:  “By being kind to him again at first sight you deprived yourself, you foolish girl, of many pleasures—­his prostration at your feet and his eager robbing of a kiss.”

No. 45:  “Since youth (rolls on) like the rapids of a river, the days speed away and the nights cannot be checked—­my daughter! what means this accursed, proud reserve?”

No. 139:  “On the pretext that the descent to the Goda (river) is difficult, she threw herself in his arms.  And he clasped her tightly without thereby incurring any reproach.” (See also No. 108.)

No. 121:  “Though disconsolate at the death of her relatives, the captive girl looked lovingly upon the young kidnapper, because he appeared to her to be a perfect (hero).  Who can remain sulky in the face of virtues?”

Such love as these women felt is fickle and transient: