e he comes, attended by the Yavana women[34], with bows in
their hands, wearing garlands of wild flowers. What shall I do? I
have it. I will pretend to stand in the easiest attitude for
resting my bruised and crippled limbs.

[_Stands leaning on a staff_.

_Enter King_ DUSHYANTA, _followed by a retinue, in the manner
described_.

KING.

True, by no easy conquest may I win her,
Yet are my hopes encouraged by her mien,
Love is not yet triumphant; but, methinks,
The hearts of both are ripe for his delights.

[_Smiling_.

Ah! thus does the lover delude himself; judging of the state of
his loved one's feelings by his own desires. But yet,

The stolen glance with half-averted eye,
The hesitating gait, the quick rebuke
Addressed to her companion, who would fain
Have stayed her counterfeit departure; these
Are signs not unpropitious to my suit.
So eagerly the lover feeds his hopes,
Claiming each trivial gesture for his own.

MA[T.]HAVYA.

[_Still in the same attitude_.

Ah, friends, my hands cannot move to greet you with the usual
salutation. I can only just command my lips to wish your Majesty
victory.

KING.

Why, what has paralysed your limbs?

MA[T.]HAVYA.

You might as well ask me how my eye comes to water after you have
poked your finger into it.

KING.

I don't understand you; speak more intelligibly.

MA[T.]HAVYA.

Ah, my dear friend, is yonder upright reed transformed into a
crooked plant by its own act, or by the force of the current?

KING.

The current of the river causes it, I suppose.

MA[T.]HAVYA.

Ay; just as you are the cause of my crippled limbs.

KING.

How so?

MA[T.]HAVYA.

Here are you living the life of a wild man of the woods in a
savage unfrequented region, while your State-affairs are left to
shift for themselves; and as for poor me, I am no longer master
of my own limbs, but have to follow you about day after day in
your chases after wild animals, till my bones are all crippled
and out of joint. Do, my dear friend, let me have one day's rest.

KING. [_Aside_.

This fellow little knows, while he talks in this manner, that my
mind is wholly engrossed by recollections of the hermit's
daughter, and quite as disinclined to the chase as his own.

No longer can I bend