ing. But I do not know. Sometimes I think they would
be happier if they could love less, if they could take love more
quietly, more as a matter of course, as something that has to be gone
through, as part of a life's training; not as a thing that swallows up
all life and death and eternity in one passion.

In Burmese the love-songs are in a short, sweet rhythm, full of quaint
conceits and word-music. I cannot put them into English verse, or give
the flow of the originals in a translation. It always seems to me that
Don Quixote was right when he said that a translation was like the wrong
side of an embroidered cloth, giving the design without the beauty. But
even in the plain, rough outline of a translation there is beauty here,
I think:

_From a Man to a Girl._

The moon wooed the lotus in the night, the lotus was wooed by the moon,
and my sweetheart is their child. The blossom opened in the night, and
she came forth; the petals moved, and she was born.

She is more beautiful than any blossom; her face is as delicate as the
dusk; her hair is as night falling over the hills; her skin is as bright
as the diamond. She is very full of health, no sickness can come near
her.

When the wind blows I am afraid, when the breezes move I fear. I fear
lest the south wind take her, I tremble lest the breath of evening woo
her from me--so light is she, so graceful.

Her dress is of gold, even of silk and gold, and her bracelets are of
fine gold. She hath precious stones in her ears, but her eyes, what
jewels can compare unto them?

She is proud, my mistress; she is very proud, and all men are afraid of
her. She is so beautiful and so proud that all men fear her.

In the whole world there is none anywhere that can compare unto her.

CHAPTER XV

WOMEN--II

'The husband is lord of the wife.'
_Laws of Manu._

Marriage is not a religious ceremony among the Burmese. Religion has no
part in it at all; as religion has refrained from interfering with
Government, so does it in the relations of man and wife. Marriage is
purely a worldly business, like entering into partnership; and religion,
the Buddhist religion, has nothing to do with such things. Those who
accept the teachings of the great teacher in all their fulness do not
marry.

Indeed, marriage is not a ceremony at all. It is strange to find that
the Burmese have actually no necessary ceremonial. The La