Radha’s Messenger Speaks
Rent from DeepDyve- Radha’s Messenger Speaks
āvāso vipināyate priyasakhīmālāpi jālāyate tāpo'pi śvasitena dāvadahanajvālākalāpāyate sāpi tvadviraheṇa hanta hariṇī rupāyate hā kathaṃ kandarpo'pi yamāyate viracayañ śārdūlavikrīḍitam
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āvāso. house
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vipināyate. becomes a jungle
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priya-sakhī. dear-friends
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mālā. necklace
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api. indeed
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jālāyate. becomes a snare
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tāpo. fever, passion (also, ascetic practice)
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'pi. also
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śvasitena. by breath
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dāva-dahana-jvālā-kalāpāyate. turns into a searing, raging fire
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sā. she
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api. also
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tvad-viraheṇa. due to your absence
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hanta. (voc.) O lover
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hariṇī-rupāyate. (she) takes shape as a doe
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hā. [cry of grief]
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kathaṃ. how (is it that)?
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kandarpo. love, sexual passion
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'pi. (emph.)
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yamāyate. becomes death (Yama)
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viracayan. taking on (as a costume or mask), wearing
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śārdūla-vikrīḍitam. tiger’s play (also, name of a much-used metrical pattern) [End Page 112]
Radha’s messenger speaks
Her house has becomea pulsating jungle.Her circle of girlfriendsa tightening snare.Each time she breathesa sheet of flamebursts above the trees.Krishna, you have gone—in your absence she takes shapeas a doe crying out—while Love turns to Deathand closes inon tiger paws.
This is one of the stanzas into which Jayadeva weaves the Sanskrit name of the metrical pattern he is using: śārdūla-vikrīḍita (tiger’s play). The last phrase of the verse literally reads: “love becomes death, taking on (wearing) the play of the tiger.”
The entire verse is built on a special use of the verb form called nāma-dhātu (nounverb). In this case, it is the transformation of one noun into another by making the second a verb—a nice touch in which everything transforms under the heat of Radha’s anguish. The house “jungles,” the circle of friends “snares,” Radha “doe-shapes.” Finally, love “deaths.” Kandarpa, the word Jayadeva uses here for love—love personified, or sexual passion—is of “doubtful” etymology (Monier-Williams). An early meaning the grammarians give is “phallus.” [End Page 113]
Andrew Schelling, born in 1953 at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C., has written, edited, or translated twenty books. Early opposition to American involvement in Vietnam, plus an encounter with India’s texts, set him on a lifelong engagement with Asian literature. He studied Sanskrit at the University of California at Berkeley, and began to translate from its classical poetry tradition around 1978. His first book, Dropping the Bow: Poems of Ancient India, received the Academy of American Poets translation award in 1992, the first time the Academy had honored work done from an Asian language. Schelling’s own poetry and essays emerge from the Southern Rocky Mountain bioregion in which he lives. Recent books of poetry wrangle with the Arapaho language as a way of reading landscape and the natural cycles; they include From the Arapaho Songbook and A Possible Bag. He has edited The Oxford Anthology of Bhakti Literature and Love and the Turning Seasons: India’s Poetry of Spiritual and Erotic Longing (forthcoming from Counterpoint Press). Living on the Front Range of Colorado, he is active on land-use issues and teaches at Naropa University. He also teaches regularly at Deer Park Institute, in India’s Himalayan foothills.
