THE NALADIYAR. 351 December, 1873.] those who when they hear their dear friends declaring the affliction of their minds, have no desire to alleviate their sorrows, should die by casting themselves down from a mountain top than that they should live. 10. If we impar¬ tially examine the two things, it will be found that the inundation of the river and the love of beauteous and desirable courtesans are alike. If the rains fail, the inundation will cease ; and if their lovers’ money is expended, those courte¬ sans’ love for them will fail also. Chapter 38.—Courtesans. 1. If you impartially investigate the two things, it will be found that there is no difference between the shining light of a lamp aud the love of courtesans. When the oil is exhausted, the light of the lamp vanishes, and when the money of their lovers is gone, their love also evaporates. 2. The fair and beautiful matron who is adorned with chosen jewels (a courtesan) said, I will go with you to the top of the mountain and cast myself down from it for your sake. But when he said, My money is gone, she came weeping, stating that her foot was painfully swollen and she could not go up the mountain, and left altogether. 3. Let them (i. e. their lovers) be even as fair as Indra, the red-eyed, who is worshipped by the gods in the beauteous and wide-spread heavens,— courtesans, like freshly plucked mango-leaves, will politely dismiss them, and send them away as soon as their money is exhausted. 4. Those who have no property are as poison to the lotus¬ eyed beautiful courtesans, who are destitute of all goodness of mind; while those who in the sight of all have acquired their wealth by work¬ ing tho oil-mill will be as delicious as sugar. 5. (Only) those fools who like wild beasts will come near courtesans, who act as the vilanga- fish, which shows its one end to the shark and its other end to the fish in the clear pool, filled with honey-producing flowers. 6. If the golden- braceleted one who has affirmed, saying, .is the perforated bead leaves not the thread on which it is strung, and as the aiulril-bir& which never leaves its mate, I will never separate from you,—if she becomes, like the horn of the ram, turned away from its fellow, O my poor heart! will you still remain with her, or will you come away with me ? 7. They shall be derided by many who are delighted with the love of courte¬ sans (thinking that they are their friends), who, like the wild cow, lick the hands of men, at the same time poisoning them, and who are like the gliyal in jumping and running away when they have spoiled their lovers of their property, and yet imagine that they are their friends! S'. Courtesans rejoice and appear as friends while their lovers have aught to give; but when they have exhausted their wealth, then they show themselves as enemies and become (estranged from them), as the horn of a ram twisted from its fellow. Those who come not near the fnll- breasted courtesans whose eyes roll like the deer, yet leave not off their way of sin, may well say, We have attained the right way. 9. Those who imagine the beauteous courtesans who hide within them the disposition that will afterwards injure them, even when they speak lowly words in order to create confidence, and who, believing these words to be true, imagine them to be their friends, possess their own bodies for themselves alone, and not for any benefit to be done to others. 10. Even at the time when those who have bodies laden with sin have by inquiry found out all the crafty intentions which beautiful- browed courtesans whose minds are fixed upon others have conceived against them, they walk as though they knew them not. Chapter 39.—Chaste Women. 1. Though women be high in reputation and equal to the goddess Ayrani in conjugal fidelity, they must carefully avoid those who love them and follow them in hopes of gratification, for such caution is the safeguard of the virtue of matrons with perfumed foreheads. 2. If in time of distress, when the meal of the whole family is cooked by the water of a small pot, if a host of re¬ latives sufficient to consume the water of the sea should come all at once, the softly-speaking woman, who shows herself as bounteous as the ocean, is the glory of her house. 3. Though her house be open on the four quarters, though it be exceedingly small, and though the rain pour in on every side, a chaste and virtuous woman will be honoured in the place where she resides, and her habitation respected. 4. She who is pleasing to the eye, who in all things gratifies her husband according to his desire, and at all times stands in awe of him, whose modesty is so conspicuous as to shame her sex, and in all her love-quarrels with him acts with such prudence that reconciliation affords him increased delight, this mildly-speaking matron is truly a woman. 5. Whenever our husbands
