Fifteenth Sarga: Midday Pastimes

Fifteenth Sarga

Hari arrived wearing excellent aśoka shoots upon His ears and holding fresh clusters from an aśoka vine in His hand. Eagerly He entered the lotuslike secret bower indicated by Vṛndā's glance. (1)

When the intoxicated elephant Kṛṣṇa entered the celestial river of Rādhā's presence, the row of swanlike sakhīs immediately flew away. (2)

With the lotus of His eyes He drank the nectar of the lotus-eyed girl's beauty and form. Restless, He used His splendid hand to part the moss of Her bodice and the lotus growth of Her waist-knot. (3)

Her eyes closed in drowsiness, the beloved dreamed that Her lover had come beside Her and was trying to pull at Her waist-knot and breasts. Resisting Him in contrariness, She babbled. (4)

'D-d-don't t-t-touch Me, Hari! Wh-wh-what do You wish to d-do here? L-l-let Me sleep for a m-m-moment. My p-p-pair of eyes is overcome by d-d-drowsiness.' (5)

Her words following Her lover mingled smiles with weeping, their syllables touched by a choked voice. Trying with both hands to restrain Her beloved's exceedingly restless hand, She awoke and beheld both Him and Her own actions exactly as in the dream. (6)

Her eyes opening and closing, Rādhā was intoxicated by the flower wine of Love. Her speech, gestures, and other responses remained the same in dreaming and waking. (7)

Contrariness and modesty made Her turn away from the battle of Love's uneven arrows, but the greatly impassioned Acyuta forcibly advanced and began trying to conquer Her. (8)

Seeing the assault, Her waist-belt fell silent as though it had fled into the sky from fear, while Her pair of anklets rang out as though hissing in protest. (8-9)

When Hari grasped the lovely-browed girl's neck, Her throat became constricted and agitated. Through varied, broken cries it pleaded piteously with Him. (10)

With the maces of His broad arms Kṛṣṇa breached the fortress of Her contrariness. Then, with His own beloved feudal warriors led by His lips, nails, teeth, chest, hands, arms, and face, He swiftly plundered the city of the slender girl's body. (11)

His digging nails knew where the hidden jewel was buried and excavated it; His hands then seized the jewel of youth from the jars of Her breasts. (12)

From Her lip, excavated by His teeth, His mouth took the nectar of Her lips. From Her body, pressed by His arms, His chest obtained the jewel of touch. (13)

His hands grasped Her hair, while the lip of Agha's enemy discovered in each concealed place the excellent jewel called a kiss. (11-14)

When the bite of modesty had been cut away and the treasury of nectar plundered by those warriors, the beloved could tolerate no more. Placing boldness, commander of Her army, at the front with the feudal lords of Her nails and teeth, She displayed Her own great prowess and launched a mighty counterbattle. (15)

As Hari's beloved mounted Her lover and displayed Her prowess, the sound of Her waist-belt became a loud kettledrum and Her cries became an excellent lion's roar. (16)

Seeing Him mounted by His beloved, Her restless pearl necklace mistook the two prominent ornaments upon Her breasts for triumphant dancers. Joyfully thinking that unconquered Kṛṣṇa had at last been conquered, the necklace itself danced gracefully. (17)

Whatever jewels Agha's destroyer had secretly taken from Her heart and lips and hidden among His own treasures were now all recovered by the miners of Her teeth and nails. It is true that wealth stolen from another ultimately destroys one's own interest. (18)

Her two heroic eyes rode upon the chariot of Her lotus face and plundered the honey of Śrī Hari's radiance from the cup of His face-lotus, though it was guarded by His eye-bees. When those two opposing warriors confronted them, Her eye-warriors swiftly retreated. (19)

At the mere appearance of Śrī Kṛṣṇa's two peerless eye-warriors, Her vanguard soldiers, the eyes, fled as if from fear. Her entire army of limbs then collapsed in defeat. (20)

Her beautiful forehead was then surrounded by restless curls and the water of perspiration; Her hips became still, Her breasts moved rapidly with Her breath, Her two arms grew languid, and Her eyes half closed. Her defeat in that battle expanded Her beloved's delight. (21)

Commanded by King Love, Rādhā mounted Kṛṣṇa and exerted Herself greatly to display Her own prowess, yet suddenly Her limbs became slack with fatigue. This is not astonishing: she who is called a weak woman remains, after all, a woman. (22)

Rādhikā's motionless form was covered with drops of perspiration; Her loosened garments and ornaments lay scattered upon the bed, and Her murmuring faded. Her eyes closed, Her body fell upon Her beloved's chest, and She shone there like steady lightning upon a fresh raincloud. (23)

Her abdomen, rising with each breath, repeatedly touched Kṛṣṇa's abdomen. Was it perhaps awakening Him from the stunned state of bliss so that He might serve Her? (24)

At that moment the doe-eyed girl's fatigue became Hari's sole bodily attendant, as though it were a sakhī who had arrived to fulfill His desire to touch and behold the newly manifested sweetness of His beloved's shining limbs. (25)

When peace had been made between them, Kṛṣṇa arose in love and used His own lotus hands to wipe away His beloved's perspiration, arrange Her hair and curls, and cover Her with Her garment. (26)

She asked Him to adorn Her body, but He did not wish to do so lest the sakhīs laugh at Her afterward. When She repeatedly insisted, He began the service, but, bewildered by the delight of touching Her, He was stopped and She spoke. (27)

'My lover, why did I ask You to adorn Me here? Abandon this useless exertion and stop, for ornaments give Me no pleasure now. I am not able to bear the weight of so many decorations. Dizziness torments Me; allow Me to lie down for a moment.' (28)

Hari eagerly drank this nectar of speech from His beloved's face-lotus, whose eyes were closed, whose syllables were indistinct, and whose expression beautifully mingled smiles and tears. As Love arose within Him, He became intoxicated, smiling and astonished. (27-29)

Meanwhile the dear sakhīs, whose sole happiness was serving the Couple, waited outside for the proper moment. Their lotus hands bearing articles of service, they then entered the bower. (30)

The sakhīs, intoxicated with love, served the Couple's feet and limbs with betel, cool water, pure fragrances, garlands, gentle massage, fanning, and other offerings. Their fatigue dispelled, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa experienced the highest delight. (31)

Addressing Her beloved with a meaningful, smiling glance, Rādhā said, 'My lover, I find no happiness without those lovely-faced sakhīs whose bodies, overcome by passion, now sleep in their bowers. Awaken them and bring them here to play.' (32)

Though Kṛṣṇa was unwilling, His playful beloved repeatedly entreated Him. He therefore went out to delight those sakhīs, like an intoxicated elephant entering a cluster of lotus ponds. (33)

Kṛṣṇa thought, 'Shall I go first to Lalitā, Viśākhā, or Citrā?' As He contemplated all His dear sakhīs and proceeded joyfully, He entered every group of bowers simultaneously, just as the one Self enters the many living bodies it has fashioned. (34)

In the bowers of all those sakhīs, Kṛṣṇa enacted the same captivating play, in dream and in waking, that He had previously enjoyed with their group-mistress. (35)

In the arm-wrestling contests they arranged with Him, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the foremost of wrestlers, simultaneously defeated all those foremost sakhīs, lovely as jasmine vines. (36)

Meanwhile, after resting briefly in the bower while Her sakhīs served Her, Śrī Rādhikā came with them to the jeweled terrace beside Her own lake. (37)

Though the many signs of lovemaking upon Rādhā's limbs had been concealed beneath the profusion of ornaments placed there by the hand of Her submissive lover, Her body still revealed the bruising of that intense battle of love. She resembled a sacrificial ground swept clean once again after the rite had ended. (38)

Her brows curved with affectionate anger toward Her sakhīs, Her face lowered in shyness, and Her steps unsteady. Her arms hung slack with fatigue and Her eyes were half closed as She approached, accompanied on every side by rows of sakhīs. (38-39)

Kṛṣṇa also emerged from all the bowers, became one again, and joined Madhumaṅgala and His other companions. Seeing His beloved's smiling face, He laughed and approached Her together with them. (40)

The cunning Kundavallī then arranged a sportive game before Vṛndā and the others, with the beloved as referee and the cowherd girls' modesty at stake through the disclosure of their marks of enjoyment. In that contest she immediately defeated and thoroughly embarrassed them all. (41)

The unfathomable ocean of nectar formed by Madhusūdana's loving play remains difficult to enter even for those who bathe repeatedly at the sacred ford of prema. A rare few lovers taste that ocean; other poets can only stand upon its shore and touch it. Such is their good fortune. (42)

Hari and His beloveds were exhausted by their many pastimes. A sakhī who knew the proper moment for her service quickly approached, and, desiring to arrange their play in the water, guided Hari, His beloved, and the other sakhīs toward the lake. (43)

The beautiful girls tied at their necks the hair loosened during play and dressed themselves in fresh, fine white Chinese silk. The attendant sakhīs removed the excessively heavy ornaments from their limbs, and they shone splendidly. (44)

Kṛṣṇa's radiance put a hundred rising moon-lotuses to shame; His lotus eyes blossomed like lotuses beneath the rising sun; and His sidelong glances conquered the flower-arrows of Kandarpa. He longed for lotus-lake play that would dispel all fatigue. (45)

Surrounded by all those lake-like young women, weary Kṛṣṇa entered the lake cherished by His beloved, like a freely roaming, rut-maddened forest elephant entering a pond encircled by a herd of exhausted female elephants. (45-46)

The assembly of gopīs first became a lake for the delight of the two intoxicated elephants of Kṛṣṇa's eyes: their eyes were blue lotuses, their faces golden lotuses, their restless curls bees, their breasts pairs of cakravāka birds, and their slender arms lotus stems. (47)

Some timid girls would not enter the water and remained upon the bank. The others splashed them and, as they tried to flee, laughingly seized their garments and forcibly drew them into the lake. (48)

Some stood in water up to their knees, while others, fearing their beloved's splashing, went in up to their thighs. Standing in water that reached His navel, Hari laughed and forcibly drenched them all. (49)

Their soaked, exceedingly fine garments revealed the graceful beauty of their limbs like splendid rivers. The pair of intoxicated elephants of Hari's eyes appeared submerged in those waters of beauty, while the herds of elephant-like glances belonging to His beloveds were likewise submerged in Him. (50)

Though they did not wish to descend into the water, He pulled them all at once into its navel-deep expanse. Their faces moist with mingled tears and smiles, as if tormented by cold, they shone as they stood surrounding Him. (51)

They sported in water richly fragrant with the dripping nectar and falling pollen of blue lotuses, red lotuses, white lotuses, kahlāras, nīlotpalas, and night-blooming lilies. (52)

Nandīmukhī, Vṛndā, Dhaniṣṭhā, and the others stood upon one bathing terrace. Desiring victory for Rādhā and Her companions, they shouted acclamations and showered flowers. (53)

Madhumaṅgala stood with Subala and Kundavallī upon the opposite bathing terrace. Desiring Kṛṣṇa's victory, he showered flowers and performed other acts of encouragement. (54)

A great splashing battle then arose between Śrī Hari and the girls. For a time their gentle sprays only increased His enthusiasm, but then they drenched Him from every side with unbroken torrents. Feigning fear, He lowered His face and used His petal-like fingers to close His eyes, nose, and ears. (55)

To behold the beauty of all those girls, Hari seemed to assume a thousand eyes; to approach them, a thousand feet; and to embrace them, a thousand arms. (56)

As the doe-eyed girls stood in waist-deep water, Kṛṣṇa accepted a thousand hands with which to splash them, make their face-lotuses blossom, and caress the rows of cakravāka pairs upon their breasts. (57)

Seeing Kṛṣṇa, Madhumaṅgala joyfully recited the meaning of the revealed scripture: 'The Lord has a thousand feet, a thousand eyes, and a thousand arms.' (58)

Standing upon the shore, Nandīmukhī laughed and recited the words of the Smṛti: 'That Supreme Reality has hands and feet everywhere, and eyes, heads, and faces everywhere.' (59)

As the vine-like women of Vraja swayed in their ceaseless water play, Kṛṣṇa's dark form became like a bank of rainclouds pouring slanting torrents upon them in every direction. (60)

Was it because the lac at the tips of their feet was so intensely red? By keeping the girls long in the water and laboring to efface their two colors, this bank of rainclouds seemed to become still more intoxicated. (61)

Although delighted by the touch of water cast from their beloved's hands, the assembly of beauties became distressed by the continuous torrents falling from every side. Their vine-like arms slackened, and their hair, garments, and garlands fell into disarray, so they turned away from the water battle. (62)

Their beloved forcibly detained the helpless girls in the exceedingly clear water and stole their garments. The lotus plants quickly befriended them, offering clusters of petals with their wave-like hands. (63)

As Her sakhīs suffered defeat at every step and both colors vanished from their faces, sweet-speaking Rādhikā repeatedly grew bold in splashing water, determined to conquer Her beloved. (64)

The two rival leaders held back their companies of sakhīs and began a single combat, first fighting with handfuls of water. (65)

While their companies of sakhīs surrounded them, the struggle became hand against hand, arm against arm, nail against nail, then face against face and tooth against tooth. (66)

Seeing Kṛṣṇa languid with bliss from their mutual contact, and Rādhā restless as waves of emotion arose within Her, Lalitā addressed Her. (67)

'Friend, His crest has retreated behind Him. On the pretext of casting its reflection, the Kaustubha has sought refuge upon His cheek. His earrings tremble wildly, His forehead-mark has disappeared, and His garland is torn to pieces. Therefore stop this battle. Do not torment this frightened man.' (68)

As victory and defeat repeatedly alternated in the water battle, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa laughed at one another, and their friends upon the banks laughed in the same way. (69)

Mukunda forcibly drew Rādhā into water that reached His neck. He submerged Her and lifted Her again like an elephant raising a wave-tossed lotus. (70)

With the lotus stems of Her arms placed around His neck and Her face-lotus encircled by the moss of Her bee-black hair, Rādhā floated upon the water like a lotus plant, swaying as the trunk of the Kṛṣṇa-elephant lifted Her. (71)

Meanwhile, the sakhīs joyfully hid among a grove of blossoming golden lotuses in neck-deep water. Rādhā said to Her lover, 'Beloved, where have My friends suddenly gone? Search for them at once.' (72)

Leaving Rādhā in water that reached Her neck, lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa entered the forest of fully opened lotuses to search for the sakhīs. Then lotus-faced Rādhā also disappeared among them. (73)

Madhusūdana saw golden lotuses that rose only slightly above the water, each splendidly adorned with a pair of blossoming blue lotuses and surrounded by moss stirred by the waves. His mind became restless with desire to drink their nectar. (74)

Hari went from one golden-lotus face to another and drank its nectar, like a swarm of thirsty bees visiting every lotus. (75)

Each girl swiftly brought her face close to her beloved's, and for a moment a splendid face-to-face duel arose simultaneously between Kṛṣṇa's face-lotus and all of theirs. Śrī Rādhā, who had secretly joined them, took part as well. (76)

The waves produced by the striking of the gopīs' breasts made the lotuses sway and the bees leap about. As He kissed the girls, Kṛṣṇa saw in those lotuses an image of their faces, whose restless eyes moved in playful opposition. (77)

The girls' limbs had grown slender from the fatigue of their many pastimes, and their bangles were about to slip from their wrists. Their beloved lovingly placed bracelets made of lotus stems beside the rows of bangles, securing them on both sides so they could not fall. (78)

With their smiles, arms, gait, faces, breasts, and eyes, the young women conquered the flowers, lotus fibers, swans, lotuses, cakravākas, and blue lotuses. By the forceful striking of their full breasts and hips, they made the lake's water tremble and churn. (79)

Waves raised by their playful agitation of the water met the wind-driven waves before them, producing such collisions that none of the restless couples could either remain standing or move forward. (80)

Even when the nectar-radiance of the girls' faces arose like the moon, the pairs of cakravāka birds felt no pain of separation. Seeing the breast-cakravāka pairs shining nearby, their minds became reassured and they rejoiced exceedingly. (81)

When the moon of Rādhā's face arose, both the blue lotuses and the night-blooming lilies opened upon the lake. Their bees thus enjoyed at the same moment the honey-drinking happiness that ordinarily belongs separately to night and day. (82)

While the sakhīs watched the wondrous simultaneous play of bees among both night lilies and day lotuses, Hari concealed Himself within a cluster of blue lotuses. (83)

The sakhīs went in search of Him, but mistook the blue lotuses for His faces and kissed them, intoxicated with joy. When they looked at one another and realized their mistake, they became bashful. (84)

Then Citrā happened to see Rādhā approaching the side of Her beloved's face. She called to the sakhīs, 'Friends, look at the great wonder before us in this cluster of lotuses!' (85)

'A moving golden lotus, covered by a mass of long moss, holds a wondrous pair of dancing wagtails at its center and is encircled by a restless swarm of bees. Beside it, an equally remarkable blue lotus moves about.' (86)

'Driven forward by strong, shining waves, the golden lotus touched the blue lotus. Though it separated again, the waves repeatedly impelled it back, so that in great restlessness the two were joined and parted again and again.' (87)

'At times two cakravākas rise from the water and suddenly cover the pair of lotuses that has appeared; then from those cakravākas a beautiful pair of white lilies arises.' The sakhīs delighted in this playful exaggeration. (88)

Kṛṣṇa brought Rādhā back among the sakhīs. His face then shone like a blue lotus encircled by a garland of golden lotuses. (89)

Together with the girls, Kṛṣṇa played water-frog instruments, making them sound in one place like paṭaha drums and elsewhere like kettledrums. (90)

The lake became still more fragrant and cool from the fragrance and coolness of Hari's body and the bodies of His beloveds, and its water grew variegated with their black, white, and golden cosmetics. Indeed, the pure acquire virtues through association with those who possess them. (91)

Hari appeared like a blossoming lotus lake as the lotus-like girls sprinkled Him with their lotus hands and He sprinkled them in return. Emerging from that forest of fully opened lotuses, He left the water and came to the bathing terrace. (92)

The attendant sakhīs served Kṛṣṇa and His beloveds by massaging their bodies with oils and fragrant unguents. Rādhā, Kṛṣṇa, and the girls joyfully bathed one another in love, completed their own baths, and rose from the water upon the shore. (93)

Streams of water poured from the edges of the garments clinging to the fair-limbed girls. They resembled streams falling from masses of autumn clouds caught upon rows of small peaks of a golden mountain. (94)

Drops of water fell from the tips of their loosened locks like rows of pearls threaded upon cords. Forming many single-strand pearl necklaces, those drops shone brilliantly and delighted the Lord within their hearts. (95)

Even a momentary glimpse of Kṛṣṇa was difficult for the doe-eyed girls to obtain in dreams, but now they saw Him and enjoyed the desired union without impediment. Yet, wondrously, as they drank the nectar of His sweetness for so long, their thirst merely doubled. (96)

The girls had never expected to behold Him, yet by good fortune they obtained the happiness of love and all that followed from it. The sight of each other's limbs revealed beneath their soaked garments awakened immense joy. (97)

All those joys found room within the body of Aghadviṣ. This was no wonder, for in His childhood even the countless ropes placed around that body by His mother remained a full span too short. (97-98)

The sakhīs dried their bodies and hair and dressed them in fresh outer garments of Chinese silk. Kṛṣṇa, His assembly of dark-haired beloveds, and His companions then swiftly ascended the beautiful lotus pavilion. (99)

Kṛṣṇa sat upon the excellent southern terrace of the lotus pavilion. Śrī Rādhā, accompanied by Her assembly of sakhīs, personally adorned the beloved of Her life with numerous arrangements and many ornaments fashioned from flowers, following the graceful order inspired by Her love. (100)

Rādhā lifted and bound Her beloved's hair after it had been dried and perfumed with aguru incense, combed with a beautiful comb, and encircled with jasmine buds. She ornamented it with clusters of jāti, raṅgaṇa, yūthikā, bakula, golden campaka, and yūthī flowers, together with fresh shoots, ketakī leaves, shining campaka blossoms, and peacock feathers. (101)

She wound garlands successively upward, while paired necklaces of guñjā berries and pearls shone on either side, and formed a radiant crest of flower clusters and feathers. Thick at its base, exceedingly fine at its tip, and attractive as a swarm of bees, Rādhā fashioned upon His forehead a world-enchanting topknot as magnificent as a royal yak-tail fan. (101-102)

Once the swarms of the young women's bee-like eyes fastened upon that topknot, they could not withdraw; once its image entered their heart-lotuses, it never departed. Even a single glimpse of its shadow bewildered Kṛṣṇa Himself. His dark crest shone, seeming to drink the whole world with its radiance. (103)

Lalitā made a moonlike vermilion tilaka upon Hari's forehead, placing a glistening central drop within it and surrounding it with dots of fine sandalwood paste. To cleave the girls' hearts, that tilaka became Love's golden discus. (104)

Citrā painted an exquisite vermilion design with many ornamental divisions upon Kṛṣṇa's body. Undulating with waves of beauty, it recalled the shining pairs of Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs in the rāsa dance. (105)

Citrā then made a wondrous picture upon the radiant cloud-dark body of her friend. It became a net spread by the fowler Kandarpa to capture the wagtail birds of the sakhīs' eyes. (106)

The girls joyfully adorned their beloved with earrings, necklaces, bracelets, shining anklets, a sash, and armlets fashioned from fragrant buds, flowers, and fresh leaves of many colors. The beauty of that elegant attire became Kāma's snare for capturing the doe-like eyes of all the young women. (107)

Behind a reed screen, Rādhā was adorned there with flower ornaments by Her sakhīs, and the sakhīs in turn were adorned by their groups of attendants. (108)

Vṛndā then led Kṛṣṇa and the girls to a pleasant terrace, where they saw many kinds of food, chiefly fruits. (109)

The foods had been arranged separately upon palāśa and śāla leaves, banana bark and banana leaves, and in pots, bowls, and other vessels. (109-110)

Kṛṣṇa sat down to eat upon a seat covered with white flowers. Śrī Subala sat on His left and Madhumaṅgala on His right. (111)

Rādhā sat before them and, together with Her sakhīs, served the foods that Vṛndā repeatedly brought and placed in Her hands. (112)

First there were many coconuts of different varieties and colors: white, red, green, and yellow, some without formed flesh, some with soft flesh, and others whose flesh was slightly firm. (113)

Their husks had been skillfully cut so that they resembled conches in color and form. Rādhā served these coconuts to them first. (113-114)

After they drank the coconut water, the fruits were split open and their sweet flesh removed. Rādhā and Her sakhīs gave it to them, and they ate it. (115)

Rādhā then served them many kinds of mangoes in succession, distinguished by variety, color, shape, flavor, ripeness, and method of preparation. (116)

They relished some slightly ripe mangoes that had been peeled and cut into chewable slices. (117)

They ate other ripe mangoes cut with the skin remaining, whose somewhat thick juice was bitten free with the lips and licked. (118)

They joyfully sucked other fully ripened, sweet, fibrous mangoes, filled with juice and opened at one end. (119)

They ate the seedless bulbs removed from thorny jackfruits, which resembled golden lotuses and campaka buds. (120)

There were many varieties of pīlū fruit, grapes, dates, palm fruits, śrīphalas, rose apples, lavalīs, and lakucas. (121)

There were heaps of many kinds of bananas and jujubes, together with water chestnuts, palmyra kernels, kṣīrikā fruits, and mulberries. (122)

There were figs, amṛtāṅkas, nāsa-pātī fruits, oranges, star fruits, and vikaṅkata fruits. (123)

There were suṣeṇa fruits, citrons, wood apples, and many varieties of pomegranate seeds removed from their rinds. (124)

There were māyāmbus, sukhāśas, cucumbers, muskmelons, sweet potatoes, keśarāja and other roots, and radishes. (125)

There were lotus tubers, fresh lotus seeds and their kernels, lotus stalks, and abundant kernels of piyāla nuts, pistachios, and almonds. (126)

In Śrī Rādhā's home, sugar and thickened milk had been fashioned into confections shaped like oranges, rucakas, mangoes, and other fruits. (127)

There were also trees made from cooked sugar and laden with fruit and flowers, including bilvas, pomegranates, śīryāmras, oranges, rucakas, and many others. (128)

Rādhā had prepared at home many foods whose qualities delighted all five of Kṛṣṇa's senses, including laḍḍus called Candrakānti, Gaṅgājala, and others. (129)

There were large santānikā sweets containing crystalline sugar, cloves, cardamom, pepper, and other spices, as well as laḍḍus made from flour. (130)

The dear sakhīs brought preparations such as Karpūrāmṛta and Keli, made from jackfruit, mango, and other juices blended with honey, camphor, and sugar. (131)

Rādhikā served all these preparations in sequence, and lotus-eyed Hari ate them together with Subala and Madhumaṅgala. (132)

They ate piece after piece of the leaves, flowers, fruits, trunks, branches, and roots of those confectionery trees, together with the accompanying preparations of thickened milk. (133)

Madhumaṅgala alternately criticized and praised the foods and the girls who served them. With jokes and comical distortions of his face, he made everyone laugh. (134)

They drank as much camphor-scented water as they desired, and then rinsed their mouths with fragrant water supplied by the sakhīs. (135)

Hari then entered the lotus pavilion and lay upon a bed fashioned from excellent flowers. Tulasī and the dear sakhīs served Him there by offering betel, gently massaging His feet, fanning Him, and performing other services. (136)

Chewing a packet of betel, Madhumaṅgala lay down with Subala upon a cool bed on the southern terrace of the lotus pavilion. (137)

Śrī Rādhikā and Her companions then sat down joyfully and ate the foods they deeply desired because those remnants had become nectar through contact with Her beloved's lips. Śrī Rūpa Mañjarī and Vṛndā served them. (138)

The abundant joking exchanged there among Nandīmukhī, Kundavallī, and the sakhīs became an added relish served alongside the friends' happiness in dining together. (139)

After rinsing their mouths, they all entered the beautiful lotus pavilion. Rādhā sat upon the bed, surrounded on every side by Her company of sakhīs. (140)

Tulasī gave the girls betel chewed by Śrī Hari, and she gave fresh betel packets to Nandīmukhī, Dhaniṣṭhā, and Kundavallī. (141)

Then Tulasī, Rūpa Mañjarī, and Vṛndā ate the remaining foods together with the groups of attendant sakhīs. (142)

When those sakhīs had eaten and returned, they and Nandīmukhī's group went out to the eastern terrace and all lay down to sleep. (143)

Śrī Rādhikā then gave them Her chewed betel and handed a fresh packet to Vṛndā. Vṛndā ate it and went outside. (144)

Kṛṣṇa drew His bashful beloved toward Him and laughed again and again. With care He placed chewed betel from His own lotus mouth into Her lotus mouth, and, rejoicing, made Her lie beside Him. (145)

Served with fanning and other offerings by Śrī Rūpa Mañjarī and the principal sakhīs, the Divine Couple enjoyed the happiness of sleep there for a while. (146)

Thus ends the Fifteenth Sarga, following the midday pastimes, in Govinda-līlāmṛta, a poem born from serving Śrī Rūpa, the honeybee at Śrī Caitanya's lotus feet; revealed through the merit of Śrī Raghunātha Dāsa; arisen in the association of Śrī Jīva; and composed by the excellent Śrī Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa. (15)