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Begin in the soft, spent hour that follows the wild play of noon. The turbulent midday pastimes are over, and Rādhā and Mādhava, with all Their sakhīs around Them, come down to Lalitā's arbour on the shore of Rādhākuṇḍa to taste the pleasure of rest. The grove is still. The water holds the light. They sink into the shade together, and the maidservants kneel to fan Them and to press and massage Their lotus feet. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja sets it before us in the Govinda-līlāmṛta, that hour of relaxation in the bower; and into that stillness Vṛndādevī, who reads Their unspoken wish before it is spoken, comes forward and places before Them the cup brimming with mādhvīka, the honeywine of the forest. And mark this tenderly: even Śrīpāda, the singer of this poem, in his kiṅkarī-form, is blessed with some small service here. He is not outside the scene. He is in it, fan in hand.

See the canopy overhead: mādhavī, the spring creeper, hung thick with blossom, its honeyed scent everywhere, a sweet living pavilion. And beneath it, two complexions no painter has ever matched, and which the verse can only call kim api, indescribable. He is nīla, the deep blue of the rain-laden cloud. She is pīta, the gold of dawn upon the river, the gold of the lightning that lives inside the cloud. Blue beside gold, gold against blue, and the eye cannot decide which is the jewel and which the setting. Aho, the tradition can only cry. This is the bhuvana-mohana Couple, the Enchanter of all the worlds; not a corner of creation is left unbewitched. And yet here They sit, world-enchanters about to be enchanted Themselves.

For the wine is brought, and watch why this wine above all wines is dear to Śyāma. Kṛṣṇadāsa fixes the four reasons in the Govinda-līlāmṛta. It is pressed from the grapes of His own beloved forest, Vṛndāvana. It has touched the lips of His Priyājī and so carries Her fragrance. It has been scented by the laughing, teasing words of Her girlfriends as it was made. And it is offered into His hand by Her own hand. For these four reasons the dark Lord drinks it eagerly, thirstily, as though He drinks not wine but Her.

Watch how the cup passes. Balānuja, the younger brother of Bala, lifts it close to Her face and says, low and tender, "O dearest One, drink." And She, nectar-faced, turns Her head aside in shyness and takes the glass from His hand into Her own. She draws Her veil across Her mouth. She breathes the wine once, only smelling it. She touches it with Her lips, lets it scent Her, and returns the cup to Her Priyatama. And He, finding Her fragrance now upon the rim, scents it again with His own lips and hands it back, and She drinks once more. This is the whole of love passed in a single cup: the offering, the shyness, the giving back, the drinking of one another through a thing of grapes and honey.

Then Vṛndādevī and Kundalatā, brimming over, carry the cup on to all the sakhīs, so that every one may drink the nectar of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa's lips. For this is madhotsava, the honey-festival, and the very word tells us a festival is never for one or two. It is for the many. The Govinda-līlāmṛta sings how Vṛndā and her sylvan goddesses bring many kinds of snacks and many kinds of honeywine before the King and Queen of Vṛndāvana and Their girlfriends, until one by one the whole grove grows tender with drink.

And now behold what the wine reveals, for it hides nothing. The gopīs' voices begin to falter. Their feet stumble as they walk. Hair comes loose, garments slip, the corners of their eyes flush red, their mouths grow fragrant, their glances turn restless, their gestures grow bold and free. The Govinda-līlāmṛta names every one of these small unravellings, and names too the wine itself, pressed from flowers and brown sugar and the trees of the wood. And every loosening is itself an offering, for in all of it the gopīs gladden the mind of Śyāma. Drunkenness here does not coarsen love. It strips away the last cloth of restraint and shows the love that was always underneath, shining.

But the two who grow maddest of all are Rādhā and Mādhava Themselves, for though by Their very nature They are drawn past all telling to one another, the wine now makes Them wilder still. The Alaṅkāra-kaustubha holds the picture: They slip from each other's laps and fall together again; They tell each other the secrets of Their hearts merely by the touch of hand on hand; They murmur sweet useless nothings into each other's ears, kiss each other's cheeks a hundred times over, lay Their arms across each other's shoulders, and lift the cup to each other's lips again and again. All glories, the tradition sings, to this madhu-mada-krīḍā, this drunken springtime play.

And then, sweetest of all, the broken speech of make-believe terror. The Alaṅkāra-kaustubha keeps the very stammer of it: reeling, holding hard to one another, They cry out in trembling, half-formed words, "What a disaster, is the sky fa-falling? Is the earth tu-turning round? My body shivers, I am falling, ho-ho-hold Me." So They cling, the dark one and the golden, conquered by the honey-madness, stammering their lovely fear so that neither will ever let the other go. Before such a sight what can the heart do but bow? I offer my obeisances, the singer says, to this Rādhā and this Mukunda, drunk and clinging and tender.

This is the scene the longing devotee stands before, hands folded, soul aflame. And from that ache rises the whole cry of the verse: aho, when, O when. When will this most cultured, most clever Couple, blue and gold beneath the mādhavī flowers, eager for the indescribable honey-festival, drunk on the rising joy of a mutual love that only grows firmer, take this poor mind of mine and madden it, and keep it maddened forever? Not for an hour, not for the length of one festival. Cirataram. For always, sarvadā. Śrīpāda's own prayer is just this: when will I gladden my mind forever by witnessing the vernal festival of this clever Couple? Let me be drawn into this honey-festival and never released. Let the maddening of Their love become the permanent weather of my heart.

For notice that the prayer is not to drink the wine. It is not even to be the Couple, nor to seize the rasa. After witnessing all of this, it is the fortunate maidservant who steps forward and serves the divine Pair according to the hour and the need. The watching itself is the wine the servant drinks. To stand at the edge of Lalitā's bower with a fan in hand, with the cup ready to be carried, with eyes full of blue and gold, and to be permitted to serve: this is the festival the devotee begs to enter and never leave.