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Begin where the quarrel has just ended. Śrīmatī Rādhā has held Her proud little huff, Her māna, until Śyāma has tasted its full sweetness, and now the cloud has passed. Out of that mended tenderness They step together into the woods for vana vihāra, the forest stroll, and the whole of Vṛndāvana wakes to receive Them. O Vṛndāvana-bhūmi, you know the desire of this clever pair before They speak it, and so you make yourself beautiful for Their coming. The trees and vines push their flowers open so brightly that the fragrance maddens the bumblebees. The branches, heavy with ripened fruit, bow low to the very ground, as if so many bodies were laying themselves down in obeisance before the youthful Couple. The pomegranates split open and let their sweetness ooze. The parrots and the cuckoos lift delightful songs, and a soft breeze moves through until every creature of the forest shivers with ecstasy. Peacocks begin to dance. And the deer that should fear the tiger, and the birds that should flee, forget their old enmities and roam together, gentled, because a golden and bluish light is pouring out of the two of Them and washing the whole forest sweeter than it was.

Now picture Them inside that light. Rādhā and Śyāma rest Their arms on each other's shoulders and dive together into the ocean of Vṛndāvana's beauty, while just behind, soft as a shadow, the maidservant follows. And here is the wonder the verse keeps: this Couple, who have seen this forest endlessly, look at it as if for the very first time. They turn to each other and point: see this, see that. They sing, each praising the sweet attributes of the other, the forest only a frame for the Beloved's face.

Then comes the first imitation. A swan-couple, a haṁsa-mithunam, hears Them approaching and grows startled, and the two birds walk slowly off toward a nearby pond. With playful, līlā-laden steps, calal-līlā-gatyā, the clever Couple fall in behind them and walk the swans' very walk, following all the way to the water's edge. And when the swans slip into the pond and float there facing each other, happy in their nearness, the Couple stand on the shore and laugh and copy that too, that facing, that nearness. The maidservant watching it lets her swan-like mind slip into its own pond and swim in a pool of bliss.

Then the second imitation. Somewhere ahead a peacock has spread the great fan of his feathers and dances, proud, before the peahen, kekinī-agre. So Śyāmasundara will be a peacock. He sinks down onto His knees, He gathers the end of His dhoti into His hands and spreads it wide like a tail of feathers, and He dances the peacock's dance, candraki anukṛti. And the real peacocks all around, seeing Kṛṣṇa dance so sweetly, are stirred to dance better than they ever danced, and Śyāma, delighted, imitates their fresh and eager movements all over again, the divine borrowing from the bird that is borrowing from Him.

Then the third, and the deepest. Somewhere a golden flowering vine, a latā, has thrown itself around the best of trees, a Tamāla, śākhī-pravaram, and clings. And Śrīmatī becomes the vine. She takes hold of Kṛṣṇa and embraces Him tightly, latā-śliṣṭam made flesh, the slender one wound about the dark strong one. This is no copied pose only. The tradition reads it as a confession of who She is to Him: the one who does not stand alone and does not wish to, the one who lives by holding on, whose whole being is the embrace. The Tamāla is dark like Him; the gold vine is bright like Her; and the forest has handed Them the exact image of Themselves.

So mark what this clever pair, this vidagdha-dvandvam, is doing in all three. They do not seize the forest's beauty or push the swans and peacocks aside to take the stage. They lower Themselves to a swan's gait, a peacock's posture, a vine's hold, and play along. The highest Two in all of creation take Their lessons from birds and creepers, for the sheer joy of it. Aho, cries the verse, O wonder. And the maidservant, hidden at the edge of it, counts herself blessed beyond blessing that she of all souls is given eyes to witness these sweet pastimes of the clever amorous Couple in Their unrivalled playground, Śrī Vṛndāvana, where, ramata iha vṛndāvana-bhuvi, They ramble and sport and never stop.