Verse 17

¹²Seeing this game of his, the cowherd women, flooded with love and ashamed, looked at each other and laughed, and did not come out. ¹³While Govinda talked on like this, their minds thrown about by the joke, they stood sunk to the neck in the cold water, shivering, and said to him: ¹⁴Do not do us a wrong, sir. We know you, dear one: you are the dear son of Nanda the cowherd, the pride of Vraja. Give us our clothes, we are shivering. ¹⁵Beautiful dark one, we are your servants and we will do what you say. Give us our clothes. You know dharma — or else we will tell the king. ¹⁶Bhagavan said: If you are my servants and will do what I say, then come here and take your own clothes, bright-smiling ones.

¹⁷Then all the girls came up out of the water, shivering with cold, covering themselves below with their hands, thin with the cold.