Verse 9

¹Once, as the teacher of the world sat at his ease on his own couch, Bhismaka's daughter waited on her husband with a fan, with her women friends. ²He who as Lord makes this world in play, and swallows it, and keeps it: he it is, the unborn, who was born among the Yadus to guard the lines he himself laid down. ³In that inner room, bright with a canopy hung with strings of pearls, and with lamps made of jewels, ⁴with garlands of jasmine flowers loud with families of bees, and with the clean rays of the moon coming in at the lattice holes, ⁵lovely with a garden wind carrying the scent of the parijata grove, and with aloe incense going out at the lattice holes, king,

⁶on a couch white as the foam of milk, with the finest of cushions, she waited on her husband, the Lord of the worlds, as he sat at his ease. ⁷Taking from her friend's hand a hair fan with a jewelled handle, the lady fanned him with it and waited on the Lord. ⁸She shone there beside the Unfallen, making her jewelled anklets ring, rings and bangles and the fan's handle in her hands, her necklace red from the saffron on her breasts hidden under the edge of her cloth, and a girdle beyond price held at her hips. ⁹Looking at her, Sri in a body, who has nowhere else to go, whose beauty matched his who takes on a body in play, Hari was pleased and smiled, and spoke to that nectar of a smile shining out of a face with its curls, its earrings, and the gold at its throat.