6 
The Bengali Poem 7 Candi. 
Why in a passion leave your home ? yon sacrifice your all—for what? 
Poisoning yourself for spite to her ; and will the rival care one jot ? ” 
The goddess answered : “ I am come, because I cannot bear to see 
Your noble husband thus beset with all the ills of poverty. 
And list; I met him in the wood, ’t was he himself who brought me here; 
Ask him yourself; if he denies, I ’ll go and seek my home elsewhere. 
Say what you will, I mean to stay ; my wealth shall all your sorrows cure; 
I am a lady as you say, and I will keep my honour pure. 
I thank you for your good advice, but keep it for some future day; 
You may require it all yourself; fear not that I shall lose my way.” 
With sad forebodings, next, th’ unhappy wife 
Gives the year’s history of her struggling life : 
“ See this poor hut; a palm-leaf thatch atop ; 
One ricinus * post within its only prop ; 
How mid such squalor could you bear to stop ? 
Baigakh f (1) begins my misery’s calendar: 
Dust-storms sweep by, the suns more fiercely glare; 
Put howsoever fierce o’erhead the heat 
I with sore feet must go and sell the meat; 
Ladies may sit ’neath shady trees, but there 
How should I find, alas! a customer ? 
E’en in the villages they scarce will buy, 
‘ Who would eat flesh in Baigakh ? ’ is the cry. 
These rags ill shield my poor head from the sun;— 
Baigakh is poison: this for number one. 
Jyaistha £ (2) is worse; for fiercer still its rays; 
And I, however thirsty ’neath their blaze, 
Yet dare not set my basket down to drink, 
Or kites will empty it before I think; 
Jyaistha’s a fasting month to me perforce, 
Ho month of all the twelve to me is worse. 
Next comes Asarh (3), to soak the fields and roads; 
And e’en the rich in their well-stocked abodes 
* The Ricinus communis , or castor-oil plant, is in India a tree which is often thirty or 
forty feet high. 
f Half April and May. I have in this passage chiefly followed the text of the 1867 
edition ; the last edition begins the list with Asarh. 
f Hah May and June. 
