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Excerpts

nItishataka 3

The fundamentally ignorant man is easily led, and
the wise man still more easily ; but not even the
Almighty Himself can exercise any influence on
the smatterer.

---
verse 8 in Barbara Stoler Miller's Bhartrihari: poems:

An ignorant man is readily pleased,
More readily yet is a sage
But a man distorted by trifling knowledge,
Brahma himself cannot sway.

Paul Elmer More's verse translation, from A Century of Indian Epigrams (1898):

	Lightly an ignorant boor is made content.
	And lightlier yet a sage ;
	But minds by half-way knowledge warped and bent,
	Not Brahma's self their fury may assuage.
				(XXX, p.52)]

nItishataka 2

I believed that one woman was devoted to me, but
she is now attracted by another man, and another
man takes pleasure in her, while a second woman
interests herself in me. Curses on them both, and
on the god of love, and on the other woman, and
on myself.

appears in the introduction in Barbara Stoler Miller's Bhartrihari: poems:

	She who is the constant object of my thought
	Is indifferent to me,
	Is desirous of another man,
	Who in his turn adores some other woman,
	But this woman takes delight in me . . .
	Damn her! Damn him! The God of love!
	The other woman! And Myself!
			- verse 311 kosambi critical text

shringAra shataka 15

It is but natural that the voluptuousness of thy
rounded breasts, thy trembling eyes, thy
ever-moving brows, and thy rosy lips, should
arouse amorous emotions in a man ; but why is it
that that thin line of hair which we can just see
peeping forth ex venire tuo should cause us so
much more emotional discomfort?—that little line
of hair that looks like a special mark of favour
bestowed by the God of Love himself.

appears as verse 119 in Barbara Stoler Miller's Bhartrihari: poems:

	full unruly breasts, flashing eyes, enticing brows,
	And budlike lips full of passion disquiet me.
	Well they may, but why does a supple line of hair
	Drawn on her belly by kAma's flower weapon
	Become an indelible mark of beauty
	To torment me so excessively?