translation question

[Guest guest]

Hi guys.

 

The best I can do with Yudhisthiravijaya 2:55 is this:

 

virahiNamaara vyasanaM bhRngaizca babhuuva bhuvanamaaravyasanam

sutaraamabhramadabhraM babhraaje bhramaravarNamabhramadamabhram

 

'Sorrow came to the wayfarer separated [from his beloved]; black bees became

eager to kill people; the sky, without wandering clouds, bee-colored, affording

no clouds, shone brightly.'

 

I wonder about two things: first, obviously, the apparent craziness of

bhRngaizca babhuuva bhuvanamaaravyasanam, which last word Rajanakaratnakantha

glosses lokamaaraNasya vyasanam. So I don't see what else it could mean

besides what I have written, but I have no confidence that such a strange

notion could be right. Unless this refers to the phenomenon I have often

observed in the autumn (for sarad is being described in this verse), the

drunken aggressiveness of bees and wasps when the air becomes cold, as if they

were seized by a vengeful violence on the eve of their death, since many

species at least do not hibernate and live through the winter. I wonder if

this happens in India as well, and if the fact is ever mentioned in literature.

 

The second thing is, I presume that abhramadam in the second hemistich can only

mean 'not affording clouds', but Rajanakaratnakantha does not gloss it, and it

seems strange that abhra should be used again with the same sense after

abhramadabhram at the beginning of the hemistich. Even more confusingly,

Rajanakaratnakantha glosses this same abhramadabhram with na bhramaanti

abhraaNi meghaa yasmin, 'in which clouds do not wander, are unwandering', which

seems obvious enough; but he precedes this gloss with adabhraM

ghanam, 'adabhram [means] "cloud"', and although adabhram may be discerned in

abhramadabhram, I cannot make this work: the phrase surely cannot be abhram

adabhram, 'cloudless sky', because abhram occurs at the very end of the verse,

and Rajanakaratnakantha has already analyzed abhramadabhram as abhramad abhram,

a bahuvrihi. So it's very confusing.

 

Be gentle if I've got it totally wrong.

 

Phillip