*Whatever it was that he — who, in front of your friends, out of greed to touch your face, would put it in your ear even when it could have been said aloud — he, gone past the reach of your hearing, unseen by your eyes, says this to you through my mouth, its words put together by longing.*
**The stanza is one sentence measured between an ear and a continent.** The second pāda has his mouth at her ear, saying quietly a thing that did not need to be quiet, because whispering was a way of touching her face — Mallinātha is blunter than the verse and names what the greed was for: **अधरपानलोभादित्यर्थः**, greed to drink her lip. The third pāda takes both senses away: श्रवणविषयम् अतिक्रान्तः, past the ear's road, and लोचनाभ्याम् अदृष्टः, unseen by the eyes. His comment on the pair is one line — अतिदूरत्वाद्द्रष्टुं श्रोतुं च न शक्य इति भावः, being too far, he can neither be seen nor heard.
**And then the messenger says *I*.** मन्मुखेन, through my mouth — the only first person in the whole message, and Mallinātha reads it as a disclaimer: मन्मुखेन स एव … इत्यर्थः, the mouth is mine and the speaking is his. The stanza that describes a man who would not raise his voice is delivered in a borrowed one, and the particle किल a pāda earlier already marks the whispering as something the speaker only heard about.
**Two pronouns point at things not in the verse, and one of them the commentary fetches from the next stanza.** यत् has no noun — वचनमपीति शेषः, *the word too is to be supplied* — so what he was so eager to say is never said. इदम् points forward, and Mallinātha names the target: इदं वक्ष्यमाणं “श्यामास्वङ्गम्” इत्यादिकम्, beginning with the first word of 2.44.
**He ends the comment by giving away the plan of the next four stanzas.** There are four consolations of the separated, he says — सादृश्य, seeing something that resembles her; प्रतिकृति, her likeness drawn; स्वप्नदर्शन, seeing her in sleep; and तदङ्गस्पृष्टस्पर्श, touching what her body has touched — and he quotes the **Guṇapatākā**, a title new to this commentary, for a verse that lists them. Then: तत्र सदृशवस्तुदर्शनमाह, *of these he now speaks of seeing a thing that resembles her*. 2.44 is the likenesses, 2.45 the painting on the rock, 2.46 the dream, 2.47 the wind off the deodars that may have touched her. The list is the poem's next four stanzas in order, named before they are read.
**Two lexicons and a grammarian's definition.** लोल is glossed लालस with Yādava quoted for six words for craving — his first appearance in the second canto. पद is left deliberately double: सुप्तिङन्तशब्दा वाक्यानि वा, either inflected words or sentences, with Viśva's पदं शब्दे च वाक्ये च behind it; the first of the two is Pāṇini's own definition at 1.4.14 सुप्तिङन्तं पदम्. **And the verb is a curiosity neither witness remarks on**: आह is not a root but √ब्रू in disguise, substituted before the present's first five endings by 3.4.84, and those endings replaced by the perfect's — a present wearing the tense of what the speaker did not witness, in the stanza about being out of sight. No figure is named.
uncheckedthe reader's reading, following Mallinātha, Sañjīvinī's gloss. His are: प्रियः supplied for यः and सः, पुरस्तादग्रे, आननस्पर्शे त्वन्मुखसम्पर्के लोभाद्गार्ध्न्यात् with अधरपानलोभादित्यर्थः, शब्देन रवेणाख्येयमुच्चैर्वाच्यम्, वचनमपीति शेषः, लोलो लालसः with the Yādava line, कर्णपथम् for श्रवणविषयम्, अतिदूरत्वाद्द्रष्टुं श्रोतुं च न शक्य इति भावः, उत्कण्ठया विरचितानि पदानि सुप्तिङन्तशब्दा वाक्यानि वा with the Viśva line, इदं वक्ष्यमाणं श्यामास्वङ्गमित्यादिकम्, मन्मुखेन स एव … इत्यर्थः, and the closing list of the four विनोदस्थानानि with the Guṇapatākā verse and तत्र सदृशवस्तुदर्शनमाह. That the stanza is measured between an ear and a continent, that मन्मुखेन is the message's one first person, and that किल marks the cloud reporting what it did not see, are the reader's; that the four consolations are the plan of 2.44 to 2.47 follows his own तत्र and is checked against those four stanzas in this corpus. Pāṇini 1.4.14, 3.1.97, 3.2.115, 3.4.84, 6.4.15, 6.4.65, 7.2.35, 7.3.84, 8.2.36, 8.4.41 and 8.4.45 are by way of skt-data's sūtra corpus, none of them named by him. Neither Yādava's nor Viśva's lexicon nor the Guṇapatākā is in this repository and none of the three citations can be checked; the quoted Guṇapatākā verse is corrupt in the copy and is read only for the four items it enumerates“sādṛśyapratikṛtisvapnadarśana-tadaṅgaspṛṣṭasparśākhyāni catvāri virahiṇāṃ vinodasthānāni | tathā coktaṃ guṇapatākāyām … tatra sadṛśavastudarśanam āha”
Whatever it was that he — who, in front of your friends, out of greed to touch your face, would put it in your ear even when it could have been said aloud — he, gone past the reach of your hearing, unseen by your eyes, says this to you through my mouth, its words put together by longing. The stanza is one sentence measured between an ear and a continent: the second pāda has his mouth at her ear, whispering a thing that did not need to be quiet because whispering was a way of touching her face — Mallinātha is blunter than the verse and names what the greed was for, अधरपानलोभादित्यर्थः, greed to drink her lip; the third pāda takes both senses away, past the ear's road and unseen by the eyes, अतिदूरत्वाद्द्रष्टुं श्रोतुं च न शक्य इति भावः, too far to be seen or heard. Then the messenger says *I*, मन्मुखेन, the message's one first person, delivered in a borrowed voice. Mallinātha ends by giving away the plan of the next four stanzas: four consolations of the separated — सादृश्य, seeing a resemblance; प्रतिकृति, a likeness drawn; स्वप्नदर्शन, seeing her in sleep; and तदङ्गस्पृष्टस्पर्श, touching what her body has touched — quoting the Guṇapatākā, and then तत्र सदृशवस्तुदर्शनमाह, of these he now speaks of the first: 2.44 the likenesses, 2.45 the painting, 2.46 the dream, 2.47 the wind off the deodars. The poem's next four stanzas are named before they are read. No figure is named.
- Mallinātha, Sañjīvinī — 2.43: sādṛśyapratikṛtisvapnadarśana-tadaṅgaspṛṣṭasparśākhyāni catvāri virahiṇāṃ vinodasthānāni … tatra sadṛśavastudarśanam āha