17 A courtesan* who distinguishes herself in these arts
and who has a good nature, beauty, and good qualities,
wins the title of Courtesan de Luxe
and a place in the public assembly.
18 The king always honours her,
and virtuous people praise her.
Men seek her, approach her for sex,
and she is a standard for other courtesans to strive for.
19 The daughter of a king or of a minister of state,
if she knows the techniques,
can keep her husband in her power
even if he has a thousand women in his harem.
20 And if she is separated from her husband
and in dire straits, even in a foreign land, by means of these sciences
she can live quite happily.
21 A man who is accomplished in these arts,
eloquent, and skilled at flattery,
even if he is not well known,
finds the way to women’s hearts right away.
22 Luck in love* comes
from learning the arts;
but a man should consider the right time and place
before he uses, or does not use, a technique.
CHAPTER FOUR
[4] The Lifestyle of the Man-about-town
1 When a man has become educated, he enters the householder stage of life and begins the lifestyle of a man-about-town,* using the money that he has inherited, on the one hand, or obtained from gifts, conquest, trade, or wages, on the other, or from both. 2He settles down in a city, a capital city, a market town, or some large gathering where there are good people, or wherever he has to stay to make a living. 3And there he makes his home in a house near water, with an orchard, separate servant quarters, and two bedrooms. 4This is how the house is furnished: In the outer bedroom there is a bed, low in the middle and very soft, with pillows on both sides and a white top sheet. (There is also a couch.) At the head of the bed there is a grass mat and an altar, on which are placed the oils and garlands left over from the night, a pot of beeswax, a vial of perfume, some bark from a lemon tree, and betel.* On the floor, a spittoon. A lute, hanging from an ivory tusk; a board to draw or paint on, and a box of pencils. Some book or other, and garlands of amaranth flowers. On the floor, not too far away, a round bed with a pillow for the head. A board for dice and a board for gambling. Outside, cages of pet birds. And, set aside, a place for carpentry or woodworking and for other games. In the orchard, a well-padded swing in the shade, and a bench made of baked clay and covered with flowers.
5 He gets up in the morning, relieves himself, cleans his teeth, applies fragrant oils in small quantities, as well as incense, garlands, beeswax and red lac, looks at his face in a mirror, takes some mouthwash and betel, and attends to the things that need to be done. 6He bathes every day, has his limbs rubbed with oil every second day, a foam bath every third day, his face shaved every fourth day, and his body hair removed every fifth or tenth day. All of this is done without fail. And he continually cleans the sweat from his armpits. 7In the morning and afternoon he eats; ‘In the evening, too’, says Charayana. 8After eating, he passes the time teaching his parrots and mynah birds to speak; goes to quail-fights, cock-fights, and ram-fights; engages in various arts and games; and passes the time with his libertine, pander, and clown.* And he takes a nap. 9In the late afternoon, he gets dressed up and goes to salons to amuse himself.
10 And in the evening, there is music and singing. After that, on the bed in a bedroom carefully decorated and perfumed by sweet-smelling incense, he and his friends await the women who are slipping out for a rendezvous with them. 11He sends female messengers* for them or goes to get them himself. 12And when the women arrive, he and his friends greet them with gentle conversation and courtesies that charm the mind and heart. 13If rain has soaked the clothing of women who have slipped out for a rendez-vous in bad weather, he changes their clothes himself, or gets some of his friends to serve them. That is what he does by day and night.
14 He amuses himself by going to festivals, salons, drinking parties, picnics, and group games.
15 On a specified day at half moon or full moon, there is always an assembly of invited guests at the temple of the goddess Sarasvati.* 16Visiting players also come and give an audition for them, and on the second day they are rewarded with a fixed fee. Then they may give a performance or be dismissed, according to their reception. In case of a disaster or an occasion for celebration, they substitute for one another. 17They honour and protect visitors who join them. Those are the customs of theatrical companies. 18The festivals dedicated to this or that particular deity can be described in this same way, taking into consideration the different circumstances.
19 A salon takes place when people of similar knowledge, intelligence, character, wealth, and age sit together in the house of a courtesan, or in a place of assembly, or in the dwelling-place of some man, and engage in appropriate conversation with courtesans. 20There they exchange thoughts about poems or works of art, 21and in the course of that they praise brilliant women whom everyone likes, and they bring in women who love all men equally.* 22They have drinking parties at one another’s houses. 23There the courtesans get the men to drink, and drink after them, wine made from honey, grapes, other fruits, or sugar, with various sorts of salt, fruit, greens, vegetables, and bitter, spicy, and sour foods.
24 Picnics can be described in this same way. 25Early in the morning, men dress with care and go out on horseback, attended by servants and accompanied by courtesans. They enjoy the daytime events there and spend the time at cock-fights, gambling, theatrical spectacles, and appropriate activities, and then in the afternoon they go back again in the same way, taking with them souvenirs of the pleasures of the picnic. 26And in the same way, in the summer, people enjoy water sports, in pools built to keep out crocodiles.
27 Then there are Goblin Night, Full Moon Vigil, and the Spring Festival. 28The group games are breaking open mangoes, eating roasted grains, eating lotus stems, playing with new leaves, water-fights, doing imitations with puppets, playing the ‘one silk-cotton tree’ game, and mock-fighting with the red-orange flowers of the ‘morningstar’ tree.* They play at these various widespread and local games, different from those of the common people. 29A single man, if he can afford it, 30a courtesan de luxe, and the woman with her girlfriends and men-about-town can also do what has been described here.
31 But the man called a libertine* has no wealth, indeed has nothing but his body; his only possessions are his collapsible chair, his soap, and his astringent. He comes from an honourable part of the country and is skilled in the arts, and by teaching them he introduces himself into society and into the sort of gatherings frequented by courtesans. 32The man called a pander,* by contrast, has used up his wealth but has good qualities and is married. Well respected among courtesans and society people, he lives off them. 33But the man called a clown,* or a comedian, has just a fragmentary knowledge of the arts. He is a prankster and a trusted friend. 34These are the ‘advisers’ whom courtesans and men-about-town employ in their battles and truces.* 35Included among these are beggar women,* women with shaved heads, low-caste women, and old courtesans de luxe, sophisticated in the arts.
36 A man who lives in a village stirs up his clever and curious relatives, describing to them the lifestyle of the set of men-about-town and inspiring their longing for that life. He emulates it himself, organizes gatherings, and charms the people by his contact with them. He ingratiates himself with them by helping them in their projects and does favours for them.
That is the lifestyle of the man-about-town.
37 The man who tells stories in society,
neither too much in Sanskrit
nor too much in the local dialect,*
becomes highly regarded in the social world.
38 A wise man will not descend
to a society that people hate,
or one that slips out of control
or is maliciou
s to others.
39 An educated man succeeds in society
when he moves with a set of people
who incline to the ways of the world
and regard playing as their one and only concern.
CHAPTER FIVE
Reasons for Taking Another Man’s Wife
1 Pleasure enjoyed according to the texts, with a woman who is of the man’s own class, and who has not been with another man before, is a means of getting sons, a good reputation, and social acceptance. 2But with women of higher classes or with women married to other men, pleasure will achieve none of these things, and it is forbidden. And it is neither encouraged nor forbidden with courtesans, second-hand women, and women of lower classes who have not been expelled from society, because the only purpose of such liaisons is pleasure.* 3In this respect, women who may be lovers* are of three sorts: virgins, second-hand women, and courtesans.
4 Gonikaputra says: ‘There is a fourth sort of woman who may be a lover: under the pressure of some other reason, a woman who aids his cause may become his lover, even if she is married to another man.’ 5The man may think, ‘This is a loose woman. 6She has already ruined her virtue with many other men. Even though she is of a class higher than mine, I can go to her as I would go to a courtesan, without offending against religion. She is a second-hand woman. 7Since another man has kept her before me, there is no reason to hesitate about this.’ 8Or, ‘This woman has her husband entirely under her control, and he is a great and powerful man who is intimate with my enemy. If she becomes intimate with me, out of her affection for me she will make him reverse his allegiance.’9 Or, ‘That powerful man has turned against me and wishes to harm me; she will bring him back to his former nature.’ 10Or, ‘If I make him my friend through her, I will be able to do favours for my friends, or ward off my enemies, or accomplish some other difficult undertaking.’ 11Or, ‘If I become intimate with this woman, and kill her husband, I will get for myself the power of his great wealth, which ought to be mine.’ 12Or, ‘There is no danger involved in my having this woman, and there is a chance of wealth. And since I am useless, I have exhausted all means of making a living. Such as I am, I will get a lot of money from her in this way, with very little trouble.’ 13Or, ‘This woman is madly in love with me and knows all my weaknesses. If I reject her, she will ruin me by publicly exposing my faults; 14or she will accuse me of some fault which I do not in fact have, but which will be easy to believe of me and hard to clear myself of, and this will be the ruin of me; 15or she will cause a break between me and her husband, who is a man with a future and under her control, and she will get him to join my enemies; 16or she herself will become intimate with them.’ Or, ‘This woman’s husband is the seducer of the women of my harem; I will pay him back for that by seducing his wives, too.’ 17Or, ‘By the king’s command, I will kill his enemy, who is hiding inside.’ 18‘Another woman, whose desire I desire, is in the power of this woman. I will get to that one by using this one as a bridge.’ 19 Or, ‘This woman will get me an unattainable virgin, rich and beautiful, who depends on her.’ 20Or, ‘My enemy is united with this woman’s husband. Through her, I will get him to drink a potion.’ For these and similar reasons one may seduce* even the wife of another man. 21But nothing rash should be done merely because of passion. Those are the reasons for taking another man’s wife.
22 Charayana says: ‘For these very reasons, there is also a fifth woman who can be a lover, a widow who is kept by a minister of state or by the king and comes to him only part of the time, or some other widow who can accomplish a man’s purposes.’ 23Suvarnanabha says: ‘There is a sixth: a woman just like that, who is a wandering ascetic.’* 24Ghotakamukha says: ‘There is a seventh: a servant woman, or the daughter of a courtesan de luxe, who has not had a man before.’ 25Gonardiya says: ‘A young woman of good family who is no longer a child is an eighth, because she is treated differently.’ 26Vatsyayana says: These women* should be counted with the others, because there is no difference in the purposes for which they are used. And so there are just four sorts of women who can be lovers. 27Some people say: ‘The third nature is a fifth sort of woman who can be a lover, because she is different.’*
28 Now, there is one kind of male lover, and everyone knows him well. But a second kind conceals himself in order to get something special, and he is known, according to his good qualities or lack of good qualities, as best, worst, or middling. We will explain the good qualities and lack of good qualities in both of them in the discussion of courtesans. 29But the following women are not eligible to be lovers: a leper, a lunatic, a fallen woman, a woman who tells secrets, who asks for it in public, whose prime of youth is almost entirely gone, who is too light or too dark, bad-smelling, a relative, a woman friend, a wandering female ascetic, or the wife of a relative, of a friend, of a Brahmin who knows the Veda, or of a king. 30The followers of Babhravya say: ‘Any woman who is known to have had five men is eligible.’ 31But Gonikaputra says, ‘—except for the wife of a relative, of a friend, of a Brahmin who knows the Veda, or of a king.’
[5] The Work of the Man’s Male Helpers and Messengers
32 Someone who played in the sand with you, who is bound to you by a favour, who has the same character and vices, who went to school with you, who knows your vulnerable spots and secrets or whose vulnerable spots and secrets you know, your foster-brother, or someone who grew up with you, is someone you can regard as a friend. 33The conditions that make a friend are that his father and grandfathers were friends with yours, that he does not break his word, is steadfast, is under your control, firm, not greedy by nature, cannot be won over by someone else, and does not leak confidences. 34Vatsyayana says: A friend may be a washer-man, barber, florist, perfumer, wine-merchant, beggar, cowherd, betel-seller, goldsmith, libertine, pander, or clown, and so forth; and men-about-town can be friends with the wives of these men, too.* 35The work of the messenger is done by someone who has the friendship and respect of both partners, but is especially well trusted by the woman. 36The qualities to look for in a messenger are glibness, audacity, a knowledge of signals and gestures that reveal emotions, a knowledge of the right moment for deception, an understanding of what is possible, and a light approach to method. 37And there is a verse about this:
A man who knows himself and has friends,
who is well trained, knows about emotions,
and recognizes the right time and place,
can win over, effortlessly, even an unattainable woman.*
BOOK TWO · SEX
CHAPTER ONE
[6] Sexual Typology According to Size, Endurance, and Temperament
1 The man is called a ‘hare’, ‘bull’, or ‘stallion’, according to the size of his sexual organ; a woman, however, is called a ‘doe’, ‘mare’, or ‘elephant cow’. 2And so there are three equal couplings, between sexual partners of similar size, 3and six unequal ones, between sexual partners of dissimilar size. Among the unequal ones, when the man is larger there are two couplings with the two sexual partners immediately smaller than him and one, when he is largest, with the smallest woman. But in the opposite case, in a coupling when the man is smaller, there are two sorts of couplings with the two women immediately larger than him and one, when he is smallest, with the largest woman. Among these, the equal couplings are best, the largest and the smallest are worst, and the rest are intermediate.* 4Even in the medium ones, it is better for the man to be larger than the woman.* Thus there are nine sorts of couplings according to size.
5 A man has dull sexual energy if, at the time of making love, his enthusiasm is indifferent, his virility small, and he cannot bear to be wounded, 6and a man has average or fierce sexual energy in the opposite circumstances. The same goes for the woman. 7And so, just as with size, so with temperament, too, there are nine sorts of couplings.
8 And similarly, with respect to endurance, men are quick, average, and long-lasting. 9But there is an argument about women in this matter.
10 Auddalaki says:*
‘A woman does not reach a climax as a man does. 11But she has an itch, which the man, during sex, scratches continually. 12And when this scratching is combined, in addition, with the sensual pleasure of erotic arousal, it produces a different feeling,* and this is what she thinks of as sensual pleasure. 13Someone might ask, “But since no one can know a man’s ecstasy, and since no one can be asked, ‘What sort of sensual pleasure do you feel?’ 14how can this be known?” The answer would be: Because when a man reaches a climax, he stops of his own accord and pays no attention to the woman; a woman, however, is not like that.’
15 This objection might be raised about that argument: Women love the man whose sexual energy lasts for a long time, but they resent a man whose sexual energy ends quickly, because he stops before they reach a climax at the conclusion. And all of that is a sign that they either do reach a climax, with the long-lasting man, or do not, with the quick man.
16 ‘Not so. For the scratching of an itch also feels good for a long time. That is evident. And because of this ambiguity, the preference that women have for long-lasting men is no sign of a climax.
17 A man scratches a woman’s itch
when they make love;
and when that is enhanced by erotic arousal
it is called sensual pleasure.’
18 The followers of Babhravya say: ‘A young woman reaches a climax continually, from the very beginning of lovemaking; a man, by contrast, only at the end. That is even more clearly evident. For surely no embryo would be conceived if she did not achieve a climax.’
19 There could be a further doubt and confutation about that argument, too. 20This objection may be raised about it: If a woman achieved this feeling continually, it would not be evident, as it is, that at the beginning her mind is indifferent and she cannot bear much, but gradually her passion grows greater and she has no regard for her body, and at the end there is a wish to stop.
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