But when her son grows up, she loves him still but not as before. The wise are like my grown-up sons, while simple, selfless worshippers (like you) are like my infant children.

My worshippers depend upon my strength, the wise upon their own, but both have to fight against lust and anger. With this in mind the prudent worship me and even when they have acquired wisdom, they forsake not their devotion.

Lust, wrath, greed, pride and all other violent passions form the sturdy army of infatuation, but among them all the most formidable and calamitous is woman, illusion incarnate.

Listen, sage; the Puranas and the Vedas and the saints declare that woman is the vernal season to the forest of infatuation; like the heat of summer she dries up all the ponds and lakes of prayer and penance and devotional observances.

Again, lust, wrath, pride and jealousy are so many frogs, and like the rainy season, she alone gladdens them all. Evil propensities are like a bed of lilies, to which, like the autumn, she is ever agreeable.

All the different forms of piety are like a bed of lotuses, distressed and deadened by dull-witted woman as by the frost of winter; and lastly, she is like the cool, dewy season fostered by which the javasa grove of attachment thrives and grows.

Woman, again, is a night, impenetrably murky, in which all the owls of sin delight, or a hook to catch the fish of reason and strength and honour and truth; so say the wise.