The chronicles, however, mention the names of queens like Sri Chitra Wati, Sinta Devi and Sakjrevati Drupadi. In the days of Dhipara Jaga, Tirta Jaga, Karta Jaga and Sang Ngara bloody wars devastated the land; kings were bewitched and changed into dragons and elephants because they disregarded the ordinances of Bathara and also because they were weak, not able to restrain their burning passion for beautiful women, acting differently from that which behoves those in authority. Possess your souls in continence! Bathara watches and you are unacquainted with the hour of your death. [Illustration: XII. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS (Centrum.)] The shadows of evening thicken; darkness gathers, darkness in the train of Rahu, the devourer of sun and moon, robing the temples in gloom. Fire-flies, darting from between the sculptured bo-trees and festooned foliage, begin to hold their nocturnal feast but subside before a red glare, nascent in the holy of holies. They return, as if borne by strange, wild melodies, and grow into the luxurious forms of luminous nymphs, the _apsaras_, who leave their stations round the house of fear to dance their voluptuous dance of death, renouncing their allegiance to the Mahadeva to court Kama of the flowery bow, consumed by the desire to enjoy life and life’s best before the approach of the mower cutting them down. Their mates, the _gandharvas_, excite them in their weird revelry with songs and the musicians urge them with the clang of tabors and cymbals. Shaped for the enchanting arts of love, skilled in the wiles of female magic, they move in a whirl of passion, like flames of fire, more redoubtable to man than the sword and arrows of his bitterest foe. Luring the unwary who tarry at Prambanan when the fates, weaving the web of the world, change the colours of day into night’s blackest dyes, when the lotus-blossoms hang heavy on their stems and the air is burdened with the odour of incense and sacrificial wreaths, they intend his subversion by a mirage of delight, a hallucination of the senses, and present the gratification of carnal desire as the triumph of reason. Woe to him if he does not resist in the delirium of his infatuation! The moment he tries to grasp their flitting forms, they evade him as a mountain stream in spate, as the spray of its water dashing down the rocks, as foam on the surging brine. The _apsaras_ mock, the _gandharvas_ hiss him, the musicians howl, all turning again to stone, having instilled their subtle poison into his heart. He seeks in vain the joy they held out to him, begs in vain for a draught of the _soma_, the nectar of the gods. Then, shooting out from the great god’s abode as a flash of lightning, the red glare takes substance and Siva appears in his most terrible aspect, Kala, destroying time, waving the skull which springs from the lotus stem, menacing men and cattle, the wild beasts of the woods, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, with the _trishula_, the trident of desolation.