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When she first appeared with her rather extravagantly dressed lady-in-waiting Koripan and his two attendants had retired behind the curtain to bathe in a stream. We learn from their conversation that they are in the forest, through which indeed most journeys pass on the Balinese stage. The humor of the scene lay in their simulation of nakedness, creeping about, though very decently clothed, in strange attitudes of affected modesty. The lovely singing voice of Mantri Koripan, even in this absurd situation a supremely romantic figure, rose strangely above the comic prose of the scene.
The Likoe made no attempt to disguise his fine, manly voice. A male voice is of course as appropriate to such a part as to the wicked sisters in Cinderella, or the inhuman daughters in King Lear, but the same is true of old men who play the part of ladies-in-waiting, or even of the heroine, as well as of little girls who play the hero or the goddess of death

One can give no idea of the beauty of Mantri Koripan's wild, mad dance of desire, as the love-philter began to take effect; of his entranced listening to the Likoe's voice, and divine flight over the ground, as he swept behind her and, lovesick, tried to conquer her pretended indifference. This was accompanied by an alternating low, bird-like note and the excited beat of the drum. The humor of the scene was underlined by the two attendants, who guyed their-master's romantic mood, and by the grotesque manoeuvres of the Likoe, but the beauty of the music and of Koripan's dance are what remains in one's mind as the essential part.

The centre of the plot was the long 'passion' of the princess of Daha, when, having heard of Koripan's infidelity, she pursued him with her lady-in-waiting to the home of Likoe. He has entirely forgotten his past life and flung her aside again and again, as she knelt with infinite grace before him, her sweet voice supported by the wailing flute and the muted tones of drum and goentang, falling like drops of water. The cymbals beat tumultuously as Koripan with wild eyes stood over her and threatened her, upbraiding her for pursuing him, reminding her of the fate of Surpanakha, beating her off, and flinging her down again and again. She wailed in slow, beautiful rhythms, and his ravishing voice enlisted one's sympathy as much as the wronged princess. (Day was coming and the pinnacles of the cremation-tower began to glitter.

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