Shakuntala

by Kalidasa

  The inducement is insufficient, and a new candidate is presented, the King of Anupa,

  A prince whose fathers' glories cannot fade,

  By whom the love of learned men is wooed,

  Who proves that Fortune is no fickle jade

  When he she chooses is not fickly good.

  But alas!

  She saw that he was brave to look upon,

  Yet could not feel his love would make her gay;

  Full moons of autumn nights, when clouds are gone,

  Tempt not the lotus-flowers that bloom by day.

  The King of Shurasena has no better fortune, in spite of his virtues and his wealth. As a river hurrying to the sea passes by a mountain that would detain her, so the princess passes him by. She is next introduced to the king of the Kalinga country;

  His palace overlooks the ocean dark

  With windows gazing on the unresting deep,

  Whose gentle thunders drown the drums that mark

  The hours of night, and wake him from his sleep.

  But the maiden can no more feel at home with him than the goddess of fortune can with a good but unlucky man. She therefore turns her attention to the king of the Pandya country in far southern India. But she is unmoved by hearing of the magic charm of the south, and rejects him too.

  And every prince rejected while she sought

  A husband, darkly frowned, as turrets, bright

  One moment with the flame from torches caught,

  Frown gloomily again and sink in night.

  The princess then approaches Aja, who trembles lest she pass him by, as she has passed by the other suitors. The maid who accompanies Indumati sees that Aja awakens a deeper feeling, and she therefore gives a longer account of his kingly line, ending with the recommendation:

  High lineage is his, fresh beauty, youth,

  And virtue shaped in kingly breeding's mould;

  Choose him, for he is worth your love; in truth,

  A gem is ever fitly set in gold.

  The princess looks lovingly at the handsome youth, but cannot speak for modesty. She is made to understand her own feelings when the maid invites her to pass on to the next candidate. Then the wreath is placed round Aja's neck, the people of the city shout their approval, and the disappointed suitors feel like night-blooming lotuses at daybreak.

  Seventh canto. Aja's marriage .—While the suitors retire to the camps where they have left their retainers, Aja conducts Indumati into the decorated and festive city. The windows are filled with the faces of eager and excited women, who admire the beauty of the young prince and the wisdom of the princess's choice. When the marriage ceremony has been happily celebrated, the disappointed suitors say farewell with pleasant faces and jealous hearts, like peaceful pools concealing crocodiles. They lie in ambush on the road which he must take, and when he passes with his young bride, they fall upon him. Aja provides for the safety of Indumati, marshals his attendants, and greatly distinguishes himself in the battle which follows. Finally he uses the magic weapon, given him by the demigod, to benumb his adversaries, and leaving them in this helpless condition, returns home. He and his young bride are joyfully welcomed by King Raghu, who resigns the kingdom in favour of Aja.

  Eighth canto. Aja's lament .—As soon as King Aja is firmly established on his throne, Raghu retires to a hermitage to prepare for the death of his mortal part. After some years of religious meditation he is released, attaining union with the eternal spirit which is beyond all darkness. His obsequies are performed by his dutiful son. Indumati gives birth to a splendid boy, who is named Dasharatha. One day, as the queen is playing with her husband in the garden, a wreath of magic flowers falls upon her from heaven, and she dies. The stricken king clasps the body of his dead beloved, and laments over her.

  If flowers that hardly touch the body, slay it,

  The simplest instruments of fate may bring

  Destruction, and we have no power to stay it;

  Then must we live in fear of everything?

  No! Death was right. He spared the sterner anguish;

  Through gentle flowers your gentle life was lost

  As I have seen the lotus fade and languish

  When smitten by the slow and silent frost.

  Yet God is hard. With unforgiving rigour

  He forged a bolt to crush this heart of mine;

  He left the sturdy tree its living vigour,

  But stripped away and slew the clinging vine.

  Through all the years, dear, you would not reprove me,

  Though I offended. Can you go away

  Sudden, without a word? I know you love me,

  And I have not offended you to-day.

  You surely thought me faithless, to be banished

  As light-of-love and gambler, from your life,

  Because without a farewell word, you vanished

  And never will return, sweet-smiling wife.

  The warmth and blush that followed after kisses

  Is still upon her face, to madden me;

  For life is gone, 'tis only life she misses.

  A curse upon such life's uncertainty!

  I never wronged you with a thought unspoken,

  Still less with actions. Whither are you flown?

  Though king in name, I am a man heartbroken,

  For power and love took root in you alone.

  Your bee-black hair from which the flowers are peeping,

  Dear, wavy hair that I have loved so well,

  Stirs in the wind until I think you sleeping,

  Soon to return and make my glad heart swell.

  Awake, my love! Let only life be given,

  And choking griefs that stifle now, will flee

  As darkness from the mountain-cave is driven

  By magic herbs that glitter brilliantly.

  The silent face, round which the curls are keeping

  Their scattered watch, is sad to look upon

  As in the night some lonely lily, sleeping

  When musically humming bees are gone.

  The girdle that from girlhood has befriended

  You, in love-secrets wise, discreet, and true,

  No longer tinkles, now your dance is ended,

  Faithful in life, in dying faithful too.

  Your low, sweet voice to nightingales was given;

  Your idly graceful movement to the swans;

  Your grace to fluttering vines, dear wife in heaven;

  Your trustful, wide-eyed glances to the fawns:

  You left your charms on earth, that I, reminded

  By them, might be consoled though you depart;

  But vainly! Far from you, by sorrow blinded,

  I find no prop of comfort for my heart.

  Remember how you planned to make a wedding,

  Giving the vine-bride to her mango-tree;

  Before that happy day, dear, you are treading

  The path with no return. It should not be.

  And this ashoka-tree that you have tended

  With eager longing for the blossoms red—

  How can I twine the flowers that should have blended

  With living curls, in garlands for the dead?

  The tree remembers how the anklets, tinkling

  On graceful feet, delighted other years;

  Sad now he droops, your form with sorrow sprinkling,

  And sheds his blossoms in a rain of tears.

  Joy's sun is down, all love is fallen and perished,

  The song of life is sung, the spring is dead,

  Gone is the use of gems that once you cherished,

  And empty, ever empty, is my bed.

  You were my comrade gay, my home, my treasure,

  You were my bosom's friend, in all things true,

  My best-loved pupil in the arts of pleasure:

  Stern death took all I had in taking you.

  Still am I king, and rich in kingly fashion,

  Yet lacking you, am poor the long years through;

>   I cannot now be won to any passion,

  For all my passions centred, dear, in you.

  Aja commits the body of his beloved queen to the flames. A holy hermit comes to tell the king that his wife had been a nymph of heaven in a former existence, and that she has now returned to her home. But Aja cannot be comforted. He lives eight weary years for the sake of his young son, then is reunited with his queen in Paradise.

  Ninth canto. The hunt .—This canto introduces us to King Dasharatha, father of the heroic Rama. It begins with an elaborate description of his glory, justice, prowess, and piety; then tells of the three princesses who became his wives: Kausalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra. In the beautiful springtime he takes an extended hunting-trip in the forest, during which an accident happens, big with fate.

  He left his soldiers far behind one day

  In the wood, and following where deer-tracks lay,

  Came with his weary horse adrip with foam

  To river-tenks where hermits made their home.

  And in the stream he heard the water fill

  A jar; he heard it ripple clear and shrill,

  And shot an arrow, thinking he had found

  A trumpeting elephant, toward the gurgling sound.

  Such actions are forbidden to a king,

  Yet Dasharatha sinned and did this thing;

  For even the wise and learned man is minded

  To go astray, by selfish passion blinded.

  He heard the startling cry, "My father!" rise

  Among the reeds; rode up; before his eyes

  He saw the jar, the wounded hermit boy:

  Remorse transfixed his heart and killed his joy.

  He left his horse, this monarch famous far,

  Asked him who drooped upon the water-jar

  His name, and from the stumbling accents knew

  A hermit youth, of lowly birth but true.

  The arrow still undrawn, the monarch bore

  Him to his parents who, afflicted sore

  With blindness, could not see their only son

  Dying, and told them what his hand had done.

  The murderer then obeyed their sad behest

  And drew the fixèd arrow from his breast;

  The boy lay dead; the father cursed the king,

  With tear-stained hands, to equal suffering.

  "In sorrow for your son you too shall die,

  An old, old man," he said, "as sad as I."

  Poor, trodden snake! He used his venomous sting,

  Then heard the answer of the guilty king:

  "Your curse is half a blessing if I see

  The longed-for son who shall be born to me:

  The scorching fire that sweeps the well-ploughed field,

  May burn indeed, but stimulates the yield.

  The deed is done; what kindly act can I

  Perform who, pitiless, deserve to die?"

  "Bring wood," he begged, "and build a funeral pyre,

  That we may seek our son through death by fire."

  The king fulfilled their wish; and while they burned,

  In mute, sin-stricken sorrow he returned,

  Hiding death's seed within him, as the sea

  Hides magic fire that burns eternally.

  Thus is foreshadowed in the birth of Rama, his banishment, and the death of his father.

  Cantos ten to fifteen form the kernel of the epic, for they tell the story of Rama, the mighty hero of Raghu's line. In these cantos Kalidasa attempts to present anew, with all the literary devices of a more sophisticated age, the famous old epic story sung in masterly fashion by the author of the Ramayana . As the poet is treading ground familiar to all who hear him, the action of these cantos is very compressed.

  Tenth canto. The incarnation of Rama .—While Dasharatha, desiring a son, is childless, the gods, oppressed by a giant adversary, betake themselves to Vishnu, seeking aid. They sing a hymn of praise, a part of which is given here.

  O thou who didst create this All,

  Who dost preserve it, lest it fall,

  Who wilt destroy it and its ways—

  To thee, O triune Lord, be praise.

  As into heaven's water run

  The tastes of earth—yet it is one,

  So thou art all the things that range

  The universe, yet dost not change.

  Far, far removed, yet ever near;

  Untouched by passion, yet austere;

  Sinless, yet pitiful of heart;

  Ancient, yet free from age—Thou art.

  Though uncreate, thou seekest birth;

  Dreaming, thou watchest heaven and earth;

  Passionless, smitest low thy foes;

  Who knows thy nature, Lord? Who knows?

  Though many different paths, O Lord,

  May lead us to some great reward,

  They gather and are merged in thee

  Like floods of Ganges in the sea.

  The saints who give thee every thought,

  Whose every act for thee is wrought,

  Yearn for thine everlasting peace,

  For bliss with thee, that cannot cease.

  Like pearls that grow in ocean's night,

  Like sunbeams radiantly bright,

  Thy strange and wonder-working ways

  Defeat extravagance of praise.

  If songs that to thy glory tend

  Should weary grow or take an end,

  Our impotence must bear the blame,

  And not thine unexhausted name.

  Vishnu is gratified by the praise of the gods, and asks their desire. They inform him that they are distressed by Ravana, the giant king of Lanka (Ceylon), whom they cannot conquer. Vishnu promises to aid them by descending to earth in a new avatar, as son of Dasharatha. Shortly afterwards, an angel appears before King Dasharatha, bringing in a golden bowl a substance which contains the essence of Vishnu. The king gives it to his three wives, who thereupon conceive and dream wonderful dreams. Then Queen Kausalya gives birth to Rama; Queen Kaikeyi to Bharata; Queen Sumitra to twins, Lakshmana and Shatrughna. Heaven and earth rejoice. The four princes grow up in mutual friendship, yet Rama and Lakshmana are peculiarly drawn to each other, as are Bharata and Shatrughna. So beautiful and so modest are the four boys that they seem like incarnations of the four things worth living for—virtue, money, love, and salvation.

  Eleventh canto. The victory over Rama-with-the-axe .—At the request of the holy hermit Vishvamitra, the two youths Rama and Lakshmana visit his hermitage, to protect it from evil spirits. The two lads little suspect, on their maiden journey, how much of their lives will be spent in wandering together in the forest. On the way they are attacked by a giantess, whom Rama kills; the first of many giants who are to fall at his hand. He is given magic weapons by the hermit, with which he and his brother kill other giants, freeing the hermitage from all annoyance. The two brothers then travel with the hermit to the city of Mithila, attracted thither by hearing of its king, his wonderful daughter, and his wonderful bow. The bow was given him by the god Shiva; no man has been able to bend it; and the beautiful princess's hand is the prize of any man who can perform the feat. On the way thither, Rama brings to life Ahalya, a woman who in a former age had been changed to stone for unfaithfulness to her austere husband, and had been condemned to remain a stone until trodden by Rama's foot. Without further adventure, they reach Mithila, where the hermit presents Rama as a candidate for the bending of the bow.

  The king beheld the boy, with beauty blest

  And famous lineage; he sadly thought

  How hard it was to bend the bow, distressed

  Because his child must be so dearly bought.

  He said: "O holy one, a mighty deed

  That full-grown elephants with greatest pain

  Could hardly be successful in, we need

  Not ask of elephant-cubs. It would be vain.

  For many splendid kings of valorous name,

  Bearing the scars of many a hard-fought day,

  Have
tried and failed; then, covered with their shame,

  Have shrugged their shoulders, cursed, and strode away."

  Yet when the bow is given to the youthful Rama, he not only bends, but breaks it. He is immediately rewarded with the hand of the Princess Sita, while Lakshmana marries her sister. On their journey home with their young brides, dreadful portents appear, followed by their cause, a strange being called Rama-with-the-axe, who is carefully to be distinguished from Prince Rama. This Rama-with-the-axe is a Brahman who has sworn to exterminate the entire warrior caste, and who naturally attacks the valorous prince. He makes light of Rama's achievement in breaking Shiva's bow, and challenges him to bend the mightier bow which he carries. This the prince succeeds in doing, and Rama-with-the-axe disappears, shamed and defeated. The marriage party then continues its journey to Ayodhya.

  Twelfth canto. The killing of Ravana .—King Dasharatha prepares to anoint Rama crown prince, when Queen Kaikeyi interposes. On an earlier occasion she had rendered the king a service and received his promise that he would grant her two boons, whatever she desired. She now demands her two boons: the banishment of Rama for fourteen years, and the anointing of her own son Bharata as crown prince. Rama thereupon sets out for the Dandaka forest in Southern India, accompanied by his faithful wife Sita and his devoted brother Lakshmana. The stricken father dies of grief, thus fulfilling the hermit's curse. Now Prince Bharata proves himself more generous than his mother; he refuses the kingdom, and is with great difficulty persuaded by Rama himself to act as regent during the fourteen years. Even so, he refuses to enter the capital city, dwelling in a village outside the walls, and preserving Rama's slippers as a symbol of the rightful king. Meanwhile Rama's little party penetrates the wild forests of the south, fighting as need arises with the giants there. Unfortunately, a giantess falls in love with Rama, and