"I madly thought a fiend conveyed
Away from me my fawn-eyed maid :
'Twas but a Cloud that rained above,

With the young lightning for its love.”

He then wanders on, making poetical and moral reflections, and asking all the birds and beasts if they have seen his love. The peacock gives him no reply, but beats a merry measure, pleased to show his glories unrivalled by the floating tresses of the lovely Urvasi. He next observes the Koil cowering amid the shady branches of the Jambu. "She, of the birds, is wisest famed," he says, and he thus addresses her:—

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'Say, nursling of a stranger nest,

Say, hast thou chanced my love to see

Amidst these gardens of the blest,

Wandering at liberty,

Or warbling with a voice divine

Melodious strains more sweet than thine? . .

Why did she leave

One so devoted to her will?

[And then, as if in reply, he continues, turning to his left:

In wrath

She left me; but the cause of anger lives not

In my imagination: the fond tyranny
That women exercise o'er those who love them
Brooks not the slightest show of disregard.
How now! the bird has flown. 'Tis ever thus
All coldly listen to another's sorrows."

He wanders past the elephants beneath the Kadambatree and the lake upon which swans and the lotus-plants were floating, and reaches a mountain-cliff, adown the rocky sides of which rush glistening springs. He calls "Urvasi," and hears a reply,-it was but the echo of his words.

Overcome by fatigue, he sits exhausted by the bank of the stream, saying,

"Fatigue has overcome me. I will rest

Upon the borders of this mountain-torrent..

Whilst gazing on the stream, whose new-swoln waters
Yet turbid flow, what strange imaginings

Possess my soul, and fill it with delight;

The rippling wave is like her arching brow,

The fluttering line of storks her timid tongue."

Yet further he wanders, singing verses of considerable beauty, until at length his steps are arrested by the sight of a ruby; but what could he do with the gem, now that she is gone whose brow it would have best adorned? "Why distain the ruby with my tears?" Whilst thus considering, a voice in the air tells him, that by virtue of that gem he shall recover his lost bride. He then takes it, saying, he will wear it on his diadem, and hold it dear to him as to Iswara, his crescent-moon. Immediately a mysterious emotion on the sight of a vine induces him to caress the clinging plant, and at his touch it changes into Urvasi.

What subject shall we select for representation

That we may ensure a continuance of their favour ?"
Prologue to Sakoontala.

SAKOONTALA, another work by Kalidasa, is a drama long since introduced to European Orientalists by their distinguished leader Sir William Jones. But his translation, although valuable not only as the first Sanskrit drama that appeared in English, but also for its intrinsic merit, was made before correct Sanskrit manuscripts were accessible. The corrupt and modern text weakens "the bold and nervous phraseology of Kalidasa," clothes "his delicate expressions of refined love in a meretricious dress," and dilutes by repetition "ideas grand in their simplicity." For these reasons a new translation* is a most welcome addi

Sakoontala, translated from the Sanskrit of Kalidasa by Monier Williams, Professor of Sanskrit at Haileybury.

tion to our literature, and the more so because Professor Williams gives in metre those portions which are poetry in the original. Like the beautiful verses already quoted, here again is poetry fit to tempt an English reader to study Sanskrit; but as Kalidasa has already engaged much attention, only a few short passages can be admitted.

Sakoontala, about to leave her childhood's home, grieves at parting from the little fawn which she had nurtured: her revered and beloved guardian says,

"Weep not, my daughter, check the gathering tear

That lurks beneath thine eyelid, ere it flow

And weaken thy resolve; be firm and true

True to thyself and me; the path of life

Will lead o'er hill and plain, o'er rough and smooth,
And all must feel the steepness of the way;

Though rugged be thy course, press boldly on."

Different in character, but not less beautiful, are the reflections of a King who has "attained the objects of his aspirations," and finds that his troubles then begin.

"Tis a fond thought, that to attain the end
And object of ambition is to rest;
Success doth only mitigate the fever
Of anxious expectation; soon the fear
Of losing what we have, the constant care
Of guarding it, doth weary. Ceaseless toil
Must be the lot of him who, with his hands,
Supports the canopy that shields his subjects."

Heralds behind the scenes cry, 66
May the King be victori-
ous!" and one comes forward, saying,—

"Honour to him who labours day by day
For the world's weal, forgetful of his own;
Like some tall tree that, with its stately head,

Endures the solar beam, while underneath
It yields refreshing shelter to the weary.

The effect of pathetic music on a sensitive person is thus described :

66

King. Strange! that song has filled me with a most peculiar sensation. I seem to yearn after some long-forgotten object of affection.

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'Not seldom in our hours of ease,

When thought is still, the sight of some fair form,

Or mournful fall of music, breathing low,

Will stir strange fancies, thrilling all the soul
With a mysterious sadness, and a sense
Of vague, yet earnest, longing. Can it be
That the dim memory of events long past,
Or friendships formed in other states of being,
Flits like a passing shadow o'er the spirit ?”+

It is with regret one leaves so attractive a poet as Kalidasa, but we must now turn our attention to the "ToyCart," a lively drama, giving pictures of daily family-life in India, probably before the Christian era. It commences with an invocation to Sambhu, or Siva, as he sits ruminating with suspended breath, whilst his serpents coil around his knees."

The scene of this drama is the famous city of Ougein, in Malwa, and the state of society it represents "sufficiently § advanced," says Professor Wilson, "to be luxurious and corrupt." The heroine, Vasanta, belongs indeed to the * Page 124. + Page 121.

Hindu Theatre, H.H. Wilson, vol. i. p. 9.

§ By some this Play is attributed to the second century B.C., a century previous therefore to the reign of Vikramaditya. Professor Lassen, on the other hand, assigns the two first centuries after Christ as the earliest era of the drama. See Introduction to Sakoontala, M. Williams, p. 6, and Lassen's Alterthumskunde, vol. ii. pp. 1113, 1147.