The Birth of the War-God: A Poem by Kálidása

That the poem which is now for the first time offered to the general reader, in an English dress, will not diminish this reputation is the translator's earnest hope, yet my admiration of the grace and beauty that pervade so much of the work must not allow me to deny that occasionally, even in the noble Sanskrit, if we judge him by an European standard, Kálidása is bald and prosaic. Nor is this a defence of the translator at the expense of the poet. Fully am I conscious how far I am from being able adequately to reproduce the fanciful creation of the sweet singer of Oujein; that numerous beauties of thought and expression I may have passed by, mistaken, marred; that in many of the more elaborate descriptions my own versification is 'harsh as the jarring of a tuneless chord' compared with the melody of Kálidása's rhythm, to rival whose sweetness and purity of language, so admirably adapted to the soft repose and celestial rosy hue of his pictures, would have tried all the fertility of resource, the artistic skill, and the exquisite ear of the author of Lalla Rookh himself. I do not think this poem deserves, and I am sure it will not obtain, that admiration which the author's masterpieces already made known at once commanded; at all events, if the work itself is not inferior, it has not enjoyed the good fortune of having a Jones or a Wilson for translator.
And now one word as to the manner in which I have endeavoured to perform my task. Though there is much, I think, that might be struck out, to the advantage of the poem, this I have in no instance ventured to do, my aim having been to give the English reader as faithful a cast of the original as my own power and the nature of things would permit, and, without attempting to give word for word or line for line, to produce upon the imagination impressions similar to those which one who studies the work in Sanskrit would experience.
I will not seek to anticipate the critics, nor to deprecate their animadversions, by pointing out the beauties of the poet, or particularising the defects of him and his translator. That the former will be appreciated, and the latter kindly dealt with, late experience makes me confident; so that now, in the words of the Manager in the Prelude to the Hero and the Nymph, I have only to request the audience that they will listen to this work of Kálidása with attention and kindness, in consideration of its subject and respect for the Author.