Your charming song had carried me away
As the deer enticed the hero of our play.
(Exeunt ambo.)
ACT I
THE HUNT
(Enter, in a chariot, pursuing a deer, KING DUSHYANTA, bow and arrow in hand; and a charioteer.)
Charioteer (Looking at the king and the deer). Your Majesty,
I see you hunt the spotted deer
With shafts to end his race,
As though God Shiva should appear
In his immortal chase.
King. Charioteer, the deer has led us a long chase. And even now
His neck in beauty bends
As backward looks he sends
At my pursuing car
That threatens death from far.
Fear shrinks to half the body small;
See how he fears the arrow's fall!The path he takes is strewed
With blades of grass half-chewed
From jaws wide with the stress
Of fevered weariness.
He leaps so often and so high,
He does not seem to run, but fly.
(In surprise.) Pursue as I may, I can hardly keep him in sight.