Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works

by Kalidasa

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.