ŚAKOONTALÁ.—What! is it not enough to have been betrayed by this perfidious man? Must you also forsake me, regardless of my tears and lamentations?
[Attempts to follow them.
GAUTAMÍ [stopping].—My son Śárngarava, see, Śakoontalá is following us, and with tears implores us not to leave her. Alas! poor child, what will she do here with a cruel husband who casts her from him?
ŚÁRNGARAVA [turning angrily towards her].—Wilful woman, dost thou seek to be independent of thy lord?
[Śakoontalá trembles with fear.
ŚÁRNGARAVA.—Śakoontalá!
If thou art really what the King proclaims thee,
How can thy father e'er receive thee back
Into his house and home? but, if thy conscience
Be witness to thy purity of soul,
E'en should thy husband to a handmaid's lot
Condemn thee, thou may'st cheerfully endure it,
When ranked among the number of his household.
Thy duty, therefore, is to stay. As for us, we must return immediately.
KING.—Deceive not the lady, my good hermit, by any such expectations.
The moon expands the lotus of the night,
The rising sun awakes the lily; each
Is with his own contented. Even so
The virtuous man is master of his passions,
And from another's wife averts his gaze.
ŚÁRNGARAVA.—Since thy union with another woman has rendered thee oblivious of thy marriage with Śakoontalá, whence this fear of losing thy character for constancy and virtue?
KING [to the Priest],—You must counsel me, revered sir, as to my course of action. Which of the two evils involves the greater or less sin?