Translations Of Shakuntala And Other Works Part 41

The elephants stumbled and the horses fell, The footmen jostled, leaving each his post, The ground beneath them trembled at the swell Of ocean, when an earthquake shook the host.

And dogs before them lifted muzzles foul To see the sun that lit that awful day, And pierced the ears of listeners with a howl Dreadful yet pitiful, then slunk away.

Taraka's counsellors endeavour to persuade him to turn back, but he refuses; for timidity is not numbered among his faults. As he advances even worse portents appear, and finally warning voices from heaven call upon him to desist from his undertaking. The voices a.s.sure him of k.u.mara's prowess and inevitable victory; they advise him to make his peace while there is yet time. But Taraka's only answer is a defiance.

"You mighty G.o.ds that flit about in heaven And take my foeman's part, what would you say?

Have you forgot so soon the torture given By shafts of mine that never miss their way?

Why should I fear before a six-days child?

Why should you prowl in heaven and gibber shrill, Like dogs that in an autumn night run wild, Like deer that sneak through forests, trembling still?

The boy whom you have chosen as your chief In vain upon his hermit-sire shall cry; The upright die, if taken with a thief: First you shall perish, then he too shall die."

And as Taraka emphasises his meaning by brandishing his great sword, the warning spirits flee, their knees knocking together. Taraka laughs horribly, then mounts his chariot, and advances against the army of the G.o.ds. On the other side the G.o.ds advance, and the two armies clash.

_Sixteenth canto. The battle between G.o.ds and demons_.--This canto is entirely taken up with the struggle between the two armies. A few stanzas are given here.

As pairs of champions stood forth To test each other's fighting worth, The bards who knew the family fame Proclaimed aloud each mighty name.

As ruthless weapons cut their way Through quilted armour in the fray, White tufts of cotton flew on high Like h.o.a.ry hairs upon the sky.

Blood-dripping swords reflected bright The sunbeams in that awful fight; Fire-darting like the lightning-flash, They showed how mighty heroes clash.

The archers' arrows flew so fast, As through a hostile breast they pa.s.sed, That they were buried in the ground, No stain of blood upon them found.

The swords that sheaths no longer clasped, That hands of heroes firmly grasped, Flashed out in glory through the fight, As if they laughed in mad delight.

And many a warrior's eager lance Shone radiant in the eerie dance, A curling, lapping tongue of death To lick away the soldier's breath.

Some, panting with a b.l.o.o.d.y thirst, Fought toward the victim chosen first, But had a reeking path to hew Before they had him full in view.

Great elephants, their drivers gone And pierced with arrows, struggled on, But sank at every step in mud Made liquid by the streams of blood.

The warriors falling in the fray, Whose heads the sword had lopped away, Were able still to fetch a blow That slew the loud-exulting foe.

The footmen thrown to Paradise By elephants of monstrous size, Were seized upon by nymphs above, Exchanging battle-scenes for love.

The lancer, charging at his foe, Would pierce him through and bring him low, And would not heed the hostile dart That found a lodgment in his heart.

The war-horse, though unguided, stopped The moment that his rider dropped, And wept above the lifeless head, Still faithful to his master dead.

Two lancers fell with mortal wound And still they struggled on the ground; With bristling hair, with brandished knife, Each strove to end the other's life.

Two slew each other in the fight; To Paradise they took their flight; There with a nymph they fell in love, And still they fought in heaven above.

Two souls there were that reached the sky; From heights of heaven they could spy Two writhing corpses on the plain, And knew their headless forms again.

As the struggle comes to no decisive issue, Taraka seeks out the chief G.o.ds, and charges upon them.

_Seventeenth canto. Taraka is slain_.--Taraka engages the princ.i.p.al G.o.ds and defeats them with magic weapons. When they are relieved by k.u.mara, the demon turns to the youthful G.o.d of war, and advises him to retire from the battle.

Stripling, you are the only son Of Shiva and of Parvati.

Go safe and live! Why should you run On certain death? Why fight with me?

Withdraw! Let sire and mother blest Clasp living son to joyful breast.

Flee, son of Shiva, flee the host Of Indra drowning in the sea That soon shall close upon his boast In choking waves of misery.

For Indra is a ship of stone; Withdraw, and let him sink alone.

k.u.mara answers with modest firmness.

The words you utter in your pride, O demon-prince, are only fit; Yet I am minded to abide The fight, and see the end of it.

The tight-strung bow and brandished sword Decide, and not the spoken word.

And with this the duel begins. When Taraka finds his arrows parried by k.u.mara, he employs the magic weapon of the G.o.d of wind. When this too is parried, he uses the magic weapon of the G.o.d of fire, which k.u.mara neutralises with the weapon of the G.o.d of water. As they fight on, k.u.mara finds an opening, and slays Taraka with his lance, to the unbounded delight of the universe.

Here the poem ends, in the form in which it has come down to us. It has been sometimes thought that we have less than Kalidasa wrote, partly because of a vague tradition that there were once twenty-three cantos, partly because the customary prayer is lacking at the end.

These arguments are not very cogent. Though the concluding prayer is not given in form, yet the stanzas which describe the joy of the universe fairly fill its place. And one does not see with what matter further cantos would be concerned. The action promised in the earlier part is completed in the seventeenth canto.

It has been somewhat more formidably argued that the concluding cantos are spurious, that Kalidasa wrote only the first seven or perhaps the first eight cantos. Yet, after all, what do these arguments amount to?

Hardly more than this, that the first eight cantos are better poetry than the last nine. As if a poet were always at his best, even when writing on a kind of subject not calculated to call out his best.

Fighting is not Kalidasa's _forte_; love is. Even so, there is great vigour in the journey of Taraka, the battle, and the duel. It may not be the highest kind of poetry, but it is wonderfully vigorous poetry of its kind. And if we reject the last nine cantos, we fall into a very much greater difficulty. The poem would be glaringly incomplete, its early promise obviously disregarded. We should have a _Birth of the War-G.o.d_ in which the poet stopped before the war-G.o.d was born.

There seems then no good reason to doubt that we have the epic substantially as Kalidasa wrote it. Plainly, it has a unity which is lacking in Kalidasa's other epic, _The Dynasty_ _of Raghu_, though in this epic, too, the interest shifts. Parvati's love-affair is the matter of the first half, k.u.mara's fight with the demon the matter of the second half. Further, it must be admitted that the interest runs a little thin. Even in India, where the world of G.o.ds runs insensibly into the world of men, human beings take more interest in the adventures of men than of G.o.ds. The G.o.ds, indeed, can hardly have adventures; they must be victorious. _The Birth of the War-G.o.d_ pays for its greater unity by a poverty of adventure.

It would be interesting if we could know whether this epic was written before or after _The Dynasty of Raghu_. But we have no data for deciding the question, hardly any for even arguing it. The introduction to _The Dynasty of Raghu_ seems, indeed, to have been written by a poet who yet had his spurs to win. But this is all.

As to the comparative excellence of the two epics, opinions differ. My own preference is for _The Dynasty of Raghu_, yet there are pa.s.sages in _The Birth of the War-G.o.d_ of a piercing beauty which the world can never let die.

THE CLOUD-MESSENGER

In _The Cloud-Messenger_ Kalidasa created a new _genre_ in Sanskrit literature. Hindu critics cla.s.s the poem with _The Dynasty of Raghu_ and _The Birth of the War-G.o.d_ as a _kavya_, or learned epic. This it obviously is not. It is fair enough to call it an elegiac poem, though a precisian might object to the term.

We have already seen, in speaking of _The Dynasty of Raghu_, what admiration Kalidasa felt for his great predecessor Valmiki, the author of the _Ramayana_; and it is quite possible that an episode of the early epic suggested to him the idea which he has exquisitely treated in _The Cloud-Messenger_. In the _Ramayana_, after the defeat and death of Ravana, Rama returns with his wife and certain heroes of the struggle from Ceylon to his home in Northern India. The journey, made in an aerial car, gives the author an opportunity to describe the country over which the car must pa.s.s in travelling from one end of India to the other. The hint thus given him was taken by Kalidasa; a whole canto of _The Dynasty of Raghu_ (the thirteenth) is concerned with the aerial journey. Now if, as seems not improbable, _The Dynasty of Raghu_ was the earliest of Kalidasa's more ambitious works, it is perhaps legitimate to imagine him, as he wrote this canto, suddenly inspired with the plan of _The Cloud-Messenger_.

This plan is slight and fanciful. A demiG.o.d, in consequence of some transgression against his master, the G.o.d of wealth, is condemned to leave his home in the Himalayas, and spend a year of exile on a peak in the Vindhya Mountains, which divide the Deccan from the Ganges basin. He wishes to comfort and encourage his wife, but has no messenger to send her. In his despair, he begs a pa.s.sing cloud to carry his words. He finds it necessary to describe the long journey which the cloud must take, and, as the two termini are skilfully chosen, the journey involves a visit to many of the spots famous in Indian story. The description of these spots fills the first half of the poem. The second half is filled with a more minute description of the heavenly city, of the home and bride of the demiG.o.d, and with the message proper. The proportions of the poem may appear unfortunate to the Western reader, in whom the proper names of the first half will wake scanty a.s.sociations. Indeed, it is no longer possible to identify all the places mentioned, though the general route followed by the cloud can be easily traced. The peak from which he starts is probably one near the modern Nagpore. From this peak he flies a little west of north to the Nerbudda River, and the city of Ujjain; thence pretty straight north to the upper Ganges and the Himalaya. The geography of the magic city of Alaka is quite mythical.

_The Cloud-Messenger_ contains one hundred and fifteen four-line stanzas, in a majestic metre called the "slow-stepper." The English stanza which has been chosen for the translation gives perhaps as fair a representation of the original movement as may be, where direct imitation is out of the question. Though the stanza of the translation has five lines to four for the slow-stepper, it contains fewer syllables; a constant check on the temptation to padding.

The a.n.a.lysis which accompanies the poem, and which is inserted in Italics at the beginning of each stanza, has more than one object. It saves footnotes; it is intended as a real help to comprehension; and it is an eminently Hindu device. Indeed, it was my first intention to translate literally portions of Mallinatha's famous commentary; and though this did not prove everywhere feasible, there is nothing in the a.n.a.lysis except matter suggested by the commentary.

One minor point calls for notice. The word Himalaya has been accented on the second syllable wherever it occurs. This accent is historically correct, and has some foothold in English usage; besides, it is more euphonious and better adapted to the needs of the metre.