Sakoontala | Page 4

young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline, And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed? Would'st thou the Earth and Heaven itself in one sole name combine? I name thee, O [S']akoontal��! and all at once is said.'
_E.B. Eastwick_.
Augustus William von Schlegel, in his first Lecture on Dramatic Literature, says: 'Among the Indians, the people from whom perhaps all the cultivation of the human race has been derived, plays were known long before they could have experienced any foreign influence. It has lately been made known in Europe that they have a rich dramatic literature, which ascends back for more than two thousand years. The only specimen of their plays (N��taks) hitherto known to us is the delightful [S']akoontal��, which, notwithstanding the colouring of a foreign clime, bears in its general structure a striking resemblance to our romantic drama.'
Alexander von Humboldt, in treating of Indian poetry, observes: 'K��lid��sa, the celebrated author of the [S']akoontal��, is a masterly describer of the influence which Nature exercises upon the minds of lovers. This great poet flourished at the splendid court of Vikram��ditya, and was, therefore, cotemporary with Virgil and Horace. Tenderness in the expression of feeling, and richness of creative fancy, have assigned to him his lofty place among the poets of all nations'.
These considerations induced me, in 1853, to compile and publish an edition of the text of the '[S']akoontal��' from various original MSS., with English translations of the metrical passages, and explanatory notes. A second edition of this work has since been published by the Delegates of the Oxford University Press. To the notes of that edition I must refer all students of Sanskrit literature who desire a close and literal translation of the present drama, and in the Preface will be found an account of various other editions and translations.
The following pages contain a free translation, and the first English version in prose and metre, of the purest recension of the most celebrated drama of the Shakespeare of India.
The need felt by the British public for some such translation as I have here offered can scarcely be questioned. A great people, who, through their empire in India, command the destinies of the Eastern world, ought surely to be conversant with the most popular of Indian dramas, in which the customs of the Hind��s, their opinions, prejudices, and fables, their religious rites, daily occupations and amusements, are reflected as in a mirror. Nor is the prose translation of Sir W. Jones (excellent though it be) adapted to meet the requirements of modern times. That translation was unfortunately made from corrupt manuscripts (the best that could then be procured), in which the bold phraseology of K��lid��sa has been occasionally weakened, his delicate expressions of refined love clothed in an unbecoming dress, and his ideas, grand in their simplicity, diluted by repetition or amplification. It is, moreover, altogether unfurnished with explanatory annotations. The present translation, on the contrary, while representing the purest version of the drama, has abundant notes, sufficient to answer the exigencies of the non-oriental scholar.
It may be remarked that in every Sanskrit play the women and inferior characters speak a kind of provincial dialect or patois, called Pr��krit--bearing the relation to Sanskrit that Italian bears to Latin, or that the spoken Latin of the age of Cicero bore to the highly polished Latin in which he delivered his Orations. Even the heroine of the drama is made to speak in the vernacular dialect. The hero, on the other hand, and all the higher male characters, speak in Sanskrit; and as if to invest them with greater dignity, half of what they say is in verse. Indeed the prose part of their speeches is often very commonplace, being only introductory to the lofty sentiment of the poetry that follows. Thus, if the whole composition be compared to a web, the prose will correspond to the warp, or that part which is extended lengthwise in the loom, while the metrical portion will answer to the cross-threads which constitute the woof.
The original verses are written in a great variety of Sanskrit metres. For example, the first thirty-four verses of '[S']akoontal��' exhibit eleven different varieties of metre. No English metrical system could give any idea of the almost infinite resources of Sanskrit in this respect. Nor have I attempted it. Blank verse has been employed by me in my translation, as more in unison with the character of our own dramatic writings, and rhyming stanzas have only been admitted when the subject-matter seemed to call for such a change. Perhaps the chief consideration that induced me to adopt this mode of metrical translation was, that the free and unfettered character of the verse enabled me to preserve more of the freshness and vigour of the original. If the poetical