Sakoontala | Page 4

repeated:
'Willst du die Blüthe des frühen, die Früchte des späteren Jahres, Willst
du was reizt und entzückt, willst du was sättigt und nährt, Willst du den
Himmel, die Erde, mit einem Namen begreifen: Nenn' ich,
[S']akoontalá, Dich, und so ist Alles gesagt.'
'Would'st thou the 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']akoontalá! 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 (Nátaks) hitherto known to us is the
delightful [S']akoontalá, 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:
'Kálidása, the celebrated author of the [S']akoontalá, is a masterly
describer of the influence which Nature exercises upon the minds of
lovers. This great poet flourished at the splendid court of Vikramáditya,
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']akoontalá' 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 Hindús, 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 Kálidása 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
Prákrit--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']akoontalá' 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