The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times | Page 4

of jet, Oh tell me, have you seen the lovely face Of my fair
bride--lost in this dreary wilderness?
and the mountain:
Say mountain, whose expansive slope confines The forest verge, oh,
tell me hast thou seen A nymph as beauteous as the bride of love
Mounting with slender frame thy steep ascent, Or wearied, resting in
thy crowning woods?

As he sits by the side of the stream, he asks whence comes its charm:
Whilst gazing on the stream, whose new swollen waters Yet turbid
flow, what strange imaginings Possess my soul and fill it with delight.
The rippling wave is like her aching brow; The fluttering line of storks,
her timid tongue; The foaming spray, her white loose floating vest; And
this meandering course the current tracks Her undulating gait.
Then he sees a creeper without flowers, and a strange attraction impels
him to embrace it, for its likeness to his lost love:
Vine of the wilderness, behold A lone heartbroken wretch in me, Who
dreams in his embrace to fold His love, as wild he clings to thee.
Thereupon the creeper transforms itself into Urwasi.
In Kalidasa's Sakuntala, too, when the pretty girls are watering the
flowers in the garden, Sakuntala says: 'It is not only in obedience to our
father that I thus employ myself. I really feel the affection of a sister for
these young plants.' Taking it for granted that the mango tree has the
same feeling for herself, she cries: 'Yon Amra tree, my friends, points
with the fingers of its leaves, which the gale gently agitates, and seems
inclined to whisper some secret'; and with maiden shyness, attributing
her own thoughts about love to the plants, one of her comrades says:
'See, my Sakuntala, how yon fresh Mallica which you have surnamed
Vanadosini or Delight of the Grove, has chosen the sweet Amra for her
bridegroom....'
'How charming is the season, when the nuptials even of plants are thus
publicly celebrated!'--and elsewhere:
'Here is a plant, Sakuntala, which you have forgotten.' Sakuntala: 'Then
I shall forget myself.'
Birds,[2] clouds, and waves are messengers of love; all Nature grieves
at the separation of lovers. When Sakuntala is leaving her forest, one of
her friends says: 'Mark the affliction of the forest itself when the time
of your departure approaches!
'The female antelope browses no more on the collected Cusa grass, and
the pea-hen ceases to dance on the lawn; the very plants of the grove,
whose pale leaves fall on the ground, lose their strength and their
beauty.'
The poems of India, especially those devoted to descriptions of Nature,
abound in such bold, picturesque personifications, which are touching,
despite their extravagance, through their intense sympathy with Nature.

They shew the Hindoo attitude toward Nature in general, as well as his
boundless fancy. I select one example from 'The Gathering of the
Seasons' in Kalidasa's _Ritusanhare_: a description of the Rains.
'Pouring rain in torrents at the request of the thirst-stricken Chatakas,
and emitting slow mutterings pleasing to the ears, clouds, bent down by
the weight of their watery contents, are slowly moving on....
'The rivers being filled up with the muddy water of the rivers, their
force is increased. Therefore, felling down the trees on both the banks,
they, like unchaste women, are going quickly towards the ocean....
'The heat of the forest has been removed by the sprinkling of new water,
and the Ketaka flowers have blossomed. On the branches of trees being
shaken by the wind, it appears that the entire forest is dancing in delight.
On the blossoming of Ketaka flowers it appears that the forest is
smiling. Thinking, "he is our refuge when we are bent down by the
weight of water, the clouds are enlivening with torrents the mount
Vindhya assailed with fierce heat (of the summer)."'
Charming pictures and comparisons are numerous, though they have
the exaggeration common to oriental imagination, 'Love was the cause
of my distemper, and love has healed it; as a summer's day, grown
black with clouds, relieves all animals from the heat which itself had
caused.'
'Should you be removed to the ends of the world, you will be fixed in
this heart, as the shade of a lofty tree remains with it even when the day
is departed.'
'The tree of my hope which had risen so luxuriantly is broken down.'
'Removed from the bosom of my father, like a young sandal tree rent
from the hill of Malaja, how shall I exist in a strange soil?'
This familiar intercourse with Nature stood far as the poles asunder
from the monotheistic attitude of the Hebrew. The individual, it is true,
was nothing in comparison with Brahma, the All-One; but the divine
pervaded and sanctified all things, and so gave them a certain value;