The Little Clay Cart | Page 6

corresponds to
the Greek choruses or the occasional rhymed songs of the Elizabethan
stage. In other words, the verse portion of a Sanskrit drama is not
narrative; it is sometimes descriptive, but more commonly lyrical: each
stanza sums up the emotional impression which the preceding action or
dialogue has made upon one of the actors. Such matter is in English
cast into the form of the rhymed stanza; and so, although rhymed verse
is very rarely employed in classical Sanskrit, it seems the most
appropriate vehicle for the translation of the stanzas of a Sanskrit drama.
It is true that we occasionally find stanzas which might fitly be
rendered in English blank verse, and, more frequently, stanzas which
are so prosaic as not to deserve a rendering in English verse at all.[26]
But, as the present translation may be regarded as in some sort an
experiment, I have preferred to hold rigidly to the distinction found in
the original between simple prose and types of stanza which seem to
me to correspond to English rhymed verse.
It is obvious that a translation into verse, and especially into rhymed
verse, cannot be as literal as a translation into prose; this disadvantage I
have used my best pains to minimize. I hope it may be said that nothing
of real moment has been omitted from the verses; and where lack of
metrical skill has compelled expansion, I have striven to make the
additions as insignificant as possible.
There is another point, however, in which it is hardly feasible to imitate
the original; this is the difference in the dialects used by the various
characters. In The Little Clay Cart, as in other Indian dramas, some of
the characters speak Sanskrit, others Prakrit. Now Prakrit is the generic
name for a number of dialects derived from the Sanskrit and closely
akin to it. The inferior personages of an Indian play, and, with rare
exceptions, all the women, speak one or another of these Prakrits. Of
the thirty characters of this play, for example, only five (Charudatta, the
courtier, Aryaka, Sharvilaka, and the judge) speak Sanskrit;[27] the
others speak various Prakrit dialects. Only in the case of Sansthanaka

have I made a rude attempt to suggest the dialect by substituting sh for
s as he does. And the grandiloquence of Sharvilaka's Sanskrit in the
satirical portion of the third act I have endeavored to imitate.
Whenever the language of the original is at all technical, the translator
labors under peculiar difficulty. Thus the legal terms found in the ninth
act are inadequately rendered, and, to some extent at least, inevitably so;
for the legal forms, or lack of forms, pictured there were never
contemplated by the makers of the English legal vocabulary. It may be
added here that in rendering from a literature so artificial as the
Sanskrit, one must lose not only the sensuous beauty of the verse, but
also many plays on words.
In regard to the not infrequent repetitions found in the text, I have used
my best judgment. Such repetitions have been given in full where it
seemed to me that the force or unity of the passage gained by such
treatment, or where the original repeats in full, as in the case of v. 7,
which is identical with iii. 29. Elsewhere, I have merely indicated the
repetition after the manner of the original.
The reader will notice that there was little effort to attain realism in the
presentation of an Indian play. He need not be surprised therefore to
find (page 145) that Viraka leaves the court-room, mounts a horse,
rides to the suburbs, makes an investigation and returns--all within the
limits of a stage-direction. The simplicity of presentation also makes
possible sudden shifts of scene. In the first act, for example, there are
six scenes, which take place alternately in Charudatta's house and in the
street outside. In those cases where a character enters "seated" or
"asleep," I have substituted the verb "appear" for the verb "enter"; yet I
am not sure that this concession to realism is wise.
The system of transliteration which I have adopted is intended to render
the pronunciation of proper names as simple as may be to the English
reader. The consonants are to be pronounced as in English,[28] the
vowels as in Italian. Diacritical marks have been avoided, with the
exception of the macron. This sign has been used consistently[29] to
mark long vowels except e and o, which are always long. Three rules
suffice for the placing of the accent. A long penult is accented:

Maitréya, Charudatta. If the penult is short, the antepenult is accented
provided it be long: Sansthanaka. If both penult and antepenult of a
four-syllabled word are short, the pre-antepenultimate receives the
accent: Mádanika, Sthavaraka.
III. AN OUTLINE