Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works

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Kåalidåasa
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Title: Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works
Author: Kåalidåasa
Translator: Arthur W. Ryder
Release Date: September 5, 2005 [EBook #16659]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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TRANSLATIONS OF SHAKUNTALA ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jayam Subramanian and the
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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
POETRY AND THE DRAMA
KALIDASA
TRANSLATIONS OF SHAKUNTALA & OTHER
WORKS
BY ARTHUR W. RYDER
THIS IS NO. 629 OF _EVERYMAN'S
LIBRARY_. THE
PUBLISHERS WILL
BE PLEASED TO SEND FREELY TO
ALL
APPLICANTS A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED
AND
PROJECTED VOLUMES ARRANGED
UNDER THE

FOLLOWING SECTIONS:
TRAVEL · SCIENCE · FICTION
THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY

HISTORY · CLASSICAL
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

ESSAYS · ORATORY
POETRY & DRAMA
BIOGRAPHY

REFERENCE
ROMANCE
THE ORDINARY EDITION IS BOUND
IN CLOTH WITH
GILT DESIGN AND
COLOURED TOP. THERE IS ALSO A

LIBRARY EDITION IN REINFORCED CLOTH
LONDON: J.M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: E.P. DUTTON
& CO.
[Illustration:
KALIDASA
TRANSLATIONS
of
SHAKUNTALA
AND OTHER
WORKS, BY
ARTHUR. W.

RYDER.
UNIVERSITY
of CALIFORNIA
LONDON & TORONTO
PUBLISHED BY J.M. DENT
&. SONS
LTD & IN NEW YORK
BY E.P. DUTTON &. CO]
[Illustration: #Poets are the trumpets which sing to battle poets are the
unacknowledged legislators of the world# Shelley]
FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION 1912
REPRINTED 1920,
1928
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
INTRODUCTION
KALIDASA--HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS
I
Kalidasa probably lived in the fifth century of the Christian era. This
date, approximate as it is, must yet be given with considerable

hesitation, and is by no means certain. No truly biographical data are
preserved about the author, who nevertheless enjoyed a great popularity
during his life, and whom the Hindus have ever regarded as the greatest
of Sanskrit poets. We are thus confronted with one of the remarkable
problems of literary history. For our ignorance is not due to neglect of
Kalidasa's writings on the part of his countrymen, but to their strange
blindness in regard to the interest and importance of historic fact. No
European nation can compare with India in critical devotion to its own
literature. During a period to be reckoned not by centuries but by
millenniums, there has been in India an unbroken line of savants
unselfishly dedicated to the perpetuation and exegesis of the native
masterpieces. Editions, recensions, commentaries abound; poets have
sought the exact phrase of appreciation for their predecessors: yet when
we seek to reconstruct the life of their greatest poet, we have no
materials except certain tantalising legends, and such data as we can
gather from the writings of a man who hardly mentions himself.
One of these legends deserves to be recounted for its intrinsic interest,
although it contains, so far as we can see, no grain of historic truth, and
although it places Kalidasa in Benares, five hundred miles distant from
the only city in which we certainly know that he spent a part of his life.
According to this account, Kalidasa was a Brahman's child. At the age
of six months he was left an orphan and was adopted by an ox-driver.
He grew to manhood without formal education, yet with remarkable
beauty and grace of manner. Now it happened that the Princess of
Benares was a blue-stocking, who rejected one suitor after another,
among them her father's counsellor, because they failed to reach her
standard as scholars and poets. The rejected counsellor planned a cruel
revenge. He took the handsome ox-driver from the street, gave him the
garments of a savant and a retinue of learned doctors, then introduced
him to the princess, after warning him that he was under no
circumstances to open his lips. The princess was struck with his beauty
and smitten to the depths of her pedantic soul by his obstinate silence,
which seemed to her, as indeed it was, an evidence of profound wisdom.
She desired to marry Kalidasa, and together they went to the temple.
But no sooner was the ceremony performed than Kalidasa perceived an
image of a bull. His early training was too much for him; the secret

came out, and the bride was furious. But she relented in response to
Kalidasa's entreaties, and advised him to pray for learning and poetry to
the goddess Kali. The prayer was granted; education and poetical
power descended
miraculously to dwell with the young ox-driver,
who in gratitude assumed the name Kalidasa, servant of Kali. Feeling
that he owed this happy change in his very nature to his princess, he
swore that he would ever treat her as his teacher, with profound respect
but without familiarity. This was more than the lady had bargained for;
her anger burst forth anew, and she cursed