Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/361

 nearly two hundred such, representing something like one half of the whole play. These lyrical passages are composed in a great many different metres. Thus the first thirty-four stanzas of Çakuntalā exhibit no fewer than eleven varieties of verse. It is not possible, as in the case of the simple Vedic metres, to imitate in English the almost infinite resources of the complicated and entirely quantitative classical Sanskrit measures. The spirit of the lyrical passages is, therefore, probably best reproduced by using blank verse as the familiar metre of our drama. The prose of the dialogue in the plays is often very commonplace, serving only as an introduction to the lofty sentiment of the poetry that follows.

In accordance with their social position, the various characters in a Sanskrit play speak different dialects. Sanskrit is employed only by heroes, kings, Brahmans, and men of high rank; Prākrit by all women and by men of the lower orders. Distinctions are further made in the use of Prākrit itself. Thus women of high position employ Mahārāshṭrī in lyrical passages, but otherwise they, as well as children and the better class of servants, speak Çaurasenī. Māgadhī is used, for instance, by attendants in the royal palace, Avantī by rogues or gamblers, Abhīrī by cowherds, Paiçāchī by charcoal-burners, and Apabhraṃça by the lowest and most despised people as well as barbarians.

The Sanskrit dramatists show considerable skill in weaving the incidents of the plot and in the portrayal of individual character, but do not show much fertility of invention, commonly borrowing the story of their plays from history or epic legend. Love is the subject of most Indian dramas. The hero, usually a king,