Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/255

 “When they had. finished eating, the shepherds sounded the horn and marched. The cows followed them, and all assembled on the banks of the Jumna. On the way, the spirit of fun found many kinds of ex- pression. Here the cuckoos were bilthely singing and Krisna imitated their notes. There the monkeys were leaping from bough to bough and he and _ his comrades went climbing and leaping with them. Again, the peacocks were dancing and the lads copied the dance. The birds were flying in the sky, and their shadows on the earth were pursued by Valarama and Krisna who danced as they did so. The trees abounded with flowers which they gathered as they went; some Krisna wore on his head and some he placed on his heart.”’ The Bengali translation of Maladhar Vasu, it should be said, is not literal, and Radha, whom we do not find mentioned in the Bhagavata, 1s introduced in this Bengali recension where the poetic passages describing her deep spiritual love awake the loveliest interest. By this innovation, Maladhar Vasu strikes the key-note of those love- poems on Krishna and Radha, with which the Vaisnava works of later times abound. কথাতে মধুর পক্ষী মধু না করে। সেহ মত নৃত্যকরে দেব দামোদরে ॥ কথা কথ৷ পক্ষীএ আকাশে উড়ি যাই। তার ছায়। সঙ্গে নাচে রাম কাহাই ॥ কথ! ব1 সুগন্ধি পুষ্প তুলিয়! মুরারি । কত হাদে মন্তকে শ্রবণে কেশে পরি ॥ Bhagavata by Maladhar Vasu. . |) _BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. — 223 The merry sports of the she- pherds. Radha introduced in the poem.