Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/570

 532 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. (Chap. not come to the proud but yields to love. This is the meaning to be found in this story. * There are innumerable songs describing similar incidents in this love-story. The last is the Mathur,— the most pathetic of all. Kamsa sends Akrira to The Vrinda-groves to bring Krisna. A chariot comes ৮ to take him. The shepherds stand speechless, statue-like and with choked voices, they cannot even say ‘don’t go.’ Yacoda lies unconscious in her frantic agony of heart. Nanda hides his eyes and groans in a corner of his palace, and the milk-maids with Radha at their head go to throw themselves under the wheels of the chariot to destroy their miser- able lives; for unbearable willtheir life in Vrinda- vana be when Krisna has gone away. The birds Cuka and Sari sit mute, not singing their accustomed merry tunes. The cows look wistfully towards the far bank of the Jumna where Mathura is situated. The Vrindavan 146s no longer hum round the blooming flowers. deserted Ma রর রর by Krisna. All the groves of Vrinda look like a picture of desolation where the shepherds and the maids, remain plunged in sorrow after the chariot has moved away. Krisna kills Karhsa and is restored to Vasudeva and Daivaki, but poor Nanda and Yacgoda are blinded with weeping. Radha with her maids seek the Vrinda groves ; it is a mad and fruitless search; she asks the jessamine, the lotus and the kunda flower if they Radha can tell her the whereabouts of Krisha; she stands forsaken রর : by Krisha. lost in a trance, and then runs on again,—the thorns pierce her feet, she does not care; the Written about 120 years ago
 * This story is related in the Bengali poem Muktalatavall