Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/37

Rh and smiles and embraces everybody else and dissolves in tears, while every hair on their body stands on end; the last two performances being so specially Tulsian, that the eyes of his dramatis personæ may be described without exaggeration, in the words of Crashaw, as:

Again, the curiously artificial similes derived from the frequently fabulous habits of different birds and plants, which—like the oft-repeated refrain of a popular song—never fail to elicit the applause of an appreciative audience, only repel a foreigner as frigid and unmeaning conventionalities. Such are the perpetual allusions to the lotus, that expands in the day and closes at evening; to the lily, that blossoms in the night and fades at sunrise; to the rice crop, that luxuriates in the rain, and to the jawása plant that is killed by it; to the chakuá, that mourns its mate all through the hours of darkness ; to the chakor, that is never happy except when gazing upon the moon; to the chátak, that patiently endures all the buffeting of the storm, in the confident expectation that the cloud will at last let fall the one auspicious drop for which it thirsts; to the swan, that knows how to separate milk from the water with which it has been mixed; and to the snake, that carries a precious jewel in its head, of which it is always afraid of being robbed. In spite of these drawbacks there are many passages instinct with a genuine poetic feeling, which appeals to universal humanity, and which it is hoped will be dimly recognized even through the ineffectual medium of a prose translation.

The characters also of the principal actors in the drama are clearly and consistently drawn; and all may admire, though they refuse to worship, the piety and unselfishness of Bharat; the enthusiasm and high courage of Lakshman; the affectionate devotion of Síta, that paragon of all wife-like virtues; and the purity, meekness, generosity and self-sacrifice of Ráma, the model son, husband, and brother, 'the guileless king, high, self-contained, and passionless," the Arthur of Indian chivalry.

In the later Books the narrative is generally more rapid than in the earlier part of the poem and several incidents are so casually mentioned that, without the explanatory references to the Sanskrit Rámáyana, which I have given in the notes, a literal rendering would convey no meaning to the ordinary reader. It is to some extent a literary defect that the rôle of poet is so often dropt for that of theologian; and the frequent hymns to Ráma, who is apostrophized under every conceivable name that can help to realize to the mind the mystery of incarnate