Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/164

Rh talkative and gay. There is a contrast between the two hermits who take Çakuntalā to the court; Çārn̄garava shows the pride and hauteur of his calling, and severely rebukes the king; Çāradvata is calm and restrained and admonishes him in lieu. Equally successful is the delineation of the police officers, whose unjust and overbearing conduct to the fisherman represents the spirit of Indian police from the first appearance in history. The supernatural, which is in excess in the Vikramorvaçī, is reduced to modest dimensions, and intervenes hardly at all in the play, until we come to the last Act, where the theory permits and even demands that the marvellous should be introduced, and the celestial hermitage is a fit place for the reunion of two lovers severed by so hard a fate. The episode of the ring whose loss prevents the immediate recognition of the heroine is effectively conceived and woven into the plot.

Kālidāsa excels in depicting the emotions of love, from the first suggestion in an innocent mind to the perfection of passion; he is hardly less expert in pathos; the fourth Act of the Çakuntalā is a model of tender sorrow, and the loving kindness with which even the trees take farewell of their beloved one contrasts with the immediate harsh reception which awaits her at the royal court. Kālidāsa here, as in the fourth Act of the Vikramorvaçī and in the garden scenes of the Mālavikāgnimitra, displays admirably his love for nature and his power of description of all the stock elements of Indian scenery, the mango, the Bimba fruit, the Açoka, the lotus, and his delicate appreciation of the animal world of India. In the last Act of the Çakuntalā also we have the graceful picture of the appearance of the earth viewed in perspective from the celestial car of Mātali.

The humour of the Vidūṣaka is never coarse; his fondness for food is admitted; cakes and sugar suggest themselves to him when the hero admires the moon or is sick of love; heroics he despises: the king is summarily compared to a thief in his dislike for discovery; if caught, he should imitate the latter who explains that he was learning the art of wall breaking. Or again, he is in his contempt for the ladies of his harem like one sated of sweet dates and desiring the bitter tamarind. Mālavikā is summarily treated; she is like a cuckoo caught by a cat when Dhāriṇī places her in confinement, but he is no more respectful