Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/167

162 'His glance fixed on the chariot, ever and anon he leaps up, gracefully bending his neck; through fear of the arrow's fall he draws ever his hinder part into the front of his body; he strews his path with the grass, half chewed, which drops from his mouth opened in weariness; so much aloft he bounds that he runs rather in the air than on earth.' Inferential knowledge is illustrated by a brilliant stanza:

çāntam idam āçramapadaṁ sphurati ca bāhuḥ kutaḥ phalam ihāsya

atha vā bhavitavyānāṁ dvārāṇi bhavanti sarvatra.

'This is the hermitage where all desires are stilled; yet my arm throbs; how can here be found the fruit of such a presage? Nay, the doors of fate are ever open.' The rôle of conscience in human action is finely portrayed:

asaṁçayaṁ kṣatraparigrahakṣamā: yad āryam asyāabhilāṣi me manaḥ

satāṁ hi saṁdehapadeṣu vāstuṣu: pramāṇam antaḥkaraṇapravṛttayaḥ.

'Assuredly the maiden meet for marriage to a warrior, since my noble mind is set upon her; for with the good in matters of doubt the final authority is the dictate of conscience.' Of the departing Çakuntalā after her rejection the king says:

itaḥ pratyādeçāt svajanam anugantuṁ vyavasitā

muhus tiṣṭhety uccair vadati guruçiṣye gurusame

punar dṛṣṭiṁ bāṣpaprasarakaluṣām arpitavatī

mayi krūre yat tat saviṣam iva çalyaṁ dahati mām.

'When I rejected her she sought to regain her companions, but the disciple, in his master's stead, loudly bade her stay; then she turned on cruel me a glance dimmed by her falling tears, and that now burns me like a poisoned arrow.' At his son's touch he says:

anena kasyāpi kulān̄kureṇa: spṛṣṭasya gātreṣu sukhaṁ mamaivam

kāṁ nirvṛttiṁ cetasi tasya kuryād: yasyāyam an̄gāt kṛtinaḥ prarūḍhaḥ?

'When such joy is mine in the touch on my limbs of a scion of some other house, what gladness must not be his, from whose