Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/175

170 cyutām indor lekhāṁ ratikalahabhagnaṁ ca valayam

çanair ekīkṛtya hasitamukhī çailatanayā

avocad yam paçyety avatu sa çivaḥ sā ca girijā

sa ca krīḍācandro daçanakiraṇapūritatanuḥ.

'Smiling, the daughter of the mountain wrought into one a digit fallen from the moon and a bracelet broken in a love quarrel, and said to her lord, "Behold my work". May he, Çiva, protect you, and the lady of the mountain, and that moon of dalliance all covered with bites and rays.'

mātar jīva kim etad añjalipuṭe tātena gopāyyate

vatsa svādu phalam prayacchati na me gatvā gṛhāṇa svayam

mātraivam prahite guhe vighaṭayaty ākṛṣya saṁdhyāñjalim

çambhor bhinnasamādhir uddharabhaso hāsodgamaḥ pātu vaḥ.

'O mother. – My life. – What is it that my father guards so carefully in the palm of his hand? – Dear one, it is a sweet fruit. – He will not give me it. – Go thyself and take it. – Thus urged by his mother, Guha seizes the closed hands of his sire as he adores the Twilight and drags them apart; Çiva, angry at the interruption of his devotion, stays his wrath at sight of his son and laughs: may that laughter protect you.'

2. The Authorship of the Dramas ascribed to Harṣa

Three dramas, as well as some minor poetry, have come down to us under the name of Harṣa, unquestionably the king of Sthāṇvīçvara and Kanyakubja, who reigned from about A.D. 606 to 648, the patron of Bāṇa who celebrates him in the Harṣacarita and of the Chinese pilgrim Hiuan-Tsang who is our most valuable source of information on his reign. That the three plays are by one and the same hand is made certain in part by the common ascription in a verse in the prologue mentioning Harṣa as an accomplished poet, partly by the recurrence of two verses in the Priyadarçikā and the Nāgānanda and of one in the former play and the Ratnāvalī, and above all by the absolute similarity of style and tone in the three works, which renders any effort to