Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/243

238 betokening by their weight her heart's sorrow, there pour forth from the lotus-eyed one the floods of her tears.'

Of all the plays the Karpūramañjarī is undoubtedly that which contains the most substantial evidence that Rājaçekhara had some real poetic talent, despite the banality and stupidity of his conception of love in Act III. The swing scene contains really effective lines of word-painting, in harmonious metre:

vicchaanto ṇaararamaṇīmaṇḍalassāṇaṇāiṁ viccholanto gaaṇakuharaṁ kantijoṇhājaleṇa

pecchantīṇaṁ hiaaṇihiaṁ ṇiddalanto a dappaṁ dolālīlāsaralataralo dīsae se muhendū.

'Paling the face of every beauty here, making the sky's vault to ripple with the liquid moonlight of her loveliness, and breaking the haughty pride in the hearts of maids that regard her, appeareth the moon-like orb of her face as she moveth straight to and fro in her sport on the swing.' The effective alliteration and paronomasia of this stanza are surpassed by the metrical perfection of the next but one, where the Pṛthvī metre, with 'its jingling tribrachs and bell-like, chiming cretics', is employed in a stanza which admirably conveys by its sound the sense at which it aims:

raṇantamaṇiṇeuraṁ jhaṇajhaṇantaharacchaḍaṁ kaṇakkaṇiakin̄kiṇīmuhalamehalāḍambaraṁ

vilolavalaāvalījaṇiamañjusiñjāravaṁ ṇa kassa maṇomohaṇaṁ sasimuhīa hindolaṇaṁ.

'With the tinkling jewelled anklets,

With the flashing jewelled necklace,

With the show of girdles garrulous

From their ringing, ringing bells

With the sound of lovely jingles

From the rows of rolling bangles,

Pray whose heart is not bewildered

While the moon-faced maiden swings?'

Excellent also is the king's address to the Açoka when made to blossom by the touch of the foot of his young beloved, but more characteristic in his comment, inspired by the Vidūṣaka's