Sakuntala

By -
Shakuntala (The Recognition of Shakuntala), by Kālidāsa

Some time ago I read The Cloud Messenger, a longish poem by the Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa, who lived about 1500 years ago apparently.  I thought I would like to read his play, too.  The introduction of this book says that ancient Sanskrit drama was considered divine, a fifth Veda that was supposed to instruct through pleasure.  All could understand it (unlike the four Vedas), and it should represent the world, give good advice, and "bring peace of mind to those afflicted with the ills of the world" (such as kings).  Drama is not particular and individual, but shows a generalized picture and should produce "the aesthetic emotion" called rasa by building impressions through the words, music, and art.  The story therefore reads like a legend or fairy tale.

Shakuntala is a lovely, sheltered girl living in a holy enclave with her adopted father, the sage Kanva.  Other holy disciples and girls live there as well; it's a small community in the wilderness.  The king, Duhsanta, happens upon the hermitage during a hunt and stops to pay his respects to the sage.  There he meets Shakuntala, and they immediately fall in love, but Sage Kanva is temporarily absent, unable to give his consent.  Duhsanta determines that Shakuntala is an appropriate bride for him and talks her into an immediate marriage by declaration.  He then takes his leave, promising to send for her, but, naturally, there is a barrier to their love that must be conquered.

It's a lovely, poetic story that must have enchanted the court that saw it.  I'm sure the English version doesn't measure up to the original, so I can't appreciate it properly, but it was neat to read and it would be fun to see it performed.  It's not at all difficult to read, except that a glossary and cultural footnotes come in pretty handy, so the Penguin edition is a good one for those not familiar with ancient Indian literature and culture.  The Loom of Time collects two poems and this play.

Comments

  1. MudpuddleJanuary 10, 2017 at 10:46 AM

    i read this when i was in high school about 95 years ago and had forgotten it... sometimes the best stories are the simplest, though...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of...
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the s...
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he ...
Read more