Part 73 (1/2)
”Only over me, the iron-hearted, thunder, O cloud, and with all your might; be sure that you do not kill my poor one with the hanging locks.”
Here, for once, we have the idea of self-sacrifice--only the idea, it is true, and not the act; but it indicates a very exceptional and exalted state for a Hindoo even to think of such a thing. The self-reproach of ”iron-hearted” tells us, however, that the man has been behaving selfishly and cruelly toward his sweetheart or wife, and is feeling sorry for a moment. In such moments a Hindoo not infrequently becomes human, especially if he expects new favors of the maltreated woman, which she is only too willing to grant:
No. 85: ”While with the breath of his mouth he cooled one of my hands, swollen from the effect of his blow, I put the other one laughingly around his neck.”
No. 191: ”By untangling the hair of her prostrate lover from the notches of her spangles in which it had been caught, she shows him that her heart has ceased to be sulky.”
References to such prostrations to secure forgiveness for inconstancy or cruelty are frequent in Hindoo poems and dramas, and it is needless to say that they are a very different thing from the disinterested prostrations and homage of modern gallantry. True gallantry being one of the altruistic ingredients of love, it would be useless to seek for it among the Hindoos. Not so with hyperbole, which being simply a magnifying of one's own sensations and an expression of extravagant feeling of any kind, forms, as we know, a phase of sensual as well as of sentimental love. The eager desire for a girl's favor makes her breath and all her attributes seem delicious not only to man but to inanimate things. The following, with the finis.h.i.+ng touches applied by the German translator, approaches modern poetic sentiment more closely than any other of Hala's songs:
No. 13: ”O you who are skilled in cooking! Do not be angry (that the fire fails to burn). The fire does not burn, smokes only, in order to drink in (long) the breath of (your) mouth, perfumed like red patela blossoms.”
In the use of hyperbole it is very difficult to avoid the step from the sublime to the ridiculous. The author of No. 153 had a happy thought when he sang that his beloved was so perfect a beauty that no one had ever been able to see her whole body because the eye refused to leave whatever part it first alighted on. This pretty notion is turned into unconscious burlesque by the author of No. 274, who complains,
”How can I describe her from whose limbs the eyes that see them cannot tear themselves away, like a weak cow from the mud she is sticking in.”
Hardly less grotesque to our Western taste is the favorite boast (No.
211 _et pa.s.sim_) that the moon is making vain efforts to s.h.i.+ne as brightly as the beloved's face. It is easier for us to sympathize with the Hindoo poets when they express their raptures over the eyes or locks of their beloved:
No. 470: ”Other beauties too have in their faces beautiful wide black eyes, with long lashes, but they cannot cast such glances as you do.”
No. 77: ”I think of her countenance with her locks floating loosely about it as she shook her head when I seized her lip--like unto a lotos flower surrounded by a swarm of (black) bees attracted by its fragrance.”
Yet even these two references to personal beauty are not purely esthetic, and in all the others the sensual aspect is more emphasized:
No. 556: ”The brown girl's hair, which had succeeded in touching her hips, weeps drops of water, as it were, now that she comes out of the bath, as if from fear of now being tied up again.”
No. 128: ”As by a miracle, as by a treasure, as in heaven, as a kingdom, as a drink of ambrosia, was I affected when I (first) saw her without any clothing.”
No. 473: ”For the sake of the dark-eyed girls whose hips and thighs are visible through their wet dresses when they bathe in the afternoon, does Kama [the G.o.d of love] wield his bow.”
Again and again the poets express their raptures over exaggerated busts and hips, often in disgustingly coa.r.s.e comparisons--lines which cannot be quoted here.[275]
LYRICS AND DRAMAS
In his _History of Indian Literature_ (209), Weber says that
”the erotic lyric commences for us with certain of the poems attributed to Kalidasa.” ”The later Kavyas are to be ranked with the erotic poems rather than with the epic. In general this love-poetry is of the most unbridled and extravagantly sensual description; yet examples of deep and truly romantic tenderness are not wanting.”
Inasmuch as he attributes the same qualities to some of the Hala poems in which we have been unable to find them, it is obvious that his conception of ”deep and truly romantic tenderness” is different from ours, and it is useless to quarrel about words. Hala's collection, being an anthology of the best love-songs of many poets, is much more representative and valuable than if the verses were all by the same poet. If Hindoo bards and bayaderes had a capacity for true altruistic love-sentiment, these seven hundred songs could hardly have failed to reveal it. But to make doubly sure that we are not misrepresenting a phase of the history of civilization, let us examine the Hindoo dramas most noted as love-stories, especially those of Kalidasa, whose _Sakuntala_ in particular was triumphantly held up by some of my critics as a refutation of my theory that none of the ancient civilized nations knew romantic love. I shall first briefly summarize the love-stories told in these dramas, and then point out what they reveal in regard to the Hindoo conception of love as based, presumably, on their experiences.
I. THE STORY OF SAKUNTALA
Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the Gautami River a hermit named Kaucika. He was of royal blood and had made so much progress with his saintly exercises of penitence that he was on the point of being able to defy the laws of Nature, and the G.o.ds themselves began to fear his power. To deprive him of it they sent down a beautiful _apsara_ (celestial bayaderes) to tempt him. He could not resist her charms, and broke his vows. A daughter was born who received the name of Sakuntala, and was given in charge of another saint, named Kanva, who brought her up lovingly as if she had been his own daughter. She has grown up to be a maiden of more than human beauty, when one day she is seen by the king, who, while hunting, has strayed within the sacred precincts while the saint is away on a holy errand. He is at once fascinated by her beauty--a beauty, as he says to himself, such as is seldom found in royal chambers--a wild vine more lovely than any garden-plant--and she, too, confesses to her companions that since she has seen him she is overcome by a feeling which seems out of place in this abode of penitence.
The king cannot bear the idea of returning to his palace, but encamps near the grove of the penitents. He fears that he may not be able to win the girl's love, and she is tortured by the same doubt regarding him. ”Did Brahma first paint her and then infuse life into her, or did he in his spirit fas.h.i.+on her out of a number of spirits?” he exclaims.
He wonders what excuse he can have for lingering in the grove. His companion suggests gathering the t.i.the, but the king retorts: ”What I get for protecting her is to be esteemed higher than piles of jewels.”
He now feels an aversion to hunting. ”I would not be able to shoot this arrow at the gazelles who have lived with her, and who taught the beloved to gaze so innocently.” He grows thin from loss of sleep.
Unable to keep his feelings locked up in his bosom, he reveals them to his companion, the jester, but afterward, fearing he might tell his wives about this love-affair, he says to him:
”Of course there is no truth in the notion that I coveted this girl Sakuntala. Just think! how could we suit one another, a girl who knows nothing of love and has grown up perfectly wild with the young gazelles?