of sentimental love (innigen Liebeslebens) to the most licentious situations.  He is mistaken, as I have shown, in regard to the sentiment, but there can be no doubt about the licentiousness.  Numbers 5, 23, 62, 63, 65, 71, 72, 107, 115, 139, 161, 200, 223, 237, 241, 242, 300, 305, 336, 338, 356, 364, 369, 455, 483, 491, 628, 637, depict or suggest improper scenes, while 61, 213, 215, 242, 278, 327, 476, 690 are frankly obscene.  Lower and higher things are mixed in these poems with a naivete that shows the absence of any idea of refinement.

[276] I have here followed Kellner, though Boehtlingk’s version is more literal and Oriental:  “Mir aber brennt Liebe, O Grausamer, Tag und Nacht gewaltig die Glieder, deren Wuensche auf dich gerichtet sind.”

[277] Anas Casarea, a species of duck which, in Hindoo poetry, is allowed to be with his mate only in the daytime and must leave her at night, in consequence of a curse; thereupon begin mutual lamentations.

[278] For a Hindoo, unless he has a son to make offerings after his death, is doomed to live over again his earthly life with all its sorrows.  A daughter will do, provided she has a son to attend to the rites.

[279] The sequel of the story, relating to the misfortunes of Nala and Damayanti after marriage, will be referred to presently.  The famous tale herewith briefly summarized occurs in the Mahabharata, the great epic or mythological cyclopaedia of India, which embraces 220,000 metric lines, and antedates in the main the Christian era.  The story of Savitri also occurs in the Mahabharata; and these two episodes have been pronounced by specialists the gems not only of that great epic, but of all Hindoo literature.  I have translated from the edition of H.C.  Kellner, which is based on the latest and most careful revisions of the Sanscrit text.  I have also followed Kellner’s edition of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala and Otto Fritze’s equally critical versions of the same poet’s Urvasi and Malavika and Agnimitra.  Some of the earlier translators, notably Rueckert, permitted themselves unwarranted poetic licenses, modernizing and sentimentalizing the text, somewhat as Professor Ebers did the thoughts and feelings of the ancient Egyptians.  I will add that while I have been obliged to greatly condense the stories of the above dramas, I have taken great care to retain all the speeches and details that throw light on the Hindoo conception of love, reserving a few, however, for comment in the following paragraphs.

[280] Our poets speak of fright making the hair stand on end—­but only on the head.  Can the alleged Hindoo phenomenon be identical with what we call goose flesh—­French frisson?  That would make it none the less artificial as a symptom of love.  Hertel says, in his edition of the Hitopadesa (26): 

“With the Hindoos it is a consequence of great excitement, joy as well as fear, that the little hairs on the body stand erect.  The expression has become conventional.”

[281] Hitopadesa (25).  This gratification the Hindoos regard as one of the four great objects of life, the other three being liberty (emancipation of the soul), wealth, and the performance of religious duties.