The second act introduces the king’s jester, a Brahman on confidential terms with his master, who, while Dushyanta is thinking of love, is longing to get back to the city.  He is tired of the hot jungle, the nauseating water of bitter mountain streams, the racket of fowlers at early dawn, and the eternal galloping, by which his joints are bruised.  The king is equally tired of hunting, and confesses that he cannot bend his bow against those fawns which dwell near Sakoontala’s abode, and have taught their tender glance to her.  He calls back the beaters sent out to surround the forest, takes off his hunting-suit, and talks to the jester about the charms of Sakoontala—­whom the Creator, he says, has formed by gathering in his mind all lovely shapes, so as to make a peerless woman-gem.  He recalls the glance which she shot at him as she cried, “a kusha-grass has stung my foot.”  Meanwhile two hermits approach him with the news that the demons have taken advantage of Kanwa’s absence to disturb the sacrifices.  They request him to take up his abode in the grove for a few days, in order to vanquish the enemies.  A messenger arrives to tell him that his mother, in four days, will be offering a solemn sacrifice for her son’s welfare, and invites his presence at the rite.  But he cannot leave Sakoontala, and sends the jester Mathavya in his stead, telling him to say nothing about his love for Sakoontala.

In the third act the love of the king and the hermit girl reaches its climax.  The king is found walking in the hermitage, invoking the God of Love, whose shafts are flowers, though the flowery darts are hard as steel.  “Mighty God of Love, hast Thou no pity on me?” What better relief, he asks, than the sight of my beloved?  He traces Sakoontala, by the broken tubes which bore the blossoms she had culled, to the arbor, enclosed by the plantation of canes, and shaded by vines, at whose entrance he observes in the sand the track of recent footsteps.  Peering through the branches, he perceives her reclining on a stone seat strewn with flowers.  Her two companions are with her, and she is sick unto death.  The king notices that her cheeks are wasted, her breasts less swelling, her slender waist more slender, her roseate hue has grown pale, and she seems like some poor madhave creeper touched by winds that have scorched its leaves.  Her companions anxiously inquire the cause of her sickness, and, after much hesitation, she reveals her love by inscribing a poem, with her fingernail, on a lotus leaf smooth as a parrot’s breast.  The king hears the avowal of her love, rushes in to her, and declares his passion:  adding that daughters of a royal saint have often been wedded by Gandharva rites, without ceremonies or parental consent, yet have not forfeited the father’s blessing.  He thus overcomes her scruples.  Gautami, the matron of the hermitage, afterwards enters, and asks, “My child, is your fever allayed?” “Venerable mother,” is the reply, “I feel a grateful change.”  As the king sits in solitude that evening in the deserted arbor, he hears a voice outside, uttering the verses—­“The evening rites have begun; but, dark as the clouds of night, the demons are swarming round the altar fires.”  With these words of ill-omen the third act comes to an end.