to the touch than the embrace of one’s son.  O chastiser of foes, I have brought forth this child, O monarch, capable of dispelling all thy sorrows after bearing him in my womb for full three years.  O monarch of Puru’s race, ’He shall perform a hundred horse-sacrifices’—­these were the words uttered from the sky when I was in the lying-in room.  Indeed, men going into places remote from their homes take up there others’ children on their laps and smelling their heads feel great happiness.  Thou knowest that Brahmanas repeat these Vedic mantras on the occasion of the consecrating rites of infancy.—­Thou art born, O son, of my body!  Thou art sprung from my heart.  Thou art myself in the form of a son.  Live thou to a hundred years!  My life dependeth on thee, and the continuation of my race also, on thee.  Therefore, O son, live thou in great happiness to a hundred years.  He hath sprung from thy body, this second being from thee!  Behold thyself in thy son, as thou beholdest thy image in the clear lake.  As the sacrificial fire is kindled from the domestic one, so hath this one sprung from thee.  Though one, thou hast divided thyself.  In course of hunting while engaged in pursuit of the deer, I was approached by thee, O king, I who was then a virgin in the asylum of my father.  Urvasi, Purvachitti, Sahajanya, Menaka, Viswachi and Ghritachi, these are the six foremost of Apsaras.  Amongst them again, Menaka, born of Brahman, is the first.  Descending from heaven on Earth, after intercourse with Viswamitra, she gave birth to me.  That celebrated Apsara, Menaka, brought me forth in a valley of Himavat.  Bereft of all affection, she went away, cast me there as if I were the child of somebody else.  What sinful act did I do, of old, in some other life that I was in infancy cast away by my parents and at present am cast away by thee!  Put away by thee, I am ready to return to the refuge of my father.  But it behoveth thee not to cast off this child who is thy own.’

“Hearing all this, Dushmanta said, ’O Sakuntala, I do not know having begot upon thee this son.  Women generally speak untruths.  Who shall believe in thy words?  Destitute of all affection, the lewd Menaka is thy mother, and she cast thee off on the surface of the Himavat as one throws away, after the worship is over, the flowery offering made to his gods.  Thy father too of the Kshatriya race, the lustful Viswamitra, who was tempted to become a Brahmana, is destitute of all affection.  However, Menaka is the first of Apsaras, and thy father also is the first of Rishis.  Being their daughter, why dost thou speak like a lewd woman?  Thy words deserve no credit.  Art thou not ashamed to speak them, especially before me?  Go hence, O wicked woman in ascetic guise.  Where is that foremost of great Rishis, where also is that Apsara Menaka?  And why art thou, low as thou art, in the guise of an ascetic?  Thy child too is grown up.  Thou sayest he is a boy, but he is very strong.  How hath he soon grown like a Sala sprout?  Thy birth is low.  Thou speakest like a lewd woman.  Lustfully hast thou been begotten by Menaka.  O woman of ascetic guise, all that thou sayest is quite unknown to me.  I don’t know thee.  Go withersoever thou choosest.’