because it is a most perfect beauty of soul no less than of outward form.  Her character grows under our very eyes.  When we first meet her, she is a simple maiden, knowing no greater sorrow than the death of a favourite deer; when we bid her farewell, she has passed through happy love, the mother’s joys and pains, most cruel humiliation and suspicion, and the reunion with her husband, proved at last not to have been unworthy.  And each of these great experiences has been met with a courage and a sweetness to which no words can render justice.

Kalidasa has added much to the epic tale; yet his use of the original is remarkably minute.  A list of the epic suggestions incorporated in his play is long.  But it is worth making, in order to show how keen is the eye of genius.  Thus the king lays aside the insignia of royalty upon entering the grove (Act I).  Shakuntala appears in hermit garb, a dress of bark (Act I).  The quaint derivation of the heroine’s name from shakunta—­bird—­is used with wonderful skill in a passage (Act VII) which defies translation, as it involves a play on words.  The king’s anxiety to discover whether the maiden’s father is of a caste that permits her to marry him is reproduced (Act I).  The marriage without a ceremony is retained (Act IV), but robbed of all offence.  Kanva’s celestial vision, which made it unnecessary for his child to tell him of her union with the king, is introduced with great delicacy (Act IV).  The curious formation of the boy’s hand which indicated imperial birth adds to the king’s suspense (Act VII).  The boy’s rough play with wild animals is made convincing (Act VII) and his very nickname All-tamer is preserved (Act VII).  Kanva’s worldly wisdom as to husband and wife dwelling together is reproduced (Act IV).  No small part of the give-and-take between the king and Shakuntala is given (Act V), but with a new dignity.

Of the construction of the play I speak with diffidence.  It seems admirable to me, the apparently undue length of some scenes hardly constituting a blemish, as it was probably intended to give the actors considerable latitude of choice and excision.  Several versions of the text have been preserved; it is from the longer of the two more familiar ones that the translation in this volume has been made.  In the warm discussion over this matter, certain technical arguments of some weight have been advanced in favour of this choice; there is also a more general consideration which seems to me of importance.  I find it hard to believe that any lesser artist could pad such a masterpiece, and pad it all over, without making the fraud apparent on almost every page.  The briefer version, on the other hand, might easily grow out of the longer, either as an acting text, or as a school-book.

We cannot take leave of Shakuntala in any better way than by quoting the passage[2] in which Levi’s imagination has conjured up “the memorable premiere when Shakuntala saw the light, in the presence of Vikramaditya and his court.”