THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

V. 4. On Translating Kalidasa239to is that of Vishnou striding “through heaven”. But to the Englishreader the words of Kalidasa literally transliterated wouldbe a mere artificial conceit devoid of the original sublimity. It isthe inability to seize the associations and precise poetical forceof Sanskrit words that has led so many European Sanskritists todescribe the poetry of Kalidasa which is hardly surpassed fortruth, bold directness and native beauty and grandeur as the artificialpoetry of an artificial period. A literal translation wouldonly spread this erroneous impression to the general reader. Itmust be admitted that in the opposite method one of Kalidasa'sfinest characteristics is entirely lost, his power of expressing bya single simple direct and sufficient word ideas and pictures ofthe utmost grandeur or shaded complexity; but this is a characteristicwhich could in no case be possible in any language butthe classical Sanskrit which Kalidasa did more than any man tocreate or at least to perfect. Even the utmost literalness couldnot transfer this characteristic into English. This method of elicitingall the values of the original of which I have given a ratherextreme instance, I have applied with great frequency where apregnant mythological allusion or a striking or subtle picture orimage calls for adequate representation, more especially perhapsin pictures or images connected with birds and animals unfamiliaror but slightly familiar to the English reader. (At the sametime I must plead guilty to occasional excesses, to reading intoKalidasa perhaps in a dozen instances what is not there. I canonly plead in apology that translators are always incorrigible sinnersin this respect and that I have sinned less than others; moreover,except in one or two instances, these additions have alwaysbeen suggested either by the sound or substance of theoriginal. I may instance the line,A flickering line of fireflies seen in sleep,Kalidasa says nothing equivalent to or suggesting “seen in sleep”,but I had to render somehow the impression of night and dimunreality created by the dreamy movement and whispering assonancesof the linesalpÀlpabhÀsaÌ khadyotÀlÈvilasitanibhÀÌ vidyudunmeØadÐØÒim