THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

V. 4. On Translating Kalidasa241But when the Yaksha says to the cloud that he will recogniseher who is his second life by her sweet rare speech and her lonelinessin that city of happy lovers, “sole like a lonely Chacravaque withme her comrade far away”, the simile has no pathos to an Englishmind and even when explained would only seem “an artificialitycommon to the court-poetry of the Sanskrit age”. I havetherefore thought myself justified by the slightness of the allusionin translating“Sole like a widowed bird when all the nests are making”,which translates the idea and the emotion while suggesting a slightlydifferent but related image.I have indicated above the main principles by which I haveguided myself in the task of translation. But there still remainsthe question, whether while preserving the ideals one may notstill adhere more or less closely to the text. The answer to thisis that such closeness is imperative, but it must be a closenessof word-value, not oneness of word-meaning; into this wordvaluethere enter the elements of association, sound and aestheticbeauty. If these are not translated, the word is not translated,however correct the rendering may be. For instance, thewords salila, ÀpaÕ and jala in Sanskrit all mean water, but ifjala may be fairly represented by the common English word andthe more poetic ÀpaÕ by “waters” or “ocean” according to thecontext, what will represent the beautiful suggestions of grace,brightness, softness and clearness which accompany salila? Hereit is obvious that we have to seek refuge in sound-suggestionsand verse-subtleties to do what is not feasible by verbal rendering.Everything therefore depends on the skill and felicity of thetranslator and he must be judged rather by the accuracy withwhich he renders the emotional and aesthetic value of each expressionthan brought to a rigid [regard] for each word in theoriginal. Moreover the idiom of Sanskrit, especially of classicalSanskrit, is too far divided from the idiom of English. Literaltranslation from the Greek is possible though sometimes disastrous,but literal translation from the Sanskrit is impossible. There is indeeda school endowed with more valour than discretion and more