THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

246 The Harmony of Virtueevery source of imaginative and sensuous beauty has been woventogether into a harmony which is without rival and withoutfault; for amidst all its wealth of colour, delicacy and sweetness,there is not a word too much or too little, no false note,no excessive or defective touch; the colouring is just and subduedin its richness, the verse movement regular in its variety,the diction simple in its suggestiveness, the emotion convincingand fervent behind a certain high restraint, the imagery precise,right and not overdone as in the Raghuvamsha and yet quiteas full of beauty and power. The Shacountala and the Cloud-Messenger are the ne plus ultra of Hindu poetic art. Such apoem asks for and repays the utmost pains a translator cangive it; it demands all the wealth of word and sound effect, allthe power of literary beauty, of imaginative and sensuous charmhe has the capacity to extract from the English language. Atthe same time its qualities of diction and verse cannot be rendered.The diffuseness of English will not thus lend itself tothe brief suggestiveness of the Sanskrit without being so highstrung,nervous and bare in its strength as to falsify its flowingharmony and sweetness; nor to its easy harmony without losingclose-knit precision and falsifying its brevity, gravity andmajesty. We must be content to lose something in order thatwe may not lose all.*In Kalidasa another very serious difficulty meets the unhappytranslator beyond the usual pitfalls. Few great Sanskrit poemsemploy the same metre throughout. In the dramas where metricalform is only used when the thought, image or emotion risesabove the ordinary level, the poet employs whatever metre hethinks suitable to the mood he is in. In English, however, sucha method would result in opera rather than in drama. I havetherefore thought it best, taking into consideration the poeticalfeeling and harmonious flow of Kalidasa's prose to use blankverse throughout varying its pitch according as the original formis metrical or prose and the emotion or imagery more or lessexalted. In epic work the licence of metrical variation is not