THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

V.. 7. Kalidasa's Characters281by Pururavas, “who is this youth”, she asks with the little inevitableundertone of half jealousyHimselfMy monarch binds his curls into a crest!Who should this be so highly favoured?and then she notices Satyavatie and understands. But there isno positive outburst of maternal joy and passion. “It is my Ayus!How he has grown!” That is all and nothing could be better ortruer. Yet for all the surface colourlessness there is a charm ineverything Urvasie says, the charm of absolute sincerity and directunaffected feeling. Her passion for Pururavas is wonderfullygenuine and fine from her first cry of “O Titans! You did mekindness!” to her last of “O a sword is taken out of my heart!”Whatever the mood, its speech has always a tender force andreality. Her words with Chitraleqha and the other Apsaras, fromthe outburst, “O sisters, sisters, take me to your bosoms”, toher farewell “Chitraleqha, my sister! do not forget me”, are instinct,when moved, with “a passion of sisterliness” and at othertimes bright and limpid in their fair kindness and confidence. Shecomes to her son “with her whole rapt gazeGrown mother, the veiled bosom heaving towards himAnd wet with sacred milk”.And her farewell to the Hermitess sets a model for the expressionof genuine and tender friendship. Urvasie is doubtless notso noble and strong a portraiture as Shacountala, but she is inferiorto no heroine of Sanskrit drama in beauty and sweetnessof womanly nature.