The Hero And The Nymph Monologue
| The Hero And The Nymph Monologue by Kalidasa | |
| Character: | Pururavas |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age (range): | ? |
| Style: | Classical |
| Length: | 5 minutes |
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- PURURAVAS: [Angrily] Halt, ruffian, halt! Thou in thy giant arms
- Bearest away my Urvasie! He has
- Soared up from a great crag in the sky
- And wars me, hurling downward bitter rain
- Of arrows. With this thunderbolt I smite thee.
- [He lifts up a clod and runs as to hurl it; then pauses and looks upward.]
- I am deceived! This was a cloud
- Equipped for rain, no proud and lustful fiend,
- The rainbow, not a weapon drawn to kill,
- Quick-driving showers are these, not sleety rain
- Of arrows; and that brilliant line like streak
- Of gold upon a touchstone, cloud-inarmed,
- I saw, was lightning, not my Urvasie.
- [Sorrowfully] Where shall I find her now? Where clasp those thighs
- Swelling and smooth and white?
- This grove, this grove should find her.
- And here, O here is something to enrage my resolution.
- Red-tinged, expanding, wet and full of rain,
- These blossom-cups recall to me her eyes
- Brimming with angry tears. How shall I trace her,
- Or what thing tells me "Here and here she wandered?"
- If she had touched with her beloved feet
- The rain-drenched forest-sands, there were a line
- Of little gracious footprints seen, with lac
- Envermeilled, sinking deeper towards the heel
- Because o'erburdened by her hips' large glories.
- I see a hint of her! This way
- Then went her angry beauty! Lo, her bodice
- Bright green as is a parrot's belly, smitten
- With crimson drops. It once veiled in her bosom
- And paused to show her naval deep as love.
- These are her tears that from those angry eyes
- Went trickling, stealing scarlet from her lips
- To spangle all this green. Doubtless her heaving
- Tumult of breasts broke its dear hold and, she
- Stumbling in anger, from my Heaven it drifted.
- I'll gather it to my kisses.
- [He stoops to it, then sorrowfully:]
- O my heart!
- Only green grass with dragon-wings enamelled!
- From whom shall I in all the desolate forest
- Have tidings of her, or what creature help me?
- Lo, in yon waste of crags the peacock! he
- Upon a cool moist rock that breathes of rain
- Exults, aspires, his gorgeous mass of plumes
- Seized, blown and scattered by the roaring gusts.
- Pregnant of shrillness is his outstretched throat,
- His look is with the clouds. Him I will question:
- Have the bright corners of thine eyes beheld,
- O sapphire-throated bird, her, my delight,
- My wife, my passion, my sweet grief? Yielding
- No answer, he begins his gorgeous dance.
- Why should he be so glad of my heart's woe?
- I know thee, peacock. Since my cruel loss
- Thy plumes that stream in splendour on the wind,
- Have not one rival left. For when her heavy
- Dark wave of tresses over all the bed
- In softness wide magnificently collapsed
- On her smooth shoulders massing purple glory
- And bright with flowers, she passioning in my arms,
- Who then was ravished with thy brilliant plumes,
- Vain bird? I question thee not, heartless thing,
- That joyest in others' pain.
Credits: Reprinted from The Hero and the Nymph. Trans. Sri Aurobindo. Hyderabad: Government Central Press, 1911.
