Ganga, whose waves in Swarga flow,
Is daughter of the Lord of Snow.
Win Siva that his aid be lent
To hold her in her mid-descent--
For earth alone will never bear
Those torrents hurled from upper air;
And none may hold her weight but He,
The Trident-wielding deity,'
Thus having said, the Lord supreme
Addressed him to the heavenly stream;
And then with Gods and Maruts went
To heaven, above the firmament."
SAKOONTALA
BY
KALIDASA
[_Translation by Sir Monier Monier-Williams_]
INTRODUCTION
The drama is always the latest development of a national poetry--for the
origin of poetry is in the religious rite, where the hymn or the ode is
used to celebrate the glories of some divinity, or some hero who has
been received into the circle of the gods. This at least is the case in
Sanscrit as in Greek literature, where the hymn and ballad precede the
epic. The epic poem becomes the stable form of poetry during the middle
period in the history of literature, both in India and Greece. The union
of the lyric and the epic produces the drama.
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