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Oct. 4, 1872.]
THE RASAKALLOLA.
293
the latter class of poems we are never sure that | And thy twin breasts how heavy ? we are being presented with a real living picture | The swift pace which thou maintainest of the language as it was actually spoken by | Shortly will be its destruction. the contemporaries of the author ; we have to What, is thy boldness like the spider's, allow for so many licenses of form and construc- Or why on this (the waist) art thou so pitiless? tion that it is only by observing the shape taken What will happen when it shall break? by a particular word, in places where no vis At that time thou too wilt die." metri occurs to change it, that we can feel even The poet seems rather proud of this tasteless tolerably certain that we have at length lit upon trifling for he specially remarks that this is to be its genuine colloquial guise. No such difficulty regarded as a metaphor, and is elegant and fanconfronts us in Dinkrishna's flowing and facile ciful (adhyâhâra). verse. If we except an occasional diæresis such The Gopis crowd round the two infants, and
परवेश for प्रवेश, समरण for रमरण and a few examine them with every mark of delight. The other easily recognized licenses, the language
sun, the moon, night, lotuses, the sea, and all is the same as that in which the gentle and sorts of plants and animals are called into comrefined Oriya clodhopper of to-day fondly curses parison, and are pronounced inadequate to rival his wife or his bullocks, or grumbles over his
the beauty of Krishna's black skin, or Balarádaily pill of adulterated opium.
ma's white one. The Gopis then go home lookIn the third canto the Gopis hear that a son ing back and lingering and loth to depart, and has been born to 'Nand and rush tumultuously
the canto ends. to Nand's house to see the infant. Here occurs
The metre of the second canto, which I omitone of those absurd pieces of exaggeration which ted to describe before, consists of four lines to 80 frequently, to European taste, spoil the the pads or stanza. The first and third are beauty of Indian poems. The Hindu never very long consisting of 29 mâtras each. There knows when to stop. Starting from the gener- are cæsuras at the eighth and sixteenth matras, ally accepted opinion that the female form is the syllables of which generally rhyme with each most symmetrical and beautiful when the waist other. The last syllable of the first line rhymes is slender and the parts immediately below it with that of the second. Owing to the great large and round, the poet proceeds to make the length of the lines it is customary to write the waists of the Gopis so absurdly thin and their first sixteen matras as one line and the remaining continuations so enormously large that they be
thirteen as a second line. The third line has come, instead of the ideals of loveliness he intends nine mâtras with cæsura at the fourth, and the them to be, monsters of deformity. One charm
fourth líne thirteen with cæsura at the eighth ing creature who appears to have combined in matra; thus: her own person every possible disproportion, is 1. ka ra h e sa dhul ja najmâne thus addressed by the girdle round her waist
ma na e ka tâ nal Kâhâ kațire Jaki kânchi mala
kar na delikama | lal na ya Kahu achhi," dhire are abala!
na ka thâ| kui Kama mada ta hoï matta, bhola
2. The same. Karu majhân thâre jâ ere heļa,
3. ka lá ka ralandhara | pra 1 yell Ki 1 tu jânu nâhun ejere faru
4. Krishna ka thân | Srava na re ! Kucha jugala tora jero guru ?
du rita khaye Kara achhu jâhâ drudha gamans
The rhyme-syllables are in italics. Kale ehâku heü achhi samana.
The metre of the third canto is very simple. Ki to sâhasa jâyâjîba prêye,
It is the Rág kedár chakrakeli, and consists of Ki ba ehê thâre ese nirdaye ?
two charans to the pada, each containing nine Ki ki hoï e jebe jiba bhangi ?
mâtras with no cæsura. The charans rhyme. Kale ta hi mariba ehê lâgi.
The fourth canto is in the Ahâri metre with
12 mâtras to the charan and two rhyming chaFrom the waist of one the girdle calling
rans to the pads. There is & cæsura at the Says, “gently, gently, O maiden!
ninth mâtra. ThusThou, intoxicated with the wine of love,
kar na deli su na l. l he sådhuljane. Forgettest thy waist of what sort it it.
J. kama ranka I janmi le kelte di ne. What I knowest thou not how slender it is
It relates how Krishna in his cradle destroyed
