K
A L I D A S
KUMARASAMBHAVA
THE
BIRTH OF THE WAR-GOD
Three
Renderings
canto
ONE: first rendering
1
A God mid
hills northern Himaloy rears
His snow-piled summits' dizzy majesties,
And in the eastern and the western seas
He bathes his giant sides; lain down appears
Measures the dreaming earth in an enormous
ease.
2
Him, it is told, the living mountains made
A mighty calf of earth, the mother large,
When Meru of that
milking had the charge
By Prithu bid,
and jewels brilliant-rayed
Were brightly born and herbs on every
mountain marge.
3
So is he in his infinite riches dressed
Not all his snows can slay that opulence.
As drowned in luminous floods the mark though dense
On the moon's argent disc; so faints
oppressed
One fault mid crowding virtues fading from
our sense.
4
Brightness of minerals on his peaks outspread
In their love-sports and in their dances
gives
To heavenly nymphs adornment, which when
drive
The split clouds across, those broken hues
displayed
Like an untimely sunset's magic glories
live.
5
Far down the clouds droop to his
girdle-waist;
And to this low-hung plateaus' coolness won
The siddhas in
soft shade repose, but run
Soon gleaming upwards by wild rains distressed
To unstained summits splendid with the veilless sun.
Page – 99
6
Although unseen the reddened footprints
blotted
By the new-fallen snows, the hunters know
The path their prey the mighty lions go;
For pearls from the slain elephants there
clotted
Fallen
from the hollow claws their dangerous passage show.
7
The birch-leaves on his slopes love-pages
turn:
Like
spots of age upon the tusky kings
Of
liquid metal ink their letterings
Make crimsoned pages that with passion burn
Where
heaven's divine Circes pen heart-moving things
8
He fills the hollows of his bamboo trees
With
the breeze rising from his deep ravines,
Breathes1
from his rocky mouths as if he means
To be tune-giver to the minstrelsies
Of high-voiced Kinnars chanting in his
woodland glens
9
His poplars by the brows of elephants
Shaken
and rubbed loose forth their odorous cream;
And
the sweet resin pours its trickling stream,
And wind on his high levels burdened pants
With
fragrance making all the air a scented dream.
10
His grottoes are love-chambers in the night
For
the stray forest-wanderer when he lies
Twined
with his love, marrying with hers his sighs
And from the dim banks luminous herbs give
light
Strange2
oilless lamps to their locked passion's ecstasies.
1 Flutes 2 Like
Page – 100
11
Himaloy's snows in frosted slabs distress
The
delicate heels of his maned Kinnaris
And
yet for all their chilly path's unease
They change not their slow motion's swaying grace
For their burden of breasts and heavy hips.
12
He guards from the pursuing sun far hid
In
his deep caves of gloom the fallen night
Afraid
of the day's eyes of brilliant light
Even
on base things and low for refuge fled
High-crested
souls shed love and kindly might.
13
The
mountain yaks lift up their bushy tails
And
with their lashing scatter gleamings round
White as the moonbeams on the rocky groun
They
seem to fan their king, his parallels
Of
symbolled monarchy more perfectly to found.
14
There
in his glens upon his grottoed floors
When
from her limbs is plucked the raiment fine
Of
the Kinnar's shame-fast love, hanging come in
The
concave clouds across the cavern doors;
Chance
curtains shielding her bared1 loveliness divine.
1 shield her
unveiled
Page – 101
15
Weary
with tracking the wild deer for rest
The
hunter bares his forehead to the fay
Breezes
which sprinkle Ganges' cascade spray
Shaking the cedars on
Himaloy's
breast,
Gambolling with the proud peacock's gorgeous-plumed
array.
16
Circling his
mountains in its path below
The sun awakes with upward glittering wands
What still unplucked
by the seven sages' hands
Remains of the bright lotuses that glow
In tarns upon his tops with heaven-kissing
strands.
17
Because the Somaplant for
sacrifice
He rears and for his strength1
upbearing Earth
The Lord of creatures gave to this great
birth
His sacrificial share and ministries
And empire over all the mountains to his
worth.
15. There rests the hunter weary of the chase
And bares his forehead to the breeze which
comes
With
spray of Ganger' cascades on its wings,
Scattering the peacock's gorgeous plumes
abroad,
Shaking the cedars on Himaloy's
breast.
16. In tarns upon its heaven-kissing tops
Immortal lilies bloom the shining hands
Of the Seven Sages pluck, a few still left
Awake with morn to the sun's upward beams
Circling those mountains on his lower path.
17. Because he rears for sacrifice the plant
Of honeyed wine, his sacred share
fulfilled,
And for his many strengths upbearing Earth
The Father of the peoples' very hands
Crowned him the monarch of a million
hills.
¹mass
Page – 102
18
Companion of, Meru their high floor
In equal wedlock to his mighty1 bed
The mind-born child of the world-fathers wed,
Mena whose wisdom the deep seers adore,
Stable and wise himself his stable race to spread.
19
Their joys of love were like themselves immense
And its long puissant ecstasies at last
Bore fruit, for in her womb a seed was cast
Bearing the banner of her youth intense
In moving beauty and charm to motherhood she passed.
20
Mainac she bore, the ocean's guest and friend,
Upon whose peaks the serpent-women roam,
Dwellers in their unsunned and cavernous
home;
Mainac, whose sides though angry Indra rend
Feels not the anguish of the thunder's shock of doom.
(Incomplete)
18. In equal rites he to his mighty bed
The mind-born child of
the world-fathers bore.
Companion fit of
Meru
their high home,
Stable of thought to
stabilise his race,
Mena
the wise he wed by seers adored.
19. Their joys of love were like themselves immense
And in long puissant
ecstasy at last
Bore fruit; for in her
womb his seed was thrown
And bearing like a
banner with her youth's
Heart-moving beauty
motherhood she crossed.
20.
Mainac she bore, the guest of the great sea,
Upon whose peaks the
serpent women sport
Who through the Titan
slayer's wrath has shorn
His budding wings, felt
not the fiery blow,
Shook not with anguish
of the thunder's scars.
' large
Page –
103
HOME
|