language is undoubtedly Kalidasa, whose date is placed, by
different scholars, anywhere from the first to the fifth century of our
era. His masterpiece, and indeed the masterpiece of the Indian drama, is
the "Sakoontala," which has all the graces as well as most of the faults
of Oriental poetry. There can be no doubt that to most Europeans the
charm of it lies in the exquisite description of natural scenery and of
that atmosphere of piety and religious calm--almost mediaeval in its
austere beauty and serenity--which invests the hermit life of India. The
abode of the ascetics is depicted with a pathetic grace that we only
find paralleled in the "Admetus" of Euripides. But at the same time the
construction of the drama is more like such a play as Milton's "Comus,"
than the closely-knit, symmetrical, and inevitable progress of such a
work of consummate skill as the "King Oedipus" of Sophocles. Emotion,
and generally the emotion of love, is the motive in the "Sakoontala" of
Kalidasa, and different phases of feeling, rather than the struggles of
energetic action, lead on to the _denouement_ of the play. The
introduction of supernatural agencies controlling the life of the
personages, leaves very little room for the development and description
of human character. As the fate of the hero is dependent altogether upon
the caprice of superhuman powers, the moral elements of a drama are but
faintly discernible. Thus the central action of Sakoontala hinges on the
fact that the heroine, absorbed in thoughts of love, neglects to welcome
with due respect the great saint Durvasas--certainly a trifling and
venial fault--but he is represented as blighting her with a curse which
results in all the unhappiness of the drama, and which is only ended at
last by the intervention of a more powerful being. By this principle of
construction the characters are reduced to mere shadow creations:
beautiful as arabesques, delicate as a piece of ivory carving, tinted
like the flat profiles of an Oriental fan or the pattern of a porcelain
vase, but deficient in robustness and vigorous coloring. Humanity is
absolutely dwarfed and its powers rendered inoperative by the crowd of
supernatural creatures that control its destiny. Even in the "Tempest"
of Shakespeare, in which the supernatural plays a greater part than in
any other English drama, the strength and nobility of human character
are allowed full play--and man in his fortitude, in his intellect and
wi