<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; ">
<title>“The Hero and the Nymph”</title>
</head>

<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=blue style='tab-interval:.5in'>

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
	<tr>
		<td>

<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<b
style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><font size="4">“The Hero and the Nymph”</font><o:p></o:p></b></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span style='font-family:
"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:1.0in;text-align:justify;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i>A
note on Kalidasa's &quot;The Hero and the Nymph&quot; (translated by Sri
Aurobindo), staged at the Ashram Theatre on December 1st and </i><st1:date
Year="1971" Day="3" Month="12"><i>December 3rd </i>1971</st1:date>.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The story of Kalidasa's
&quot;The Hero and the Nymph&quot; is the eternal legend of the marriage of heaven
and earth upon earth. The Heavenly Beauty can descend upon earth and be united
to a human soul only, as it appears, under a malediction; for heaven and earth
are normally understood to be opposites and contradictories. The malediction
means that the union can happen under certain limitations. First of all, there
is the limitation of time, that is to say, the union does not last long, it can
be only for a more or less short duration: even the span of human life is too
long for it. It is not in the nature of supreme love to linger long on our
murky earth:</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:1.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:
.5in;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&quot;Only a little the God-light can stay:&quot;¹</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Secondly the limitation is
that of a mixture, a dilution. The quality and nature of Divine Love entering
earth suffers an alteration, a diminution and pollution. It is mixed with baser
elements of human nature. Kalidasa too mentions these – foremost of all is
jealousy – jealousy that caught Urvasie like a wild fire and made her run
helter-skelter and enter straight into the arms of self-oblivion and infra-consciousness
– she turned into a soulless plant. Thirdly, the limitation that the very
intensity and turbulence of passion bring – it is not only turbulence but
turbidity, love gone mad, love becoming lunacy – that is Pururavas and his cry:</p>
	<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>¹<span style='font-size:
10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'> <i>Savitri, </i>Book I, Canto I.</span><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 390<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-line-height-alt:
8.15pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:1.0in;margin-bottom:0;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%'>&quot;Halt, ruffian, halt!
Thou in thy giant arms</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:1.0in;text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:
10.8pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Bearest
away my Urvasie!..&quot; ¹</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>This cry almost verges on
King Lear's heart-rending frantic yell: &quot;Blow, winds and crack your
cheeks! rage! blow!&quot;² relieved, one may say in Kalidasa, by his sheer
poetry – but in Shakespeare also not less so, although in a different hue and
tune. This tumult of the soul, the raging raving wild thing that man becomes –
this seems to be, in Kalidasa, the price that mortality has to pay for a touch
of divinity – it is the churning of the ocean that yields at last immortality.
It may be suggested here that the queen is a foil, a hark back to wisdom and
poise, to steadiness and normalcy. She symbolises also the consent of the mere
human to the divine Dispensation.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>A
Shakespearean tragedy Kalidasa avoids by finding a way out of the impasse – a
happy marriage between heaven and earth is possible if with heaven agreeing to
come down upon earth, earth too on its side agrees to go up to heaven. The
heavenly Bride can stay here on earth as companion to Pururavas only if
Pururavas agrees to go up to heaven, consents to take up the gods' work. </p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
earthly mixture presumably gives to the pure heavenly love a zest, a strange
homely taste which otherwise it could not have. The white diamond with this
immixture of the earthly ray becomes as it were a ruby.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Here
was a human soul, a rare human soul, a soul of beauty and bravery. Even on
earth he was in the service of the gods and as a reward he was given the chance
of lifting the divine trophy and treasuring it in his earthly home: he
succeeded in possessing the treasure as he continued to be in the service of
the Divine.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:7.9pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<font size="2">¹ <i>Vikramorllasie,
</i>Act IV, Sc. II. </font> </p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:7.9pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<font size="2">² <i>King
Lear, </i>Act III, Sc., II.</font><o:p><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-line-height-alt:
7.9pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 391<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-line-height-alt:
7.9pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

  <p class=MsoNormal align="right" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
	<a href="-000_Content"><img src="_Gif%20Image/shome.gif" width="56" height="26" border="0"></a></p>

</div>

		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

</body>

</html>
