e return of
Kanwa from his pilgrimage, and the preparations for the start of
Sakoontala for her husband's palace, in the city. The delicate pathos of
the scene is worthy of Euripides. "Alas! Alas!" exclaim the two maidens,
"Now Sakoontala has disappeared behind the trees of the forest. Tell us,
master, how shall we enter again the sacred grove made desolate by her
departure?" But the holy calm, broken for a moment by the excitement of
his child's departure, is soon restored to Kanwa's mind. "Now that my
child is dismissed to her husband's home, tranquillity regains my soul."
The closing reflection is worthy of a Greek dramatist: "Our maids we
rear for the happiness of others; and now that I have sent her to her
husband I feel the satisfaction that comes from restoring a trust."

In the fifth act, the scene is laid in Dushyanta's palace, where the
king is living, under the curse of Durvasas, in complete oblivion of
Sakoontala. The life of the court is happily suggested, with its
intrigues and its business. The king has yet a vague impression of
restlessness, which, on hearing a song sung behind the scenes, prompts
him to say, "Why has this strain flung over me so deep a melancholy, as
though I was separated from some loved one; can this be the faint
remembrance of affections in some previous existence?" It is here that
the hermits, with Gautami, arrive, bringing Sakoontala, soon to be made
a mother, into the presence of the king; but she has been utterly
forgotten by him. He angrily denies his marriage; and when she proposes
to bring forth the ring, she finds she has lost it from her finger. "It
must have slipped off," suggested Gautami, "when thou wast offering
homage to Sachi's holy lake." The king smiles derisively. Sakoontala
tries to quicken his memory:--"Do you remember how, in the jasmine
bower, you poured water from the lotus cup into the hollow of my hand?
Do you remember how you said to my little fawn, Drink first, but she
shrunk from you--and drank water from my hand, and you said, with a
smile, 'Like trusts Like,' for you are two sisters in the same grove."
The king calls her words "honeyed falsehoods." Sakoontala buries her
face in her mantle and bursts into tears.

The tenderness of this scene, its grace and delicacy, are quite idyllic,
and worthy of the best ages of the pastoral drama. The ring is at
length restored to Dushyanta, having been found by a fisherman in the
belly of a carp. On its being restor