from the
position that the Indian Drama must have been an offshoot or
imitation of the Greek. But fortunately that position had to be
quitted _toute de suite;_ for the Indian theory is much nearer
the English than the Greek;--much liker Shakespeare's than
Aeschylus's. _Sakoontal_ is romantic; it came in a Third or
Alawn Period; of all Englishmen, Keats might most easily have
written it; if _Endymion_ were a play, _Endymion_ would be the
likest thing to it in English. You must remember that downward
trend in the Great Cycle; that make each succeeding period in
Sanskrit literature a descent from the heights of esotericism
towards the personal plane. That is what brings Kalidasa on to a
level with Keats.

Behind _Sakoontala,_ as behind _Endymion,_ there is a Soul-symbol;
only Kalidasa, like Keats, is preoccupied in his outer mind
more with forest beauty and natural magic and his romantic
tale of love. It marks a stage in the descent of literature from
the old impersonal to the modern personal reaches: from tales
told merely to express the Soul-Symbol, to tales told merely for
the sake of telling them. The stories in the _Upanishads_ are
glyphs pure and simple. In the epics, they have taken on much
more human color, though still exalting and ennobling,--and all
embodying, or molded to, the glyph. Now, in _The Ring of
Sakoontala,_--and it is typical of its class,--we have to look a
little diligently for the glyph; what impresses us is the
stillness and morning beauty of the forest, and,--yes, it must be
said.--the emotions, quite personal, of King Dushyanta and
Sakoontala, the hero and heroine.

She is a fairy's child, full beautiful; and has been brought up
by her foster-father, the yogi Kanwa, in his forest hermitage.
While Kanwa is absent, Dushyanta, hunting, follows an antelope
into that quiet refuge; finds Sakoontala, loves and marries her.
Here we are amidst the drowsy hum of bees, the flowering of large
Indian forest blossoms, the scent of the jasmine in bloom; it is
what Keats would have written, had his nightingale sung in an
Indian jungle.--The king departs for his capital, leaving with
Sakoontala a magical ring with power to reawaken memory of her in
his heart, should he ever forget. But Durvasas, a wandering
ascetic, passes by the hermitage; and Sakoontala, absorbed in
her dreams, fails to greet him; for which he dooms her to be
forgotten by her husband. She waits and waits, and at last seeks
th