d der Motive Aenderungen vorzunehmen. In Gedanken und Ausdruck haben,
wenn nicht der jedesmal vorliegende Text, so doch stets Indische Werke
zu Vorbildern gedient."[231]

A brief comparison of any one of these poems with the Sanskrit original
will show the correctness of this statement. Let us take, as an
illustration, the second, which gives the famous legend of Sakuntala
from the _Mahabharata_ (i. 69-74; Bombay ed. i. 92-100).

Schack leaves out unnecessary details and wearisome repetitions. Thus
the elaborate account of the Brahmans whom the king sees on entering the
hermitage of Kanva and their different occupations (_Mbh_. 70, 37-47) is
condensed into fourteen lines, p. 36. Again, in the original, when
Sakuntala tells the story of her birth, the speech by which Indra urges
Menaka to undertake the temptation of Visvamitra is given at some length
(_Mbh_. 71, 20-26); so also the reply of the timid nymph (ibid. 71,
27-42); the story of the temptation itself is narrated with realistic
detail in true Hindu fashion (ibid. 72, 1-9). All this takes up
thirty-three _slokas_. Schack devotes to it barely five lines, p. 38;
the speeches of Indra and Menaka he omits altogether. Again, when the
king proposes to the fair maid, he enters into a learned disquisition on
the eight kinds of marriage, explaining which ones are proper for each
caste, which ones are never proper, and so forth; finally he proposes
the Gandharva form (_Mbh_. 73, 6-14). It is needless to say that in
Schack's poem the king's proposal is much less didactic and much more
direct, pp. 40, 41.

On the other hand, to see how closely the poet sometimes follows his
model we need but compare all that follows the words "Kaum war er
gegangen," p. 42, to "Dem sind nimmerdar die Goetter gnaedig," p. 47, with
the Sanskrit original (_Mbh_. 73, 24-74, 33).

Minor changes in phrases or words, advisable on aesthetic grounds, are
of course frequent. Similes, for instance, appealing too exclusively to
Hindu taste, were made more general. Thus in Sakuntala's reply to the
king, p. 51, the faults of others are likened in size to sand grains,
and those of himself to glebes. In Sanskrit, however, the comparison is
to mustard-grains and bilva-fruits respectively. A few lines further on
the maid declares:

"So ueberragt mein Stamm denn
Weit den deinen, wisse das, Duschmanta!"

which passage in the original reads: _avayor antaram pasya meru
sarsapor iva_, "behol