substantially as Kalidasa wrote it. Plainly, it has a unity which is
lacking in Kalidasa's other epic, _The Dynasty_ _of Raghu_, though in
this epic, too, the interest shifts. Parvati's love-affair is the
matter of the first half, Kumara's fight with the demon the matter of
the second half. Further, it must be admitted that the interest runs a
little thin. Even in India, where the world of gods runs insensibly
into the world of men, human beings take more interest in the
adventures of men than of gods. The gods, indeed, can hardly have
adventures; they must be victorious. _The Birth of the War-god_ pays
for its greater unity by a poverty of adventure.

It would be interesting if we could know whether this epic was written
before or after _The Dynasty of Raghu_. But we have no data for
deciding the question, hardly any for even arguing it. The
introduction to _The Dynasty of Raghu_ seems, indeed, to have been
written by a poet who yet had his spurs to win. But this is all.

As to the comparative excellence of the two epics, opinions differ. My
own preference is for _The Dynasty of Raghu_, yet there are passages
in _The Birth of the War-god_ of a piercing beauty which the world can
never let die.

* * * * *

THE CLOUD-MESSENGER

In _The Cloud-Messenger_ Kalidasa created a new _genre_ in Sanskrit
literature. Hindu critics class the poem with _The Dynasty of Raghu_
and _The Birth of the War-god_ as a _kavya_, or learned epic. This it
obviously is not. It is fair enough to call it an elegiac poem, though
a precisian might object to the term.

We have already seen, in speaking of _The Dynasty of Raghu_, what
admiration Kalidasa felt for his great predecessor Valmiki, the author
of the _Ramayana_; and it is quite possible that an episode of the
early epic suggested to him the idea which he has exquisitely treated
in _The Cloud-Messenger_. In the _Ramayana_, after the defeat and
death of Ravana, Rama returns with his wife and certain heroes of the
struggle from Ceylon to his home in Northern India. The journey, made
in an aerial car, gives the author an opportunity to describe the
country over which the car must pass in travelling from one end of
India to the other. The hint thus given him was taken by Kalidasa; a
whole canto of _The Dynasty of Raghu_ (the thirteenth) is concerned
with the aerial journey. Now if, as seems not improbable, _The Dynasty
of Raghu_ was the earliest of