INTRODUCTION
with a minimum of notes. At present he has no notes, and often slurs over diffi- culties by rendering Indian thought and mythology as if they were colourless imi- tations of Western thought and mytho- logy. Thus, Kamadeva becomes Cupid, calling up one cannot say what pictures of late Latin triviality and Elizabethan conceits; the Indian koki/ becomes the cuckoo, a bird it recalls in appearance only and certainly not in voice, thus misleading readers to whom the cuckoo is so much “a wandering voice.” In my version of The Curse at Farewell, if | have used such a word as ‘ nymphs,’ [ have made amends by a note.
To get as close as possible to the origi- nal I have, in the poem's text, spelled Venu- mati, Asidha, Samvarana, and Brhaspati, as well as Kacha and Devayani, as they are pronounced in Bengali, as distinguished
15
15
