'Let the clouds rain, thunder, or cast down the levin bolt; women who speed to their loved ones reckon nothing of heat or cold.'[1]
gatā nāçaṁ tārā upakṛtam asādhāv iva jane
viyuktāḥ kantena striya iva na rājanti kakubhaḥ
prakāmāntastaptaṁ tridaçapatiçastrasya çikhinā
dravībhūtam manye patati jalarūpeṇa gaganam.
'The stars disappear, like a favour bestowed on a worthless man; the quarters lose their radiance, like women severed from their beloved; molten by the fierce fire of Indra's bolt, the sky, I ween, is poured down upon us in rain.'[2]
unnamati namati varṣati garjati meghaḥ karoti timiraugham
prathamaçrīr iva puruṣaḥ karoti rūpāṇy anekāni.
'The cloud rises aloft, bows down, pours rain, sends thunder and the dark; every show it makes of its wealth like the man newly rich.'[3]
Last we may cite the rebuke of Vasantasenā to the lightning:
yadi garjati vāridharo garjatu tannāma niṣṭhurāḥ puruṣāḥ
ayi vidyut pramadānāṁ tvam api ca duḥkhaṁ na jānāsi?
'If the cloud must thunder, then let him thunder; cruel were men ever; but, O lightning, can it be that thou too dost not know the pangs of a maiden's love?'[4]
The merits of the play are sufficient to enable its author to dispense with praise not deserved. For Çūdraka, regarded as the author, has been credited[5] with the distinction of being a cosmopolitan; however great the difference between Kālidāsa, 'the grace of poetry'[6] and Bhavabhūti, 'the master of eloquence,'[7] these two authors, it is said, are far more allied in spirit than is either of them with the author of the Mṛcchakaṭikā; the Çakuntalā and the Uttararāmacarita could have been produced nowhere save in India, Çakuntalā is a Hindu maid, Mādhava a Hindu hero, while Saṁsthānaka, Maitreya, and Madanikā are citizens of the world. This claim, however, can hardly be admitted; the Mṛcchakaṭikā as a whole is a drama redolent of Indian thought and life, and none of the three characters adduced have any special claim to be more cosmopolitan than some of the
