पृष्ठम्:विक्रमोर्वशीयम् (कल्पलताव्याख्यासमेतम्).djvu/९२

26

ESTIMATE OF THE PLAY

hero and the heroine meet and get bewitched of one another. His heroines always feel, under the circumstances, indebted to the hero of which an advantage is generally taken by him. To illustrate, Agnimitra sees Malavikā as a slave to the queen Dhariņi and the loss of liberty is the utmost misery on a high-born girl, who is anxious to ameliorate her situation in any manner. Later on, when it is apprehended that the king feels in some may concerned with Malavikā, Dhariņi out of her supremacy and jealousy puts her into lock in the Sea Mansion and no body shall release her unless she is shown a particular ring bearing the image of a snake. Agnimitra gets that ring under pretext of curing the clown of a snake-bite and gets her released. And thus he throws the heroine into deep obligations. Here the rescue is from a formidable calamity as that of freeing the girl from behind the bars. In like manner, Urvashi also is thrown into indebtedness to the hero who has redeemed her from the clutches of the demon Késhi. When she recovers her sense, she feels and asks as to whether she is saved by Mahendra. The poet puts in the mouth of Chitralekha a sentence “न महेन्द्रेण; महेन्द्रसदृशानुभावेन राजर्षिणा पुरूरवसा. P. 20", which directly impresses upon the heroine the gratitude which she owes to him and which is meant to flatter the king as well in his face. In this case also, the heroine is under a great obligation, though apparently less great than in the case of Malavikā. With a matured experience, the poet has succeeded in arresting the mind of the heroine for his hero with an obligation more delicate in the case of Shakuntalā than in that of either Malaviká or Urvashi. In Shakuntal he places his heroine in a condition of being pestered only by a bee and a relief sought on that account is presumptively deemed by the poet enough for his purpose of obliging the heroine. But since the poet's usual art could not be satisfied, nor his taste be pampered with this too little a cause, he augments the scope of indebtedness by adding another unit of releasing her from the actionable claim or the mutual obligation which she owes to her other two friends in respect of watering two plants (Ref. शकुन्तले! मोचितासि अनुकम्पिना आर्येण" Act I). The hero purports to offer a valuable piece to Priyamvadā and Anusuyā who out of fear say that she shall be exempt from the obligation by the very word of the hero. Here also the obligation is brought to be borne on the mind of the heroine by her friend Priyamvadä just as it was done in