KĀLIDĀSA AND THE GUPTAS The poem is far from a mere description of the seasons in their outward aspect, though Kālidāsa exhibits delicate observa- tion and that loving sympathy with nature which seems innate in Indian poets. Throughout he insists on the relation of the diverse moods of the year to the loves of man and maiden or husband and wife. Though the days of summer are a burden, the nights are the more delightful, when the moon is bright and coolness refreshes the earth; at midnight the young delight in song and dance and wine; the moon in jealousy of youthful love retires in sorrow. The rainy season comes in kingly guise, the clouds the elephants which bear him, the lightning his standard, the thunder his drum. The emotion of love is awakened by the sight of the clouds which bend down to kiss the peaks of the mountains. Autumn comes like a young bride, clad in a garment of sugar cane, girdled with ripening rice, and with face of lotus blooms. Winter's cold makes all the more welcome, all the more close and tender, the embraces of lovers. In the cool season the nights are cold, the moon shines chill, the lovers close the window of their chamber, wrap themselves warmly in their garments, and enjoy every moment of the still feeble rays of the sun, or rest beside the fire. But spring brings to them and to all nature new life and joy; we see now why the poet begins with summer; it enables him to end with the season in which young love, in harmony with the birth of a new year, is made perfect.. The poem in every line reveals youth; the lack of the ethic touch¹ is in perfect accord with the outlook of the young, and though Kālidāsa was to write much finer poetry, he was also to lose that perfect lucidity which is one of the charms of the poem to modern taste, even if it did not appeal to writers on poetics. 84 . 5. The Meghaduta In distinction to the Rtusamhäāra the Meghadūta² is un- questionably a work of Kālidāsa's maturity; the mere fact that he adopts for it and maintains throughout with only occasional ¹ Stenzler, ZDMG. xliv. 33, n. 3.
- Ed. E. Hultzsch, London, 1911 (with Vallabhadeva's comm.); ed. and trans.
Pathak, Poona, 1916; ed. TSS. 54, 1919.
