ACT V SHAKUNTALA'S REJECTION
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Kālidāsa and Ryder, Arthur W. (Arthur William)
Gautami.
Did she with father speak or mother? Did you engage her friends in speech? Your faith was plighted each to other; Let each be faithful now to each.
Shakuntala. What will my husband say?
King (listening with anxious suspicion). What is this insinuation?
Shakuntala (to herself). Oh, oh! So haughty and so slanderous!
Sharngarava. "What is this insinuation?" What is your question? Surely you know the world's ways well enough.
Because the world suspects a wife Who does not share her husband's lot, Her kinsmen wish her to abide With him, although he love her not.
King. You cannot mean that this young woman is my wife.
Shakuntala (sadly to herself). Oh, my heart, you feared it, and now it has come. Sharngarava. O King,
A king, and shrink when love is done, Turn coward's back on truth, and flee!
King. What means this dreadful accusation?
Sharngarava (furiously).
O drunk with power! We might have known That you were steeped in treachery.
King. A stinging rebuke!
Gautami (to SHAKUNTALA). Forget your shame, my child. I will remove your veil. Then your husband will recognise you. (She does so.)
King (observing SHAKUNTALA. To himself).
As my heart ponders whether I could ever Have wed this woman that has come to me In tortured loveliness, as I endeavour To bring it back to mind, then like a bee
That hovers round a jasmine flower at dawn, While frosty dews of morning still o'erweave it, And hesitates to sip ere they be gone, I cannot taste the sweet, and cannot leave it.
Portress (to herself). What a virtuous king he is! Would any other man hesitate when he saw such a pearl of a woman coming of her own accord?
Sharngarava. Have you nothing to say, O King?
King. Hermit, I have taken thought. I cannot believe that this woman is my wife. She is plainly with child. How can I take her, confessing myself an adulterer?
Shakuntala (to herself). Oh, oh, oh! He even casts doubt on our marriage. The vine of my hope climbed high, but it is broken now.
Sharngarava. Not so.
You scorn the sage who rendered whole His child befouled, and choked his grief, Who freely gave you what you stole And added honour to a thief!
Sharadvata. Enough, Sharngarava. Shakuntala, we have said what we were sent to say. You hear his words. Answer him.
Shakuntala (to herself). He loved me so. He is so changed. Why remind him? Ah, but I must clear my own character. Well, I will try. (Aloud.) My dear husband—(She stops.) No, he doubts my right to call him that. Your Majesty, it was pure love that opened my poor heart to you in the hermitage. Then you were kind to me and gave me your promise. Is it right for you to speak so now, and to reject me?
King (stopping his ears). Peace, peace!
A stream that eats away the bank, Grows foul, and undermines the tree. So you would stain your honour, while You plunge me into misery.
Shakuntala. Very well. If you have acted so because you really fear to touch another man's wife, I will remove your doubts with a token you gave me.
King. An excellent idea!
Shakuntala (touching her finger). Oh, oh! The ring is lost. (She looks sadly at GAUTAMI.)
Gautami. My child, you worshipped the holy Ganges at the spot where Indra descended. The ring must have fallen there.
King. Ready wit, ready wit!
Shakuntala. Fate is too strong for me there. I will tell you something else.
King. Let me hear what you have to say.
Shakuntala. One day, in the bower of reeds, you were holding a lotus-leaf cup full of water.
King. I hear you.
Shakuntala. At that moment the fawn came up, my adopted son. Then you took pity on him and coaxed him. "Let him drink first," you said. But he did not know you, and he would not come to drink water from your hand. But he liked it afterwards, when I held the very same water. Then you smiled and said: "It is true. Every one trusts his own sort. You both belong to the forest."
King. It is just such women, selfish, sweet, false, that entice fools. Gautami. You have no right to say that. She grew up in the pious grove. She does not know how to deceive.
King. Old hermit woman,