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Translated from the Sanskrit by C. John Holcombe
The Cloud Messenger is a masterpiece of Sanskrit literature, and was
composed by the court poet Kalidasa some time before AD 634 in northern
India. A Yaksha or nature deity begs a passing cloud to carry a message
across the subcontinent to his grieving consort in the fabled city of
Alaká. Under this fiction, Kalidasa presents a sympathetic portrait
of northern India, and weaves in the various moods of love traditional
in classical Sanskrit poetry. The version here is taken from the standard
1912 Hultzsch text, and employs accomplished English verse to render
the simple magnificence of the original while remaining faithful to
the meaning. Free.
Translated from the Sanskrit by C. John Holcombe
The Gita Govinda is one of the most popular and influential poems
ever to emerge from India: a cycle of Sanskrit songs, commentaries and
invocations that depict Krishna's courtship of the cowherdess Radha.
The text was added to temple inscriptions, set to music, choreographed
for dance, and studied as a religious text. Countless poems, recitations,
songs and dances point to its continuing popularity. With frank lyricism,
the Gita Govinda explored the many aspects of passion, from first awakening
through fierce regrets and jealousies to the rapture and contentment
of bodily possession. On one level it narrates the loves of Radha and
Krishna as simple cowherds, but the poem also celebrates nature's regeneration
through sexual congress, the interplay of the human and divine, and
the profound mystery of erotic experience. Free.
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