The Plastic Age - Percy Marks (classic literature books txt) 📗
- Author: Percy Marks
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And Wept Above The Lifeless Head,
Still Faithful To His Master Dead.
Two Lancers Fell With Mortal Wound
And Still They Struggled On The Ground;
With Bristling Hair, With Brandished Knife,
Each Strove To End The Other'S Life.
Two Slew Each Other In The Fight;
To Paradise They Took Their Flight;
There With A Nymph They Fell In Love,
And Still They Fought In Heaven Above.
Two Souls There Were That Reached The Sky;
From Heights Of Heaven They Could Spy
Two Writhing Corpses On The Plain,
And Knew Their Headless Forms Again.
As The Struggle Comes To No Decisive Issue, Taraka Seeks Out The Chief
Gods, And Charges Upon Them.
_Seventeenth Canto. Taraka Is Slain_.--Taraka Engages The Principal
Gods And Defeats Them With Magic Weapons. When They Are Relieved By
Kumara, The Demon Turns To The Youthful God Of War, And Advises Him To
Retire From The Battle.
Stripling, You Are The Only Son
Of Shiva And Of Parvati.
Go Safe And Live! Why Should You Run
On Certain Death? Why Fight With Me?
Withdraw! Let Sire And Mother Blest
Clasp Living Son To Joyful Breast.
Flee, Son Of Shiva, Flee The Host
Of Indra Drowning In The Sea
That Soon Shall Close Upon His Boast
In choking Waves Of Misery.
For Indra Is A Ship Of Stone;
Withdraw, And Let Him Sink Alone.
Kumara Answers With Modest Firmness.
The Words You Utter In Your Pride,
O Demon-Prince, Are Only Fit;
Yet I Am Minded To Abide
The Fight, And See The End Of It.
The Tight-Strung Bow And Brandished Sword
Decide, And Not The Spoken Word.
And With This The Duel Begins. When Taraka Finds His Arrows Parried By
Kumara, He Employs The Magic Weapon Of The God Of Wind. When This Too
Is Parried, He Uses The Magic Weapon Of The God Of Fire, Which Kumara
Neutralises With The Weapon Of The God Of Water. As They Fight On,
Kumara Finds An Opening, And Slays Taraka With His Lance, To The
Unbounded Delight Of The Universe.
Here The Poem Ends, In The Form In Which It Has Come Down To Us. It
Has Been Sometimes Thought That We Have Less Than Kalidasa Wrote,
Chapter 5 Pg 30Partly Because Of A Vague Tradition That There Were Once Twenty-Three
Cantos, Partly Because The Customary Prayer Is Lacking At The End.
These Arguments Are Not Very Cogent. Though The Concluding Prayer Is
Not Given In Form, Yet The Stanzas Which Describe The Joy Of The
Universe Fairly Fill Its Place. And One Does Not See With What Matter
Further Cantos Would Be Concerned. The Action Promised In The Earlier
Part Is Completed In The Seventeenth Canto.
It Has Been Somewhat More Formidably Argued That The Concluding Cantos
Are Spurious, That Kalidasa Wrote Only The First Seven Or Perhaps The
First Eight Cantos. Yet, After All, What Do These Arguments Amount To?
Hardly More Than This, That The First Eight Cantos Are Better Poetry
Than The Last Nine. As If A Poet Were Always At His Best, Even When
Writing On A Kind Of Subject Not Calculated To Call Out His Best.
Fighting Is Not Kalidasa'S _Forte_; Love Is. Even So, There Is Great
Vigour In The Journey Of Taraka, The Battle, And The Duel. It May Not
Be The Highest Kind Of Poetry, But It Is Wonderfully Vigorous Poetry
Of Its Kind. And If We Reject The Last Nine Cantos, We Fall Into A
Very Much Greater Difficulty. The Poem Would Be Glaringly Incomplete,
Its Early Promise Obviously Disregarded. We Should Have A _Birth Of
The War-God_ In Which The Poet Stopped Before The War-God Was Born.
There Seems Then No Good Reason To Doubt That We Have The Epic
Substantially As Kalidasa Wrote It. Plainly, It Has A Unity Which Is
Lacking In Kalidasa'S Other Epic, _The Dynasty_ _Of Raghu_, Though In
This Epic, Too, The Interest Shifts. Parvati'S Love-Affair Is The
Matter Of The First Half, Kumara'S Fight With The Demon The Matter Of
The Second Half. Further, It Must Be Admitted That The Interest Runs A
Little Thin. Even In India, Where The World Of Gods Runs Insensibly
Into The World Of Men, Human Beings Take More Interest In The
Adventures Of Men Than Of Gods. The Gods, Indeed, Can Hardly Have
Adventures; They Must Be Victorious. _The Birth Of The War-God_ Pays
For Its Greater Unity By A Poverty Of Adventure.
It Would Be Interesting If We Could Know Whether This Epic Was Written
Before Or After _The Dynasty Of Raghu_. But We Have No Data For
Deciding The Question, Hardly Any For Even Arguing It. The
Introduction To _The Dynasty Of Raghu_ Seems, Indeed, To Have Been
Written By A Poet Who Yet Had His Spurs To Win. But This Is All.
As To The Comparative Excellence Of The Two Epics, Opinions Differ. My
Own Preference Is For _The Dynasty Of Raghu_, Yet There Are Passages
In _The Birth Of The War-God_ Of A Piercing Beauty Which The World Can
Never Let Die.
The Cloud-Messenger
In _The Cloud-Messenger_ Kalidasa Created A New _Genre_ In Sanskrit
Chapter 5 Part 31Literature. Hindu Critics Class The Poem With _The Dynasty Of Raghu_
And _The Birth Of The War-God_ As A _Kavya_, Or Learned Epic. This It
Obviously Is Not. It Is Fair Enough To Call It An Elegiac Poem, Though
A Precisian Might Object To The Term.
We Have Already Seen, In Speaking Of _The Dynasty Of Raghu_, What
Admiration Kalidasa Felt For His Great Predecessor Valmiki, The Author
Of The _Ramayana_; And It Is Quite Possible That An Episode Of The
Early Epic Suggested To Him The Idea Which He Has Exquisitely Treated
In _The Cloud-Messenger_. In The _Ramayana_, After The Defeat And
Death Of Ravana, Rama Returns With His Wife And Certain Heroes Of The
Struggle From Ceylon To His Home In Northern India. The Journey, Made
In An Aerial Car, Gives The Author An Opportunity To Describe The
Country Over Which The Car Must Pass In Travelling From One End Of
India To The Other. The Hint Thus Given Him Was Taken By Kalidasa; A
Whole Canto Of _The Dynasty Of Raghu_ (The Thirteenth) Is Concerned
With The Aerial Journey. Now If, As Seems Not Improbable, _The Dynasty
Of Raghu_ Was The Earliest Of Kalidasa'S More Ambitious Works, It Is
Perhaps Legitimate To Imagine Him, As He Wrote This Canto, Suddenly
Inspired With The Plan Of _The Cloud-Messenger_.
Thilong In His
Fifties, With A Wife Twelve Years His Junior. He Pretended To Cultivate
His Small Farm In Merrytown, But As A Matter Of Fact He Lived Off Of A
Comfortable Income Left Him By His Very Capable Father. He Spent Most Of
His Time Reading The Eighteenth-Century Essayists, John Donne'S Poetry,
The "Atlantic Monthly," The "Boston Transcript," And Playing Mozart On
His Violin. He Did Not Understand His Wife And Was Thoroughly Afraid Of
His Son; Hugh Had An Animal Vigor That At Times Almost Terrified Him.
At His Wife'S Insistence He Had A Talk With Hugh The Night Before The
Boy Left For College. Hugh Had Wanted To Run When He Met His Father In
The Library After Dinner For That Talk. He Loved The Gentle, Gray-Haired
Man With The Fine, Delicate Features And Soft Voice. He Had Often Wished
That He Knew His Father. Mr. Carver Was Equally Eager To Know Hugh, But
He Had No Idea Of How To Go About Getting Acquainted With His Son.
They Sat On Opposite Sides Of The Fireplace, And Mr. Carver Gazed
Thoughtfully At The Boy. Why Hadn'T Betty Had This Talk With Hugh? She
Knew Him So Much Better Than He Did; They Were More Like Brother And
Sister Than Mother And Son. Why, Hugh Called Her Betty Half The Time,
And She Seemed To Understand Him Perfectly.
Hugh Waited Silently. Mr. Carver Ran A Thin Hand Through His Hair And
Then Sharply Desisted; He Mustn'T Let The Boy Know That He Was Nervous.
Then He Settled His Horn-Rimmed Pince-Nez More Firmly On His Nose And
Felt In His Waistcoat For A Cigar. Why Didn'T Hugh Say Something? He
Snipped The End Of The Cigar With A Silver Knife. Slowly He Lighted The
Cigar, Inhaled Once Or Twice, Coughed Mildly, And Finally Found His
Voice.
"Well, Hugh," He Said In His Gentle Way.
"Well, Dad." Hugh Grinned Sheepishly. Then They Both Started; Hugh Had
Never Called His Father Dad Before. He Thought Of Him That Way Always,
But He Could Never Bring Himself To Dare Anything But The More Formal
Father. In His Embarrassment He Had Forgotten Himself.
Chapter 5 Part 32
"I--I--I'M Sorry, Sir," He Stuttered, Flushing Painfully.
Mr. Carver Laughed To Hide His Own Embarrassment. "That'S All Right,
Hugh." His Smile Was Very Kindly. "Let It Be Dad. I Think I Like It
Better."
"That'S Fine!" Hugh Exclaimed.
The Tension Was Broken, And Mr. Carver Began To Give The Dreaded Talk.
"I Hardly Know What To Say To You, Hugh," He Began, "On The Eve Of Your
Going Away To College. There Is So Much That You Ought To Know, And I
Have No Idea Of How Much You Know Already."
Hugh Thought Of All The Smutty Stories He Had Heard--And Told.
Instinctively He Knew That His Father Referred To What A Local Doctor
Called "The Facts Of Life."
He Hung His Head And Said Gruffly, "I Guess I Know A Good Deal--Dad."
"That'S Splendid!" Mr. Carver Felt The Full Weight Of A Father'S
Responsibilities Lifted From His Shoulders. "I Believe Dr. Hanson Gave
You A Talk At School About--Er, Sex, Didn'T He?"
"Yes, Sir." Hugh Was Picking Out The Design In The Rug With The Toe Of
His Shoe And At The Same Time Unconsciously Pinching His Leg. He Pinched
So Hard That He Afterward Found A Black And Blue Spot, But He Never
Knew How It Got There.
"Excellent Thing, Excellent Thing, These Talks By Medical Men." He Was
Beginning To Feel At Ease. "Excellent Thing. I Am Glad That You Are So
Well Informed; You Are Old Enough."
Hugh Wasn'T Well Informed; He Was Pathetically Ignorant. Most Of What He
Knew Had Come From The Smutty Stories, And He Often Did Not Understand
The Stories That He Laughed At Most Heartily. He Was Consumed With
Curiosity.
"If There Is Anything You Want To Know, Don'T Hesitate To Ask," His
Father Continued. He Had A Moment Of Panic Lest Hugh Would Ask
Something, But The Boy Merely Shook His Head--And Pinched His Leg.
Mr. Carver Puffed His Cigar In Great
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