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Home  »  library  »  prose  »  Extract from Kālidāsa’s ‘Çakuntalā’

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Extract from Kālidāsa’s ‘Çakuntalā’

By Indian Literature

  • After the Translation of Meier
  • [The King sees Çakuntalā for the first time, clad in homespun, and speaks.]


  • THAT coarse ascetic garb, which, knotted firmly on the shoulder, covers her full bosom, doth cast a darkness upon her beauteous form, even as a dry leaf darkens an opening bud. The lotus is lovely, even if it grows in a swamp. The spots on the moon only brighten the light of its beauty. Even so in homespun garb yon slender maiden appears all the fairer.

    Though she speaks not to me, yet doth she listen when I speak. Though she turns not her face toward me, yet doth her eye seek me alone.