A History of Sanskrit Literature c12.s1.25

c12.s1.25

Bhāravi, however, is guilty of errors of taste from which Kālidāsa is free. Especially in Canto xv he sets himself to try *tours de force* of the most foolish kind, redolent of the excesses of the Alexandrian poets. Thus one verse has the first and third, second and fourth lines identical; in another all four are identical; one has practically only *c* and *r*, another only the letters *s*, *ç*, *y*, and *l*; in other stanzas each line reads backwards the same way as the next, or the whole stanza read backwards gives the next; one stanza has three senses; two no labial letters; or each verse can be read backwards and forwards unchanged. One sample must serve: