The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c12.s2.11

c12.s2.11

The prelude to Act IV tells us of misfortune; the nymphs who mourn by the sea her absence learn that, angry at her husband for some trivial cause, she had entered the grove of Kumāra, forbidden to women, and been turned into a creeper. In distraction¹ the king seeks for her; he deems the cloud a demon which has stolen her away, demands of the peacock, the cuckoo, the flamingo, the bee, the elephant, the boar, the antelope what has become of her; he deems her transformed into the stream, whose waves are the movements of her eyebrows while the rows of birds in its waters are her girdle; he dances, sings, cries, faints in his madness, or deems the echo to be answering him, until a voice from heaven tells him of a magic stone, armed with which he grasps a creeper which in his embrace turns into Urvaçī.