Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c18.85

v2.c18.85

on you for ever. The warrior must give up even his life, if the time demands it. That was not yet a sorrow, that the kingdom was taken from you, and that ye were beaten in the gaming and banished. But what greater sorrow could there be than that that tall, that dark woman came to the hall in but one garment, and heard the rough words? In her sickness she with the lovely hips, ever joyfully submissive to Kshattriya duty, found no protecting lord, she Kṛṣṇā, that indeed has protecting lords" (v, 90; cp. 137 and xv, 17.9 ff.). Kṛṣṇa's mission does not bring peace but the still greater hatred that he himself wishes for, and when he goes away again, Kuntī gives him a long message for her sons. Stormy, hot utterances on manliness, heroism, strength of will, and mighty deeds stream from her lips. Fire darts from her words (v, 132. 5-137, particularly finely in 133). It is true that the most magnificent and far the longest part of her speech does not give her own words directly, but Vidulā's. The son of this woman, truly queenly not only by position, but in her soul, too, has been brought by his foes into a wretched plight, and yields himself to it, sluggish and inactive. Then his mother rouses him; and her cast of mind and her words are among the most elevating and most powerful things, not only in the Mahābhārata, which is rich in such passages, but probably, too, in all that the world's literature knows of martially virile inspired dithyrambs. Here we give a few strophes only, which, indeed, come out very feebly in the bald and as far as possible literal prose rendering. Kuntī says among other things: "Say, O Keçava, to King Yudhishṭhira, the soul of duty: 'Let thy great duty not be harmed, O son; do not act wrongly. O king, thou art a simple learned man without insight; thy mind, spoiled by babbling and prating, looks only on the right and on pious virtue. Up! Up! Look but on the right and virtue as thou wast made by God: from (Brahma's) arms the warrior was made, and he lives by the heroic strength of his arms. Fight in accordance with the law and duty of the warrior, make not thy forbears to sink. Let not thy virtuous merit disappear, and go not with thy brothers towards an evil fate after death. There was once the very great Vidulā, gifted with glowing anger, born in a noble family, shining,