Music: Leonard Bernstein
Book: Arthur Laurents
Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Choreography: Jerome Robbins

Original Cast (1957)
Maria: Carol Lawrence
Tony: Larry Kert
Anita: Chita Rivera
Bernardo: Ken LeRoy
Riff: Mickey Calin
Film Cast (United Artists, 1961)
Maria: Natalie Wood (songs dubbed by Marni Nixon)
Richard Beymer (songs dubbed by Jim Bryant)
Anita: Rita Moreno (some songs dubbed by Betty Wand & Marni Nixon)
Bernardo: George Chakiris
Riff: Russ Tamblyn

Tony Mardente, who played A-rab on the stage, was Action in the film.

Of all the contributions of American culture to the arts, the Broadway musical is one of the most significant. Its predecessor, the European operetta (a play with spoken dialogue but abundant singing in operatic style), typically featured exotic settings, aristocratic characters, and wildly improbable plots. Although the musical’s roots were in England, it quickly evolved in the hands of such geniuses as Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart and the incomparable George and Ira Gershwin into a distinctively American form featuring popular songs, many of which were to become “standards,” still widely performed and loved today.

Leonard Bernstein took the musical to new heights of seriousness in his 1957 production, West Side Story, based loosely on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Its true subject was the growing menace of gang warfare (or “juvenile delinquency” as it was known then) in the context of racial tensions created by clashes between whites and Puerto Rican immigrants. Consciousness of racism was very much on the rise in the U.S. of the late fifties; and Bernstein, a life-long liberal, wanted to portray the issue in an uncompromising fashion.

The subject is treated in a fairly complex fashion. Note especially “I Want to Live in America,” which expresses the ambiguous feelings of the immigrants about their homeland while forthrightly condemning American white racism. Some people feel this number reinforces stereotypes about Latinos, and the musical has been the target of protests in some areas on that grounds.

Note that the Jets display their ignorance and/or hostility by consistently mispronouncing “Puerto Rico” as “Porto Rico.” The Sharks always pronounce it properly.

This is also an extraordinarily sophisticated musical work. Notice the complex layering in the reprise of “Tonight” with each individual or group voicing its own anticipations for the evening.

Originally the script was to have dealt with a Christian/Jewish romance (called “East Side Story”), but Bernstein decided to choose a more immediately relevant theme. Ironically, neither Broadway nor Hollywood was able to rise above its own institutionalized racism to cast a Latina actress as Maria.

The gangs of that time were much less well armed than today’s, and the exigencies of stage and film production in the fifties forced the libretto to use somewhat censored language (somewhat dated now, but fairly hip then), so that the modern viewer may be tempted to look at this story of gang warfare as somewhat innocent and naive. But at a deeper level, the hatreds and frustrations articulated here are authentic reflections of an ongoing American tragedy.

West Side Story features classic dances by Jerome Robbins, especially in the hyper-athletic masculine style pioneered by choreographer Agnes de Mille in Rodeo and Oklahoma , and several extraordinarily beautiful songs, many of which have become classics. Bernstein, at this time the most famous conductor in the world, leading the New York Philharmonic, and exponent of a wide range of classical and popular music, had the skills to write music considerably more complex that contained in most musicals.

The musical style is based on hard-hitting big band jazz and Latin-beat music like the mambo. Popular dance music had not settled exclusively on rock and roll yet when this work was being written.

If a musical is not an opera, neither is it a play. It is necessary to accept the fact that characters are constantly bursting into either song or dance. It is in these songs and dances that the very essence of the musical exists.

A few definitions:

JD’s are juvenile delinquents
DT’s are delirium tremens, symptoms of extreme alcoholism
“Tea” is marijuana.
“Social Disease” is a polite term for a sexually transmitted disease.
A “zip gun” was a home-made device for shooting projectiles, powered by strong rubber bands. It could be lethal under the right conditions. Actual guns were much harder to get hold of in the fifties than they became later.

Your assignment:

Discuss some aspect of this production, writing at least 50 words. Be sure to specify scenes and characters, using this study guide.

How does the musical reflect the same values as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet? In what ways is it different?

Describe the dancing in this production. How is the choreography different from that you saw in the Prokofiev ballet? How about the vocal technique? What makes it different from the techniques used in La Traviata? How are gestures, camera angles, and lighting used to convey ideas and feelings? What kinds of melodies are used? How does the music change to convey different emotions? Discuss how Bernstein sometimes layers one kind of music on another, or creates abrupt contrasts.

What aspects of the action seem to relate specifically to gangs in the 50s and which seem relevant to today gang violence and racism?

When you consider the ending of the musical, keep the following in mind. The 1950s marked a new phenomenon: a youth culture largely independent of adult influence. In Shakespeare’s day the Prince could stand for the sanctioned authority of the state (in his case, Queen Elizabeth, who detested dueling). The end of the play resolves the conflict by reimposing traditional authority. But Sondheim, Bernstein, and the rest identified more with the developing youth culture in its rebellion against adult society. Notice how parents are kept offstage, with only one good but powerless adult–Doc–anywhere to be seen. The recreation center leader is a clueless idiot and the cops are corrupt racist thugs. In the world of West Side Story hope for the future can reside only in the next generation. It can’t end like Shakespeare’s play because its creators don’t share his values. The conclusion is meant to place responsibility for ending the conflict squarely in the laps of its young viewers.

Comment on these and other matters, then respond to what someone else has said, going beyond merely agreeing or disagreeing–try to engage them in conversation by addressing their ideas with ideas of your own.

Please note that this production, though it is being shown to you from a DVD, is not a “video.” Refer to it as a “film” or “movie.”

Lots more information at the West Side Story Web Site.

More study guides for Love in the Arts:

• Chinese and Japanese Love Poetry
• Kalidasa: Sakuntala
• Nizami: Layla and Majnun
• Egyptian Love Poetry from the New Kingdom
• The Song of Songs
• Diane Ackerman: A Natural History of Love
• Classical Love Poems
• Ovid’s Loves, The Art of Love & The Remedies for Love
• Classic English Love Poems
• Marie de France: Lays
• Mystical Love Poetry
• Medieval Love Songs
• Renaissance Love Songs
• Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
• Madame de Lafayette: The Princess of Clèves
• Verdi: La Traviata
• Modern Women’s Love Poetry
• Illustrated Version of Cole Porter’s You’re the Top

Last revised November 28, 2005.

Whereas the music of the Middle Ages is predominantly sacred, there is a great flourishing of songs dedicated to secular topics, predominately love, in the 15th through the early 17th centuries. With the invention of music printing, the spread of literacy and improved travel musical and poetic ideas traveled rapidly around Europe, creating a distinctive set of ideas which elaborated themes inherited from the troubadours and their descendants. The notion of courtly love was now hardly taken seriously, but its imagery was still powerful.

Gilles Binchois: Dueil angoisseux (text by Christine de Pisan),

from The Castle of Fair Welcome, Hyperion CDA66194, track 6.

Christine de Pisan (or Pizan) was a 14th-century French writer who was wed at 15 and widowed at 25, and dedicated her output of love-lyrics to the memory of her late husband to whom she was utterly devoted. Despite the wish for death expressed in the envoi to this poem, she lived on to compose many other works, often defending women’s rights and praising their accomplishments. Not only is this an unusual work in expressing wifely devotion, but it is also highly original in the way it piles sorrow on sorrow in a torrent of anguished verse. Although Christine is counted as a “Medieval” poet her poem was set by Gilles Binchois, a “Renaissance” composer, reminding us that no sharp boundary separated these periods and that he could respond directly and immediately to her emotion with powerfully moving music.

Anonymous (English, 16th Century): Greensleeves,

from Faire, Sweet & Cruell (Bis CD 257): track 9

Of all English Renaissance tunes, this is the most familiar, partly because of its modern use for the Christmas carol “What Child Is This?” However, it was a wildly popular tune in its own day, and was arranged in endless different ways. Here we hear it sung much as it must have sounded in the 16th century. Although the text speaks in the voice of a man spurned by his lady love, it is here sung by a woman, which would not have bothered a Renaissance audience one bit. They had little concern for the gender of the singer of a song so long as the voice was a pleasant one. The message was conveyed by the words and melody, and not by the person of the singer.

Alas my love, ye do me wrong
to cast me off discurteously:
And I have loved you so long,
Delighting in your companie.

Greensleeves was all my joy
Greensleeves was my delight:
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but my Ladie Greensleeves.

I have been readie at your hand,
to grant what ever you would crave
I have both waged life and land,
your love and good will for to have.

Refrain:
Greensleeves was all my joy, etc.

Thou couldst desire no earthly thing,
But still thou hadst it readily,
Thy musicke still to play and sing,
And yet thou wuldst not love me.

Refrain:

Greensleeves was all my joy, etc.

Greensleeves now farewell adieu
God I pray to prosper thee,
For I am still thy lover true
Come once again and love me.

Refrain:

Greensleeves was all my joy, etc.

Marchetto Cara (Italian, 1465-1525): Hor Vendut’ho la Speranza (Barzelletta):

from Renaissance Music from the Courts of Mantua and Ferrara (Chandos CHAN 8333), track 18.

This song reflects the keen Renaissance interesting in banking and trade by treating hope (hope of being loved) as a commodity which has just suffered a fall in the market, for the poet’s lady has proven false to him. He concludes that hoping for her love is foolish; he would prefer to invest in a more constant lover.

Giulio Caccini: Amarilli mia bella (text by Giovanni Battista Guarini)

from Giulio Caccini: le Nuove Musiche, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77164-2-RG, track 10.

This popular madrigal from Italy has a simple text which uses a traditional Arcadian name: Amayrillis. To take the arrow out of the lover’s heart is to heal him of love’s wound, and that can only be done by lovemaking.

Rossino Mantovano: Lirum Bililirum

from The King’s Singers Madrigal History Tour, EMI Angel CDM 7 69837 2, track 2

Madrigal composers delighted in sound effects, especially those related to music. Here the composer imitates the sound of a muted lute in the refrain. The text is a routine lover’s complain based on long, unrequited “service.”

Pierre Certon: La la, la, je ne l’ose dire

from The King’s Singers Madrigal History Tour, EMI Angel CDM 7 69837 2, track 16.

Renaissance writers delighted in joking about cuckolds. The supposition that most women were unfaithful to their husbands gave encouragement to lovers and of course was never applied by married men to their own cases. Here the composer cleverly imitates the sound of gossipy whispering in the refrain.

Thomas Morley: Now Is the Month of Maying

from Flora Gave Me Fairest Flowers (Collegium COLCD 105), IMS CDM 489, track 11.

The Renaissance delighted in images of outdoor lovemaking even more than the Middle Ages. The song is apparently about dancing, but dancing is often a metaphor for lovemaking, and “barley-break” is what we would call “a roll in the hay.” Such punning sexual allusions and even more frankly bawdy verse are extremely common in madrigals.

Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are playing, fa la,
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass. Fa la.

The Spring, clad all in gladness,
Doth laugh at Winter’s sadness, fa la,
And to the bagpipe’s sound
The nymphs tread out their ground. Fa la.
Fie then! why sit we musing,
Youth’s sweet delight refusing? Fa la.
Say, dainty nymphs, and speak,
Shall we play at barley-break? Fa la.

William Byrd: This Sweet and Merry Month of May

from Flora Gave Me Fairest Flowers (Collegium COLCD 105), track 13.

This is a madrigal in honor of Queen Elizabeth. She encouraged a cult which regarded her as the beloved of her people, though a perpetually virginal one. England is the “second Troy,” which may seem an odd epithet (since Troy was notoriously the loser of the famous Trojan War), but ancient legend said that just as Rome had been founded by Aeneas, a fugitive from Troy, so Britain had been founded by another such Trojan prince, named Brutain. Pure propaganda, of course, but highly effective in a time when every country wanted to emulate ancient Rome.

This sweet and merry month of May,
While Nature wantons in her prime,
And birds do sing, and beasts do play
For pleasure of the joyful time,
I choose the first for holiday,
And greet Eliza with a rhyme:
O beauteous Queen of second Troy,
Take well in worth a simple toy.

From Kate Farrell: Art & Love: An Illustrated Anthology of Love Poetry. New York: Bulfinch Press, 1990.

Petrarch : To Laura

Francesco Petrarca devoted dozens of sonnets to his love for Laura, who died in the black death of the 14th century without ever having returned his passion. These became some of the most influential and imitated love lyrics ever written, translated and set to music all over Europe. He did not invent the “Petrarchan sonnet” form, but he made it famous. This is one of several sonnets he wrote after her death. He imagines that her brief presence in the world was a miraculous angelic apparition. She becomes almost godlike in her powers, with the music of her speech transforming nature.

From Wendy Mulford, ed.: Love Poems by Women. New York: Fawcett, 1991.

Louise Labé: I Live, I Die, I Burn, I Drown

Louise Labé wrote some of the most passionate love sonnets in all of literature. Like Sappho, she was bitterly criticized for expressing her feelings too frankly for a woman. This is not one of her most famous poems, unfortunately; but it expresses vividly the intensity of the anguish she felt when her lover was unfaithful.

More study guides for Love in the Arts:

• Chinese and Japanese Love Poetry
• Kalidasa: Sakuntala
• Nizami: Layla and Majnun
• Egyptian Love Poetry from the New Kingdom
• The Song of Songs
• Diane Ackerman: A Natural History of Love
• Classical Love Poems
• Ovid’s Loves, The Art of Love & The Remedies for Love
• Classic English Love Poems
• Marie de France: Lays
• Mystical Love Poetry
• Medieval Love Songs
• Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
• Madame de Lafayette: The Princess of Clèves
• Verdi: La Traviata
• Bernstein: West Side Story
• Modern Women’s Love Poetry
• Illustrated Version of Cole Porter’s You’re the Top

Created by Paul Brians

More about Renaissance music.

Although modern Western ideas about romantic love owe a certain amount to the classical Greek and Roman past, they were filtered through the very different culture of the European Middle Ages. One can trace the concepts which dominated Western thinking until recently to the mid-12th Century. Before that time, European literature rarely mentions love, and women seldom figure prominently. After that time, within a decade or two, all has changed. Passionate love stories replace epic combat tales and women are exalted to almost god-like status. Simultaneously, the Virgin Mary becomes much more prominent in Catholic devotions, and emotionalism is rampant in religion.

The pioneers of this shift in sensibility seem to have been the troubadours, the poets of Provence (now Southern France). Provençal is a language related to French, Italian and Spanish, and seems to have facilitated the flow of ideas across the often ill-defined borders of 12th-Century Europe. It has often been speculated that Arabic poetry may have influenced their work by way of Moorish Spain. Although this seems likely, it is difficult to confirm.

Once the basic themes are laid down by the troubadours, they are imitated by the French trouvères, the German Minnesingers (love poets) and others. Thus, even though the disastrous 13th-Century Albigensian crusade put an end of the golden age of the troubadours, many of their ideas and themes persisted in European literature for centuries afterward.

Guiraut de Bornelh: Leu chansoneta, from The Dante Troubadours, Nimbus NIM 5002, track 2

An unromantic but obvious fact is that much if not most troubadour poetry consists of artificial compositions, sometimes commissioned, sometimes written for competitions, rather than being private outpourings directed to the poet’s lady-love. This is particularly obvious in this poem where the poet mentions the lady almost offhandedly in the final stanza, although he does claim that he is dying for love of her. The competitive nature of this poem is made clear when the poet hopes it will travel to my Lord of Eblo, a rival troubadour who wrote in the obscure trobar clus style. The second stanza continues with Guiraut bragging that he knows how to tell a true noble from a base man by his wit. He should be able to speak eloquently when necessary and know when to stop. The third stanza says that only nobles willing to engage in duels should get involved in poetry contests with him. The reference to God turning water into wine is an allusion to Christ’s miracle at the wedding feast of Cana (John 2: 1-12). True wine (great poetry) is pleasing only to the great. After all this bragging, the final stanza devoted to his lady seems almost an afterthought. The conventional language of courtly love requires that the lover present himself as the feudal inferior of his Lady, whom he serves humbly. The ideal lover keeps his love affair a secret, so the poet cannot name her publicly. In fact, she may be wholly imaginary. Unconsummated love can theoretically lead to death; but the poet darkly hints at a more serious loss: of his ability to write.

Bertran de Born: Ges de disnar , from The Dante Troubadours, Nimbus NIM 5002, track 5.

Bertran was one of the most famous troubadours, especially renowned for his passionate devotion to combat. Yet even he wrote love poetry. Like much troubadour verse, this poem is a loose collection of images whose connections are somewhat obscure. The introduction, defining what good service is at a proper inn, tells us that he is a connoisseur who knows quality when he sees it; therefore his praise of Lady Lena can be trusted. The standard form which courtly love took involved the admiration of a single man for a married woman. Whether such affairs were really as common as the poets implied in questionable, but the idea becomes so standardized that Bertran can write this love poem to the Lord of Poitou’s wife without worrying that he will be upset, even mentioning her underclothes! In the second stanza he praises her in traditional terms as noble, but takes time to praise himself as well as the best of poets. Since he has deigned to praise her, she is all the more worthy. Her husband was heir to the throne of Provence, and he anticipates her elevation to the rank of queen. In the last stanza, he describes his love for her in intimate detail and says that he would rather have her than the city of Corrozana. All of this is the rankest flattery, and would not be taken seriously by any of the parties.

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras: Kalenda Maya, from The Dante Troubadours, Nimbus NIM 5002, track 11.

This poem is extremely popular because of the light, lilting tune it is set to. The troubadours were composers as well as poets, though they sometimes reused older melodies when they set their lyrics. At first we might look at this poem and feel that at last we have encountered a genuine love poem, filled with heart-felt emotion. But no, the final lines reveal that it is just as artificial as the others. In ancient times May Day was the festival day of Venus, and it continued to be associated with love in the Middle Ages. The usual signs of spring in poetry are leaves on the trees and birds singing. Both are mentioned here, but instead of bringing joy, they only reinforce the loneliness of his beloved. The lovers have been separated by “the jealous one,” a stock figure who is sometimes the lady’s husband, sometimes just an envious meddler who has discovered and publicized the secret affair. In the second stanza he begs with the lady not to allow the jealous one to succeed in the plot of separating the two of them. Grace is of course an important theological term in Christianity, but in courtly love language it is applied to the willingness of the lady to grant favors (usually in the form of love-making) to her suitor. Since the lover presents himself as suffering from love-longing, he asks for her “pity” (which has roughly the same meaning as “grace”). The message is the same as such old blues lines as “Ooh Baby, I need you so bad!” but expressed in more pretentious language. We now learn that despite their intense relationship, they have not yet actually made love (and neither, the poet reassures himself, has she taken any other lovers). Whoever does not love this lady leads a worthless life. Note the insistent repetition of terms relating to her nobility. In this class-bound society, beauty, virtue, and nobility were supposed to go hand-in-hand, though it was widely acknowledged that sometimes they did not. Then we are shocked to find the concluding lines addressed, not to the mysterious, marvelous lady, but to the poet’s patron, Lord Engles. Alas, the poem is yet another set piece written to please a patron and not the outpourings of a romantic soul in love.

Anonymous French: L’autrier m’iere levaz, from Medieval Songs and Dances, CRD 3421, track 3.

Up to this point all of our poets have been Provençal. This one is written in 12th-Century French, a quite distinct language, but differing substantially from modern French (in which the title would be something like L’autre jour je me levais). This is a pastourelle, a common poetic form which makes different use of the class structure of Medieval society than the poems we have read earlier. The theme of these poems is that knights can find attractive lovers among the common people, especially shepherdesses. The courtship is depicted as much more crude and rapid than the elegant and prolonged maneuverings required for a courtly affair. Today pastourelles would be considered little more than poems of sexual harassment, and this one ends in what is essentially a rape. Part of the appeal of such poems for noble (male) audiences was the thrill of the forbidden: crossing class boundaries, slumming. I don’t know how the melody of this song struck Medieval listeners, but it has always seemed oddly sinister to me. The translation here is in prose, but it effectively conveys the poem’s message.

Like most love poetry it is set in spring, beneath the flowering trees. Just as in ancient pastoral poetry there is a conventional set of names by which the rustic characters are identified, so Ermenjon is recognizably a peasant name. She is addressed not as Lady, for only noblewomen qualified as ladies. “Sister” is a much more casual, commonplace term. She has been raised well enough to know that she should have nothing to do with her social superiors and tries to escape his unwanted attentions to reminding him of his status and hers. But he claims to have broader views. His praise of her sense (intelligence) is insincere, since they have obviously never spoken before this moment. Like many pastourelle heroines, Ermenjon already has a shepherd-lover, this one named Perrin (another typical peasant name). When she tells him how afraid she is, the knight deliberately misinterprets her as saying that she is afraid of Perrin’s jealousy, when in fact she had been threatening the knight with the shepherd’s vengeance. She makes clear her rejection of him by saying her body cannot be bought even for all the rich goods displayed in the great market at the city of Limoges. The response of the knight is then to rape her. Fulfilling standard male fantasies of the time, she is much pleased and glad that he ignored her resistance. The message is clear: “No matter what women say, they all want it. Just be firm.” Modern attempts of women to tell men directly and repeatedly how stupid and revolting this point of view is have been only partially successful, so it is not surprising to find it widely accepted in the Middle Ages. What is surprising is that in about half the pastourelles the young woman succeeds in rebuffing her noble suitor and sending him on his way. In such poems she is clearly the smarter of the two, and the more virtuous. The existence of both traditions side by side should keep up us from over-generalizing about Medieval attitudes.

In order to balance things a bit, you will find in your class packet an example of such a pastourelle. Why is the knight’s attempt flatter the woman by claiming she must be of noble descent actually insulting? How does the shepherdess answer him? Note that although he begins by praising the young woman, he ends by cursing her. This hostility lurks not too far beneath the surface of many love poems in which the man professes himself to be the slavish servant of his beloved. Her final reply is rather obscure, but it seems to say he will get as much pleasure out of her as a hungry man gets out of painted food, and he can hope for as much cooperation from her as someone who expects to be miraculously fed by God, like the ancient Hebrews wandering in the wilderness of Sinai.

Anonymous Italian: Lamento di Tristano, from Medieval Songs and Dances, track 1.

After Lancelot and Guinevere, the most famous fictional lovers of the Middle Ages were Tristan and Iseult, another adulterous pair who were often separated. (One episode from their story is told by Marie de France in the lai of Chevrefoil). Tristan is portrayed as an outstanding musician, and is imagined here as having composed this lament during one of these separations. Although the story is set in Cornwall, its most famous retellings were Continental, and it is not at all surprising to find this title turning up in 14th-Century Italy.

Guillaume de Machaut:Foy porter

Besides being a famous poet, Machaut was one of the greatest composers of the 14th Century. Working in Paris, he was at the heart of the development of polyphony. This first song, however, is monophonic, a love song with typically intricate rhyming. My translation doesn’t aim at poetry, but does get the essential theme across: the irresistibility of love. It was believed that gemstones could be used to heal various sufferings. Only the lady can heal his suffering. How does the poet claim loving the lady has made him a better person? The idea that courtly love improved one’s character was a crucial part of the whole tradition.

Translated by Paul Brians

Dame, je suis cilz/Fins cuers doulz/Fins cuers doulz, from The Mirror of Narcissus, Hyperion CDA66087, track 2.

The multitextual motets of the 14th Century seem very strange to modern ears, but in that time it made sense to create polyphony by layering one verse of a monophonic song on top of another to produce harmony. Here there are three voices. The Tenor is repeated over and over while the other verses are sung. The whole idea of courtly love was for the lover to present himself as a loyal servant to his lady. If he obeyed her every wish and loyally kept secret their connection, after a long period of trial she might legitimately take pity on him and console him with love-making. However, if she postponed this healing consolation too long, he might die; and poets often used the threat of such a death to exert pressure on the ladies to whom they were supposedly utterly submissive. It was a not uncommon form of emotional blackmail to tell a woman, “You can either commit adultery with me or effectively commit murder by refusing; which is it to be?” One wonders whether this worked in real life, but in poetry it is routine. Note how in the Motetus the poet says that all his good qualities come from loving her. How does the Triplum present the poet as a martyr?

Douce dame jolie

A virelai is a lively dance form. Although the text of this poem reads as dolefully as the other Machaut pieces, its delightfully lilting music belies its text. Note again the tight and intricate rhyming of the original. Again the opening image is the feudal domination the lady exerts over her beloved. By now you know what the lover is asking for when he begs her “pity.” What is the message of this last stanza?

From Kate Farrell: Art & Love: An Illustrated Anthology of Love Poetry. New York: Bulfinch Press, 1990.

Dante Alighieri: Sonnet

Lapo Gianni and Guido Cavalcante were friends of Dante’s. In this poem from La Vita Nuova, he fancifully imagines that they might escape in a magic ship on an endless voyage of love. Tragically, his Beatrice died young, as did Guido’s Giovanna (“Vanna” is a nickname). In the Divine Comedy Dante later imagined meeting her in an altogether more serious way when he described her guiding him through Heaven. The translation “whose name on the list is number thirty” is misleading: it should be something like “who is the best of the top thirty.” Dante was influenced by the courtly love style, and carried on his life-long love for the married Beatrice while being himself married to another woman. According to his own account, they never consummated the relationship. It consisted entirely of his adoring her from afar and–most important–writing poetry about her. What effect does knowing this background have on your interpretation of the poem?

From Wendy Mulford, ed.: Love Poems by Women. New York: Fawcett, 1991.

La Comtesse de Dia: I Must Sing of That

There were few women troubadours (some twenty are known), but the most famous of them was the Countess of Dia. We know little about her life, but this song is the only female troubadour song to survive with music intact. Like much male troubadour poetry, this is a lament of unrequited love. Deceived and betrayed suggests that he has been unfaithful to her. Seguin and Valensa were the lovers in a now-lost romance. Like many other troubadour songs, it ends with a threat, this one rather veiled. Other translations render the fourth line of the third stanza as “it is not right that another love. . . .” What are the main arguments she uses to get him to return her love?

Anonymous: Dawn Song

A “Dawn Song” is a standard Medieval form common in Provence, France, and Germany, in which a pair of lovers lament the coming of the dawn, which means that they must part. Often the woman is married, but that does not seem to be the case here. What evidence is there, at least, that this couple is not married to each other?

Christine de Pisan: A Sweet Thing Is Marriage

Christine de Pisan (or Pizan), born in Venice to the chief physician of Charles V of France, was married at fifteen and widowed at twenty-five. She wrote extensively defending women and arguing for their intelligence and abilities. Her poetry consists of posthumous tributes to her dead husband. What qualities did she especially admire in her husband? His speech to her implies that his love for her is making him better: a common courtly love idea.

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: From A Satirical Romance

This Mexican nun actually belongs with the Renaissance writers, but her language is typically Medieval. What unusual image does she use to express the flowing of her love to her jealous lover?

From Kate Farrell: Art & Love: An Illustrated Anthology of Love Poetry. New York: Bulfinch Press, 1990.

I can’t hold you and I can’t leave you

How does the poet propose to deal with her ambiguous feelings about her lover? The last stanza implies that if he would be wholehearted in his love for her, she could be equally wholehearted in loving him.

More study guides for Love in the Arts:

• Chinese and Japanese Love Poetry
• Kalidasa: Sakuntala
• Nizami: Layla and Majnun
• Egyptian Love Poetry from the New Kingdom
• The Song of Songs
• Diane Ackerman: A Natural History of Love
• Classical Love Poems
• Ovid’s Loves, The Art of Love & The Remedies for Love
• Classic English Love Poems
• Marie de France: Lays
• Mystical Love Poetry
• Renaissance Love Songs
• Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
• Madame de Lafayette: The Princess of Clèves
• Verdi: La Traviata
• Bernstein: West Side Story
• Modern Women’s Love Poetry
• Illustrated Version of Cole Porter’s You’re the Top

All references to the Song of Songs are to Michael V. Fox’s translation as published in The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 82 94.

The Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon and the Canticle of Canticles, has long puzzled readers because its themes seem to have nothing to do with the religious concerns of the rest of the Bible. How it came to be classed among the sacred works called “The Writings” in the Hebrew Bible is unknown. The earliest rabbis whose opinions we have are certain that it cannot possibly mean what is says literally. If it is among the sacred books, it must have a sacred meaning. Some rabbis even argued that as the most mysterious of books, it must have the most profoundly spiritual of meanings. The consensus of first-century Jewish scholars was that the poem was an allegory of God’s love for his people, Israel. Modern literary scholars generally agree that the brief references to Solomon were added after the fact to rationalize its place in the scriptural canon. Solomon was said to have three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines, and was therefore stereotyped as a great lover who might have written such a work. However, the language and style of the work indicate that it was written at least 500 years after his time. Most likely the poems were composed by different hands and different times and assembled into this “anthology” at a later date. Michael Fox has taken the liberty in this translation of trying to reconstruct what he thinks may have been the original shape of the book, which means occasionally moving verses around to make more convincing sense. Generally, however, his translation follows the Hebrew text’s order.

Early Christian scholars followed the rabbinical lead by agreeing that these verses could not possibly depict worldly love. Since they routinely interpreted almost all of the Hebrew Bible (which they called “The Old Testament”) in allegorical terms, this was only natural. Some thought that the Song of Songs voiced Christ’s love for his Church; but the eventual Christian consensus was that they concerned God’s love for the Virgin Mary. She figures in Christian thought as the spouse of God. Medieval exegetes went to extraordinary lengths to explain away the obvious sensuality of these verses. Bernard of Clairvaux, for instance, argued that “kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” must not mean ordinary physical kisses because it was too indirect an expression. A man might kiss a woman with his mouth, but he would not kiss her with kisses. Something more spiritual is meant. He also recommended that monks and priests not be allowed to study the book while they were still young and prone to inflamed passions. Almost all Christian musical settings of the Songs are hymns to the Virgin. Since the text was sung in Latin, the listeners probably thought very little about the literal meaning of the words.

Allegorical interpretation has fallen out of fashion, and in modern times numerous attempts have been made to explain (or explain away) this book. One group made a valiant effort to compare the poems to Arabic wedding songs, arguing that they might have been recited at ancient Jewish weddings. However, the parallels are quite weak and there is no evidence for such use. Besides, the very subject matter seems to have remarkably little to do with marriage. The same objection undermines the theory that the poems are meant to depict God’s ideal for marital relations. Besides, the latter theory is anachronistic, hardly any but the most radical fringe groups in Christianity considered sensuality and desire even within marriage to be a good thing. For centuries Christians and most Jews (Moses Maimonides’ influence is important here) had a strongly ascetic bias. The concept of sensuous Christian marriage is only decades old, not traditional at all, as is the modern Jewish attitude toward sexuality. Of course, it is conceivable that at the time of their writing, these verses reflected attitudes more like modern ones that like those prevailing in the intervening centuries: Jacob was certainly passionate about Rachel. But it is still hard to see in them an endorsement of marriage.

The artistic importance of these verses (probably a collection of short, related poems, rather than a single work) lies in their intrinsic beauty and in the enormous influence they have had on later writers, painters, and musicians. They also reveal to us many interesting aspects of ancient Jewish attitudes toward sexuality.

The labels in parentheses have been assigned by the translator in an effort to sort out who is speaking when. It is clear that some lines are uttered by a woman, some by a man, and some by groups of people. The labels vary. Some translations rather misleadingly label the speakers as “bride” and “bridegroom,” but in the original there is no indication of who speaks each poem or even where one poem leaves off and another begins.

p. 26:

Scented oils were frequently used in antiquity as a combination skin lotion and perfume. The king mentioned here was traditionally taken to be Solomon until Christians began to conceive of him as God himself. What evidence is there that the blackness referred to in the second poem has nothing to do with race? In many cultures light skin has been prized as a sign of nobility in women; what in this poem suggests the reason for this association? Some modern translations try to evade the suggestion that darkness might have been considered unattractive by altering the introduction to “I am black and I am beautiful;” but that goes against the poet’s clear intent. It is not clear whether the complaint of the woman is an assertion of desire for equal property rights for women or a metaphorical statement about her control over her own body. Note the recurring instances of tension between young women and their brothers in these poems. Note the strong assertiveness of women’s desires in these verses, which goes even further than the Egyptian poetry. Note the many instances of references to smells and tastes, also like the Egyptian poetry. Michael Fox suggests that the beloved’s eyes are compared with doves because her fluttering eyelashes are reminiscent of a dove’s fluttering wings. Fox’s translation of the “lily of the valley” passage is most unusual, but interesting. Whereas most translations make the woman’s statement out to be a boast, what does his version convey? The “girls of Jerusalem” (usually called “daughters of Jerusalem”) The statement “do not bestir love,/before it wishes” has been variously interpreted. The obvious meaning is, don’t try to seduce someone who is too young, but that doesn’t seem to fit with the surrounding messages. Some have argued that it means that lovemaking should be gradual and gentle. Others take it as a warning that aroused love can be dangerous if not handled carefully.

p. 27

The speech by the “boy” beginning “Arise, my beloved,” is perhaps the most famous in the book, frequently set to music in its Latin translation combined with the introduction as “Quam pulchra es.” The old King James translation of the bird as a “turtle” has amused and puzzled many modern readers, but in the Renaissance the word meant “turtledove.” “The Voice of the Turtle” is the name of a musical group that performs and records Jewish music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. What season is especially associated with love in this poem? How is the setting different from that envisioned in the earlier poems? Note how the girl repeatedly compares her beloved to a gazelle or deer. The poem that begins “On my bed night after night” is one of two about women searching for their beloveds in the city streets. Can you characterize these women? The following section is one of only two portions of the Song of Songs explicitly about Solomon and one of the few to make any reference to marriage. Some scholars have argued this may have been used as a marriage hymn, but we have no evidence for such usage. The cedars of Lebanon were associated with Solomon because he had imported them for use in building the famous First Temple. The final poem on this page uses image that many modern readers have found difficult and strange. We have already explained Fox’s theory about the dove metaphor. He also argues that seen from a distance, a dense flock of black goats streaming down a mountainside might well suggest the waving tresses of a dark-haired girl. In an age of minimal oral hygiene a woman who had white teeth and wasn’t missing a single one might well exceptional. What lines suggest that the woman has all her teeth? Round red cheeks were much praised in Medieval and Renaissance Europe as well, though the usual comparison there was to apples rather than pomegranates. Lengthy necks have been admired in many ages as well. What might the poet be referring to when he uses the metaphor of the shields which are hung from David’s tower?

p. 28

The breast/fawn metaphor seems strange at first, but it is their delicacy and gentle movements and the fact that they are a perfectly matched pair that the poet has in mind. “The mountain of myrrh” and “hill of frankincense” may describe an imaginary land of love, or they may be simple metaphors for the “mound of Venus.” What snares does the boy say have “captured his heart”? Lebanon was more fertile and wooded than much of Israel, and often figures here as a garden spot. The “locked garden” (surrounded by a wall with a locked gate) has often been read as a metaphor for the woman’s body. If this is the case, then the following speeches take on a strongly sexual meaning. What evidence is there that the subject is lovemaking rather than picnicking? Many ancient Egyptian and Middle Eastern love poems use “sister” as a term of affection for a beloved woman. Although the Egyptians did not entirely share the powerful incest taboos of the Jews (the Pharaohs routinely married their sisters), even they do not seem to have intended the term literally. The section “I slumbered, but my heart was alert,” begins a sort of little poetic dramatic dialogue. Note the image of the waiting lover drenched with dew, which we encountered earlier in Japanese poetry. This section is often cited in the arguments of those who argue against the idea that the Song of Songs consist entirely of marriage hymns. What about it might be used to support such arguments? Note the “lover outside the door” theme which parallels Egyptian and Roman poems on the same theme. This is the second of the two poems in which the woman goes looking for her beloved, but this time she is assaulted and robbed by the guards. The meaning is obscure, but these lines certainly underline the power of her passion. This poem can also be seen as a variation on the regretful woman theme: “I turned him down, and now I’m sorry.” Such poems are often written by men fantasizing about women, but there are also documented examples by real women.

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Note how many of the same images applied earlier to the girl are now applied by her to the boy. Beauty was not a characteristic solely of women in the ancient world. Some of the images do seem to suggest specifically male muscularity, such as thighs like marble pillars. The “ivory bar” suggests white skin adorned with dark hair (“lapis lazuli”). “Belly” is sometimes a euphemism in Hebrew poetry for “sexual organ,” and that may well be the case here. The repetition of several lines from earlier suggests folksong traditions in which same formulas are used over and over in various contexts. The reference to threescore (60) queens and fourscore (80) concubines suggests a king like Solomon, though it does not equal the numbers he accumulated at the height of his power. How can we tell that the girl is not to be numbered among the queens and concubines? The “morning star” is the planet Venus, often visible just before dawn, and considered particularly beautiful in both Hebrew and ancient Greek traditions. Note the praise of curves: the admiration of hard-bodied females with flat stomachs à la Janet Jackson is a very recent development.

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The poet continues to use place-names which the audience would be familiar with as metaphors for the beloved’s beauty. “Thrums” are fringes. “A king is captured by the locks [of hair]” is traditionally taken to concern Solomon, though it can as easily simply mean that the girl is beautiful enough for a king to love. The idea that a man can be metaphorically ensnared by a woman’s beautiful hair is one of the oldest and most enduring images of love. The metaphor of the woman’s body as a garden is made even clearer when the woman is compared to a palm. Fox assumes this is a date palm, common in ancient Israel. Note the repetition here of the theme “let us go out into the fields to make love.” The speech by the girl wishing her lover were like a brother has no perverse intent. What does she say would be the advantages of having his status be the same as that of one of her brothers? Love’s power is frequently understood in the ancient world to be both highly desirable and very dangerous: “as strong as death.” In Hebrew poetry parallelism is the most common of poetic devices. To say that “love is as strong as death” is parallel to saying that jealousy is “as hard as Sheol.” In this period, classical Jewish concepts of the afterlife had probably not yet evolved, and “Sheol” is routinely used as a synonym for “death.” It was understood as the land where all dead spirits went, good and bad alike, much like the Greek Hades. Only later did it become a label for Hell, an interpretation that did not prevail among Jews until after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE. This description of the overwhelming power of love is strikingly like Sappho’s and Medieval Christian and Arabic views on the subject, and very unlike the playful Hellenistic and Roman attitudes. What is the poet saying about jealousy? The dialogue between the brothers and the girl is one of Fox’s most daring pieces of reconstruction, trying to make sense of some of the more obscure passages in the book. His translation suggests a brotherly refusal to recognize that their little sister has grown up and is ready for love. The second of the passages referring explicitly to Solomon uses him as the basis for a comparison: the boy would rather have his beloved than all the riches of Solomon.

More study guides for Love in the Arts:

• Chinese and Japanese Love Poetry
• Kalidasa: Sakuntala
• Nizami: Layla and Majnun
• Egyptian Love Poetry from the New Kingdom
• Diane Ackerman: A Natural History of Love
• Classical Love Poems
• Ovid’s Loves, The Art of Love & The Remedies for Love
• Classic English Love Poems
• Marie de France: Lays
• Mystical Love Poetry
• Medieval Love Songs
• Renaissance Love Songs
• Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
• Madame de Lafayette: The Princess of Clèves
• Verdi: La Traviata
• Bernstein: West Side Story
• Modern Women’s Love Poetry
• Illustrated Version of Cole Porter’s You’re the Top

Created by Paul Brians

Source: Kalidasa: The Loom of Time. Penguin Books.

Your assignment is to read Abhinjnanasakuntalam (The Recognition of Sakuntala) plus its related notes. Begin by reading the biographical note in the front of the book, the Introduction, Sections I, III, VI, VII, X, and XIII and Appendix III on pp. 320 & 321. There are two kinds of notes in this book. Terms which are used in more than one of the works are explained in alphabetical order in the glossary on pp. 283-305, and other notes on the play appear on pp. 334-339 as well as in footnote. Be sure to use these notes to explain obscure references, etc.

The claim that the ancient Athenians invented drama may hold true for the West, but Indian writers argue that theater was highly developed even earlier in Sanskrit. No plays survive from those early times, however, and the dates of Kalidasa, the greatest of the Sanskrit playwright, while much disputed, are clearly centuries later–perhaps a millennium later–than Aeschylus and his fellow tragic writers. Abhijnanasakuntalam and Kalidasa’s other plays were written for a refined court audience. The dialogue of the upper-class characters was delivered in Sanskrit, the classical language, and that of women and commoners in prakrit, the common speech. Despite these lofty origins, Kalidasa’s plays have remained popular.

There is no tradition of tragedy in India, and Kalidasa’s plays always have happy endings. In Hinduism, everyone has an infinite number of chances to achieve enlightenment and liberation from the wheel of rebirth. A life that ends badly is only a prologue to another opportunity. Hence the basic premises on which tragedy is based are lacking.

Sakuntala is by far the best-known of Kalidasa’s plays. In Delhi there is a modern auditorium called the “Sakuntalam Theater.” The play was translated into German and English in the 18th Century, and greatly impressed the great poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was influenced by it to create an “introduction in the theater” to his Faust and helped to spread knowledge of Kalidasa in the West. The initial consonant is pronounced “sh,” and you will often see the title rendered as “Shakuntala.”

Benediction

Just as ancient Greek drama was part of a religious ritual (honoring Dionysus), so there is a religious aspect to classical Hindu drama. The play begins with a hymn of blessing which would have been sung rather than recited. The play would have been enhanced throughout by dances and songs. The “Benediction” is addressed to Lord Siva in his eight Rudras, or forms, mentioned each in turn and listed in the footnote on p. 169. The Creator is Brahma, who otherwise plays little role in Hindu devotions. Note the insistence on the multifaceted nature of the divine, so different from the Islamic insistence on its unity. For the devout Hindu, this play is more than a captivating love story: it is a religious drama on at least two levels. On the simplest level it teaches the doctrine of karma, that our experiences are influenced by our acts earlier in this life and in past lives. It is also an allegory of the relationship between the worshiper and the sacred. Each play is also expected to convey a certain set of emotions and attitudes called a rasa. Here the rasa is composed of various forms of eroticism and love. It also has a political aspect in that the playwright is flattering the royal line of the ruler for whom he is writing.

Prologue

Goethe was so impressed by this traditional Indian dramatic device of introducing the play through dialogue between the actors and the director that he added such a prologue to his Faust.Sanskrit poetry, like Japanese poetry, is generally classified according to season. Note the image of the bees in the Actress’ song. What associations do bees seem to have in this play?

Act One

The earliest version of this story is told in the Mahabharata, and would have been known to everyone in the audience. It is characteristic of Hinduism, however, that there is no insistence on following an “orthodox” version, and that there are always alternative traditions, such as the one that Kalidasa follows. Be sure to read the short excerpt from Mahabharata on pp. 320-321 and compare what the audience might have expected to see with the actual action of the play. Note especially how the actions and character of Duhsanta have changed. Whereas Westerners are used to religion demanding a single standard of morality for everyone (or at most having slightly different emphases for men and women), in Hinduism that which is good for a person of a certain age, social standing, or caste, may be bad for another. Each person must follow his or her dharma (duty). Most kings loved to hunt, but it was disapproved of by Brahmins, and hunting is forbidden in the sacred grove where the ascetics live. Suta compares the king to Siva (also spelled “Shiva”), alluding to a myth in which Siva, angered because he had not been invited to a great sacrifice, pursued and killed the “lord of the sacrifice” who had transformed himself into a deer. Indra is a storm god who is depicted in the Vedas as driving a chariot drawn by a pair of horses. Clearly the stage cannot have been vast enough to depict the pursuit of the deer realistically. What means does the poet use to convey the chase vividly? According to the Introduction to this volume, what is significant about the deer the king is chasing? Note how the poet keenly observes the visual effects of traveling at great speed in language that resembles modern filmed space travel effects.

In Hinduism, the ideal final stage of life is asceticism: the practitioner goes to live in the forest without worldly possessions, engaging in prodigious feats of meditation and self-denial, hoping to achieve liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Skilled ascetics could accumulate so much spiritual power that they sometimes posed a threat even to the gods, as we shall see later. Few people actually achieve the extremes of the ascetic ideal, but such people are highly respected and honored. There is no pressure, however, for each individual to emulate the ideal, since if one is not ready for such austerity in this life there will always be opportunities to carry it out in lives to come, when one has accumulated the necessary karma. The King’s arrows are cruel in the context of the Hermitage; the audience would respect this view without necessarily agreeing that they themselves should stop hunting or eating meat. What simile does the ascetic use to describe the effect of arrows on deer? Note that heaps of flowers are common sacrificial offerings to the gods. How do the ascetics link the king’s role as a benevolent ruler with their objections to hunting. The blessing of the ascetic foreshadows the ultimate theme of this play: the birth of a son who will one day be the greatest of kings. In Western drama foreshadowing is used to heighten suspense or to create a sense of doom threatening human happiness. In Sanskrit drama foreshadowing instead creates a sense of purpose, of inevitability, linked to the concept of karma. The wheel, symbol of the reign of the benevolent emperor Asoka, is pictured on the flag of modern India as a symbol of Hinduism. Fire is central to Hindu ritual. Originally animals were sacrificed and burned as in Judaism or ancient Greek practice, but fruits, flowers, incense, etc. are more commonly sacrificed today. The Himalayas have long been famed as the site of particularly devout mystics, giving rise to the Western stereotype of the guru on the mountain top. How do the ascetics convey that they appreciate the king’s skill with the bow despite their objections to his hunting? In what way does the king’s description of the grove make clear that it is a place of penitential prayer and meditation, different from other areas of the forest? Note the significance of specifying that the deer feed on dharba shoots.

What do you think is symbolized by the king setting aside his jewels and bow when he visits the Hermitage? In the Western tradition, the suggestion of a love encounter in a hermitage would be considered blasphemous: but the king is not expected at his stage of life to be an ascetic: he is in the “householder” stage, appropriate for love and marriage. Note the preference for the natural over the cultivated, a common theme in much Western poetry as well. Keep track of the ways in which Sakuntala is compared to various plants. What characteristics link her to the trees? To other plants? Why is watering trees which are no longer blooming particularly virtuous? The ascetics wear clothing made of rough, simple materials such as bark. The fact that Anasuya says the vine has chosen the mango hints at the fact that although Sakuntala may be free to choose her own husband, like a princess, despite the many statements to the contrary. Note the strong emphasis on proper hospitality, very important in traditional Hinduism. Sakuntala is almost inhospitable to the king because of her embarrassment, and later her passion for him will cause her to be disastrously inhospitable to Durvasa. The traditional Indian ideal of feminine beauty involves a narrow waist, large, round breasts, and swelling buttocks. Explain the meaning of the quatrain at (19) beginning “Though inlaid in duckweed the lotus glows.” The mango is often associated with love and is a “male” plant. Kama, the god of love, targets with mango-shoot arrows those he wishes to inspire with love. The image of two plants intertwined symbolizing a human embrace is also common in European poetry, where plants are often said to spring up from the graves of unfortunate lovers to intertwine in death. Here the symbolism is happier: men and women are meant for each other.

Sakuntala’s behavior from here on must be interpreted as reflecting a highly desirable quality in a young woman: modesty. Do not jump to the conclusion that Sakuntala is not just as interested in love and marriage as her friends: she is simply more demure and hides it better. In all this talk about loving vines, remember that human souls could be reincarnated not only as animals but as plants. All living things are related in Hinduism. How does Sakuntala learn that she may be married soon? It is a cliché of courtly literature from all over the world that the exceptional youth–male or female–discovered in obscure surroundings must have a mysterious noble background. As we will see, Sakuntala’s ancestry can be considered superior even to the king’s. At (22) we encounter the image of the bee, referred to in the opening. What draws the bee to Sakuntala? Why is it appropriate for the bee to call to mind King Duhsanta? His speech at (24) begins by referring to his own greatness as “chastiser of the weakness” without revealing his true identity, but they see immediately that he is a noble. Note how Sakuntala reveals her true feelings in her aside to herself, though she coyly continues to brush aside her friends’ teasing suggestions. There can be no doubt that she has fallen instantly in love with the handsome young king. The Vedas are the oldest Hindu scriptures, and are still recited regularly.

We now learn that Kanva is only Sakuntala’s foster father. An Apsara is a beautiful divine woman such as those depicted on temple carvings. They often figure in myths as tempering the excessive power achieved by extreme ascetics, as here. Such power is not necessarily bad just because the gods are fearful of it. In Hinduism, the gods are not supreme. There is a larger spiritual order to which gods and humans alike are subject. In what way is Sakuntala like a flash of lightning? The King’s description of Sakuntala at (29) contains all the stereotypes of intense erotic passion, though he pretends to think that they are the result of her labors (which, after all, have hardly been extreme). The ring which will play so large a part in the following plot is now offered. The play is often referred to as The Ring of Recollection. How can the king tell she is interested in him though she does not look at him? Why do you think that at this precise moment the off-stage warning against the king’s coming is uttered? What is the symbolism? The “tusker” is of course an elephant. The King’s hunting party has started a stampede. Why do you think Sakuntala is suddenly afflicted with a number of problems which prevent her leaving immediately?

Act Two

Comic figures such as Madhavya are standard in Hindu drama. He speaks Prakrit, the language of ordinary people, rather than Sanskrit. His complaints about the hunt could be interestingly compared to the complaints of the herald about warfare in one of the early scenes of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. Heavy hips are considered highly desirable in a woman, partly because they are associated with the bearing of healthy children. “May you live long” is a standard address to a king upon greeting or leaving him. Note how the General acknowledges that hunting is disapproved of in certain quarters. See endnote 12. Why do you suppose the General hopes Madhavya will continue to oppose hunting? The desire to hunt is here called a “strong passion,” and such passions are major obstacles to enlightenment; but in fact the king’s passion for hunting has been overwhelmed by another, even stronger passion. Endnote 7 explains why Sakuntala may be beyond the reach of Madhavya even though he is King. What do the metaphors listed at (11) have in common, beginning with “A flower whose fragrance none has dared to smell”? The latter part of this speech suggests that such divine beauty could only be produced by the accumulation of great amounts of good karma in previous existences. The tribute the hermits pay is their devotion which brings the blessings of the gods on the kingdom.

Note how the first hermit, despite his own asceticism, approves of the king’s dedication to the worldly life: each must play his appropriate role. Gods (Rama in particular) and great Kings are often portrayed as destroyers of demons. Again, the dialogue foreshadows the next important plot development, which simultaneously (and not coincidentally) provides the king with the excuse he has been longing for to stay with the hermits. How is the rushed courtship of the king justified in a way that was not the case in the Mahabharata?

Act Three

This act begins and ends with the king alone, framing his intensely romantic encounter with Sakuntala and setting it off in contrast. Cooling salves were used in high summer, and can also signify that the user is burning with passion. The churning of cream into butter is one of the most common activities of Indian life and a frequent symbol for creation. Kama’s flowered arrows are again referred to. When Kama disturbed Siva’s meditations, he wrathfully destroyed the love-god with fire emanating from his third eye. Note how Duhsanta tracks Sakuntala almost like a detective. How does each of the “clues” remind him of some attractive aspect of his beloved? The heat of her passion has literally cooked her lotus-blossom bracelets. Which of the symptoms of love which the king lists are familiar from the love-sickness symptoms used by Western poets such as Ovid? What does the metaphor about the river flowing to the ocean imply about the status of Sakuntala herself? Like many lovers in Western fiction, she is so far gone in love that she will soon die if she does not find relief. Therefore the king cannot properly be blamed for courting her so hastily. Why is it important that the king learn of her love by overhearing her rather than more directly? Why do you think that Sakuntala refers specifically to the Inner Apartments as the place the King must be longing to return to? With typical Hindu emphasis on variety, there are no fewer than eight kinds of marriage described in traditional law, of which Gandharva is the voluntary union of a couple in love without any ceremony or consent of their parents. Although it is rarely invoked, theoretically it is as binding as any other kind of marriage. However, it depends entirely on the trustworthiness of the man. The story of Siva’s destruction of Kama is again alluded to at (34). The offstage voice calling for Sakuntala to leave refers to the traditional belief that sheldrakes, though devoted couples in the daytime, always slept apart at night. Just as the king began his pursuit of Shakuntala by tracing the “clues” left behind by her passage, so at the end of the act he contemplates the traces left behind of her time with him (39). At the end of the scene we hear of the demons which threaten to disturb the ascetics’ rituals. Is the king himself in any way similar to these demons and to the wild elephant which disturbed them earlier?

Act Four

The physical union of the lovers is delicately left off stage. It becomes apparent that the Gandharva marriage has been consummated and the king has been gone for some time. Note the ominous foreshadowing in Anasuya’s second speech. Duhsanta is fated to forget his bride even before the fatal curse is uttered. The incident by which Durvasa’s rage is aroused may seem slight, but the duty to travelers is a sacred one. Because the girl forgot to honor Durvasa, Duhsanta will forget to honor her. How does this shift the responsibility for the lapse of memory, compared to theMahabharata? When Anasyua somewhat mollifies Durvasa, he cannot take back his curse, but he modifies it. Similarly, when in Greek mythology Hera blinded Teiresias, Zeus could not undo the divine curse, but compensated for it by giving him internal sight: the gift of prophecy. A more familiar example is the partial undoing of the curse in “Sleeping Beauty.” Even the noble moon, which through its association with healing herbs gives life, must set. The metaphor refers to the departure of the king. Kanva is informed of Sakuntala’s pregnancy in a way that makes clear that the gods are involved. Note the emphasis on the child she carries. Unlike most Western love stories, this is a great love because it will produce a great offspring. Hindus ritually wash at sunrise, before eating. What hopes do the women have for her child? Note how Sakuntala is adorned by a miracle (caused by her stepfather’s powers), another sign that this union is blessed, despite its inauspicious beginning. An Indian bride’s feet are decorated with red lac. Brides are expected to weep upon leaving the family home for their husband’s; they are going off to a largely unknown life, leaving the familiar comfort of home behind. Sarmisttta, the daughter of the king of demons, married Yayati according to the Gandharva rite and gave birth to Puru, founder of the line from which Duhsanta is descended. Thus the parallel to Sakuntala involves both her extraordinary origins and the noble destiny of her son. The song by the invisible spirits further endorses this union, which is clearly blessed by many forces even while it lies under the curse of Durvasa. Why is such a situation more plausible in this setting than in, say, a Christian setting? Even the vines with which Sakuntala was earlier identified “weep” at her departure by shedding their leaves. Kanva clearly understands the necessity of this marriage in a way that is truly exceptional for a Hindu father. His acceptance of it would be more striking for an Indian audience than a modern American one. The parallel between Sakuntala and the vine having been reaffirmed, how is her identification with the doe also reasserted?

The lessons that Kanva gives Sakuntala in being a good wife are highly conventional. What qualities do they seem to value? Sakuntala is alarmed at her friends’ suggestion that she use the ring to remind Duhsanta of her identity because it implies that he may indeed forget her. Since they have never told her of the curse, she does not understand the true urgency of their warning. A Western equivalent to the saying “A daughter is wealth belonging to another” is “A daughter’s a daughter until she’s a wife, but a son is a son for the rest of your life.” But why, according to Kanva is he satisfied to “lose” Sakuntala?

Act Five

The greatest differences between the Mahabharata version and Kalidasa’s come in this act. Look for the way in which the king’s motives are emphasized. Note how the forgetfulness of the Chamberlain foreshadows the forgetfulness of the king. The sun, the Cosmic Serpent, and the king must all labor unceasingly. “The sixth” referred to is the king’s legal tax noted earlier. Note how Duhsanta is praised as a hard-working, dutiful lord although we have earlier seen him at leisure. It is important that his good character be established firmly. The umbrellas refer to provide shade (Latin umbra ) from the heat of the tropical sun rather than shelter from rain. The King illustrates “kinship’s perfect pattern” because he treats his subjects as if they were all his relatives. The vina is a traditional bowed string instrument. How is Lady Hamsavati’s song another instance of foreshadowing? What is the king’s reaction to the coming of the hermits? What does it reveal about his character? Note how alert the king is to any fault he may have committed. When the ascetics enter, they foreshadow the disaster to come through their feelings of unease. What is the meaning of the poem at (13)? How does the king’s reaction to Vetravati’s praise of Sakuntala’s beauty illustrate his character? What metaphor springs up in the king’s struggles to remember that reminds us of his earlier enthusiasm for Sakuntala? Why does Vetravati praise him as virtuous for hesitating? The king is at first cynically skeptical of Sakuntala, but her outburst which begins “Ignoble man” is convincing in its natural spontaneity. What hint is there in his comments to himself that the King is being attracted to her all over again? Sakuntala’s final words indicate she wants to die; but instead of being swallowed by the earth, she snatched up into the sky by the Apsara Misrakesi. Even this miracle cannot convince the king of the truth. What does convince him that Sakuntala’s words may well have been true?

Act Six

Fishermen were low-caste because they were involved in killing animal life; but this one sarcastically replies that the brahmins who consider themselves the very highest caste kill animals when they sacrifice them in rituals. Fish swallowing marvelous rings turn up in many folk tales, both Eastern and Western. Note how frequently the important actions, such as the king’s recovery of his memory, take place offstage. Because the audience knows the story already, it is not crucial to evoke suspense and provide climactic moments as in Western drama; what is important is to evoke the relevant moods. The spring festival in honor of Kama is a wild celebration called “Holi,” now dedicated to Krishna. Note that in the conversation between the two court ladies the image of the bee and the mango blossom is repeated. Typical of the Indian preference for variety, Kama–unlike Cupid–has no fewer than five different kinds of arrows, each of which causes a different kind of love. The king is not behaving like a tyrant in forbidding the celebration of the spring festival; his grief has actually prevented the coming of spring. Note that the king is a painter. Several prominent monarchs of both India and China were distinguished painters. What pious lesson does the king draw from his failure to remember Sakuntala? How does the state of the painting reflect the king’s devotion to Sakuntala? The pairs of geese and deer which the king wants to paint symbolize love and marriage. The king is crazed by contemplating the picture and becomes jealous of the painted bee which hovers where he wants to be. Why does the king hide the painting when Queen Vasumati approaches, according to Misrakesi? Duhsanta’s extraordinary honesty and decency is reconfirmed by his scrupulous reaction to the announcement of the merchant’s death. At this time, widows were not allowed to inherit, but their unborn children might. Even though it means the loss of a fortune, he scrupulously inquires whether any of the widows is pregnant. The phrase “I had implanted myself in her” alludes to the belief that a man reproduces himself in his son. Duhsanta is in despair because it seems he will never have a son to be his heir. Note the female bodyguard; such guards were often used to guard the women’s quarters without endangering their chastity. The king imagines that the voices taunting him belong to demons. The king is roused from his crazed stupor by this therapeutic challenge and reaffirms his skills as a demon-fighter, though mistakenly at first. The “twice-born” are upper-caste people like the king. The royal swan was supposed to have the ability to separate milk from water. How is the inevitability of karma stressed even as the king is called upon to kill the demon offspring of Kalanemi (35)?

Act Seven

The play takes place in three basic settings: the idyllic but lowly world of the hermitage, the dazzling but worldly palace, and the transcendent celestial regions. Duhsanta has had to pass through all these to perform his dharma. Again we have skipped a climactic scene: the king’s victory over the demons. Sharing the throne of Indra was a proverbial extreme honor. “Golden sandal” refers to sandalwood paste, smeared on the chest as a refreshing, sweet-smelling salve. What is the king’s virtuous reaction to Matali’s lavish praise? The Ganga is the heavenly aspect of the Ganges River, the most sacred stream in India. Just as Duhsanta met Sakuntala initially because of his reverence for the ascetics on Earth, so he is reunited with her through his reverence for the divine ascetic Marica, son of Brahma and father of Indra, who is king of the gods. Thus he resembles Duhsanta, father of the king of men. He plays a major role in the creation myths. His penance is described in extreme form at (11). Marica is so absorbed in his meditations that he has lost all track of his body, so that a snake has shed its skin on his torso to create a second sacred thread (usually a piece of twine worn by all Brahmin males); but this is more than a symbol of mere negligence since a snake-skin thread is also characteristic of Siva.. Again the throbbing arm of the king foreshadows his reunion with his bride. A boy who rough-houses with lion cubs is obviously something out of the ordinary. Naughtiness is boys is often more than half-admired as a sign of manly spirit, as the king’s speech at (15) makes clear. Note that the true consummation of this romance is not the reunion of the loving couple, but the encounter of the king with his son, destined to be the greatest of kings. Note the outline at (20) of the conventional view of the ideal life for a Kshatriya: wealth and power in youth, self-denial and spirituality in old age. One last time the king exhibits a sense of morality by not asking about Sakuntala. In many countries, particularly Muslim ones, it is considered highly offensive to inquire after a man’s wife or in any way imply that he may have one. What attitudes toward women do you think are reflected in such customs?

Sakuntala’s single braid is a sign of mourning. To what does she attribute her sufferings when the king falls prostate before her? According to ancient Hindu thought the earth is composed of seven island continents. How does the final speech of the king reflect the ideas of the Brahmin-priests who dominated Hinduism? The last line reflects the highest wish of a pious Hindu: to be liberated from the cycle of rebirth ( samsara ). What can you say about the relationship of erotic love to religion in this play?

More study guides for Love in the Arts:

• Chinese and Japanese Love Poetry
• Nizami: Layla and Majnun
• Egyptian Love Poetry from the New Kingdom
• The Song of Songs
• Diane Ackerman: A Natural History of Love
• Classical Love Poems
• Ovid’s Loves, The Art of Love & The Remedies for Love
• Classic English Love Poems
• Marie de France: Lays
• Mystical Love Poetry
• Medieval Love Songs
• Renaissance Love Songs
• Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
• Madame de Lafayette: The Princess of Clèves
• Verdi: La Traviata
• Bernstein: West Side Story
• Modern Women’s Love Poetry
• Illustrated Version of Cole Porter’s You’re the Top

Last revised January 3, 2002