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the complete review - poetry

The Cloud-Messenger
(मेघदूत trans. Arthur W. Ryder)

by
Kalidasa

general information | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : decent, rhyming translation of a great poem

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

       Kalidasa's Meghaduta (literally the cloud messenger) is probably the best known of his poetry that has come down to us. Its manageable length also makes it a popular target for translators, and numerous English versions exist. (Beside this one, by Arthur Ryder, see also our reviews of the translations by Franklin and Eleanor Edgerton (hereafter referred to as FEE) and Leonard Nathan (hereafter referred to as LN).)
       Ryder only provides a short, two page introduction to the poem -- adequate, but very basic. He does, however, also include annotations in the text itself -- brief explanatory notes based on Mallinatha's commentary -- and while they also only provide very small amounts of information they are fairly useful. They are also, as Ryder suggests, less obtrusive than foot- or endnotes. An example of their usefulness can be found in stanzas II.xxii through II.xxx (cf. FEE 81-89, LN 82-90), where Ryder notes that: "The passion of love passes through ten stages, eight of which are suggested in (...) the stanzas which follow", and each of which is then briefly noted. It is not vital information, but it is helpful -- certainly more so than, for example, LN, who notes in his Detailed Analysis about some of these stanzas that they "show the effects of separation (...) somewhat in the way Keats establishes pathos in 'To Autumn,' that is, by stylized portraits of a woman in one or another solitary and melancholy pose."
       Ryder divides the poem up into two halves -- "Former Cloud" (63 stanzas) and "Latter Cloud" (52 stanzas, for a total of 115 stanzas). (Cf. FEE and LN, who do not break up the text -- and whose versions have 110 and 111 stanzas respectively.) The division is a natural though not a necessary one.
       The Meghaduta was originally written in four-line stanzas, each line having seventeen syllables, in a metre called mandakranta (which Ryder describes as "a majestic metre called the 'slow stepper' "). Ryder chose to translate the stanzas in a five-lined rendition, with an ABABB rhyme-scheme (the Sanskrit does not rhyme). He believes this "gives perhaps as fair a representation of the original movement as may be, where direct imitation is out of the question." Cf. FEE and LN who both dispense with rhyme and have stanzas with four and six lines respectively.
       His rhyme scheme imposes considerable constraints on Ryder: there is a poetic feel to his version, but it comes at great cost to literal fidelity. Given how different a language Sanskrit is (and especially given the impossibility of finding equivalents for what LN calls the "coalescing of words" that is so common in Sanskrit), he may have been right to abandon literalness and focus on lyricism. Or not.
       Ryder's version reads quite well, but takes considerably greater liberties than the other versions. It is also the most Western version of the Meghaduta, and likely also the most distant from Kalidasa's -- except for that poetic "bounce" (or "movement", as Ryder prefers), which probably does give a somewhat better sense of the feel of the poem when read in Sanskrit.

       The Cloud-Messenger tells the story of a Yaksha (a "divine attendant on Kubera, god of wealth") who is exiled for a year from his home and his young bride. After several months have already passed, and with the coming of the rainy season, the Yaksha asks a passing cloud to convey a message to his distant beloved. The poem covers the route the cloud would take, what it might see and encounter, and then focusses on the message and the bride itself. It is a beautiful and clever idea -- hard to ruin completely, regardless of the translation.
       The vivid journey -- focussed on the cloud's point of view -- has many remarkable points. It is a tour of much of India, as it were (and it is unfortunate that Ryder, FEE, and LN all fail to provide an illustrative map suggesting the route). Occasionally Ryder's simple expression is felicitous:

When thou art weary, on the mountains stay,
And when exhausted, drink the rivers' driven spray
       (I.xiii.4-5)

On this path thou shalt go, resting thy foot on mountains whenever weary;
Whenever spent, drinking the pure waters of fresh streams.
       (FEE, 13.3-4)


(...) after you've paused
on mountains whenever weary or when,
worn out, you've drunk the fine waters of streams.
       (LN, 13.4-6)

(...) thou hast no time to stay,
Yet who that once has known a dear caress
Could bear to leave a woman's unveiled loveliness ?
       (I.xli.2-4)

Bending over her, my friend, it will be hard for thee to depart;
Who that has known love's savor can leave one whose haunches are bared ?
       (FEE, 41.3-4)


(...) and, friend,
it won't be so easy to leave, as you cling
to her still. What lover, done with loving,
can leave a girl with her lap laid bare ?
       (LN, 41.3-6)

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Links:

• The Cloud Messenger, trans. Franklin and Eleanor Edgerton
• The Transport of Love, trans. Leonard Nathan

• The Birth of Kumára, trans. David Smith
• The Lineage of the Raghus, trans. Csaba Dezső, Dominic Goodall, and Harunaga Isaacson
• Four translations of Sakuntala (अभिज्ञानशाकुन्तलम्):
  • The Recognition of Shakúntala, trans. Somadeva Vasudeva
  • Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection, trans. Barbara Stoler Miller
  • The Recognition of Sakuntala, trans. Arthur W. Ryder
  • Abhijnanasakuntalam, trans. Chandra Rajan

• Kalidasa: life and works

• See Index of Sanskrit literature

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About the Author:

       Indian author Kalidasa probably lived during the reign of Candragupta II (ca. 380-413). Only three dramas and a few poems of his survive, but he continues to be revered as one of the greatest Sanskrit playwrights and poets.

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