BIANCA.

Ay, sir,

The dying lie not-he, a dying man,

Lied not-and I, a dying woman, lie not:
For I shall die, spite of this iron here.

DUKE (to ALDABELLA).

There is confession in thy guilty cheeks.
Thou high-born baseness! beautiful deformity!
Dishonour'd honour!-How hast thou discredited
All that doth fetter admiration's eye,

And made us out of love with loveliness!

I do condemn thee, woman, by the warrant
Of this my ducal diadem, to put on thee

The rigid convent vows: there bleach anew
Thy sullied breast; there temper thy rank blood;
Lay ashes to thy soul; swathe thy hot skin
In sackcloth; and God give thee length of days,
Tatone, by this world's misery, this world's sin.
[Exit ALDABELLA.

BIANCA.

Bless thee, Heaven bless thee !-Yet it must not be.

My Fazio said we must forgive her-Fazio

Said so; and all he said is best and wisest.

DUKE.

She shall have her desert: aught more to ask of us?

BIANCA.

My children-thou'lt protect them-Oh, my liege, Make them not rich: let them be poor and honest.

I will, I will.

DUKE.

BIANCA.

Why then 'tis time, 'tis time.

And thou believ'st he is no murderer? (DUKE bows

assent.)

Thou'lt lay me near him, and keep her away from us. It breaks, it breaks, it breaks-it is not iron.

[Dies.

NALA AND DAMAYANTI,

AND

OTHER POEMS;

TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSCRIT INTO ENGLISH VERSE, WITH MYTHOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL NOTES.

TO MY MOTHER,

TO WHOM THESE TRANSLATIONS HAVE AFFORDED MUCH PLEASURE,

AND TO WHOM, AT HER ADVANCED AGE,

TO HAVE AFFORDED PLEASURE,

IS THE MOST GRATIFYING REWARD OF LITERARY LABOUR,

THESE POEMS ARE INSCRIBED,

BY HER AFFECTIONATE SON.

PREFACE.

THOSE friends who have taken an interest in my literary productions may feel some surprise at my appearance in the character of a translator of Sanscrit poetry. To them, and indeed to all who may take up the present volume, I owe some explanation of my pretensions as a faithful interpreter of my original text. Those pretensions are very humble; and I can unfeignedly say, that if the field had been likely to be occupied by others, who might unite poetical powers with a profound knowledge of the sacred language of India, I should have withdrawn at once from the competition. But, in fact, in this country the students of oriental literature, endowed with a taste and feeling for poetry, are so few in number, that any attempt to make known the peculiar character of those remarkable works, the old mythological epics of India, may be received with indulgence by all who are interested in the history of poetry. Mr. Wilson alone, since Sir W. Jones, has united a poetical genius with deep Sanscrit scholarship; but he has in general preferred the later and more polished period that of Kalidasa and the dramatists-to the ruder, yet, in my opionion, not less curious and poetical strains of the older epic bards.