II. Urvasie [3]
Sri Aurobindo
The Harmony of Virtue
Early Cultural Writings — 1890-1910
Kalidasa
Kalidasa's Characters
II. Urvasie [3]
Such then is Urvasie, Narain1-born, the brightness of sunlight, the2 blush of the dawn, the multitudinous laughter of the sea, the glory of the skies and the leap of the lightning, all in brief that is bright, far-off, unseizable and compellingly attractive in this world, all too that is wonderful, sweet to the taste and intoxicating in human beauty, human life, the joy of human passion and emotion: all finally that seizes, masters and carries away 
in art, poetry, thought and knowledge, is involved in this one name.
Of these outward brilliances Kalidasa's conception of Urvasie is entirely void.
His presentation of her is simply that of a beautiful and radiant woman deeply in love.
Certainly the glories of her skiey residence, the far-off luminousness and the free breath of the winds are about her, but they are her atmosphere rather than part of herself.
The essential idea of her is natural3, frank and charming womanliness; timidity, a quick temper, a harmless petulance and engaging childishness, afterwards giving way to a matronly sedateness and bloom, swift, innocent and frank passion, warm affections as mother, sister and friend, speech always straight from the heart, the precise elements in fact that give their greatest charm to ideal girlhood and womanhood are the main tones that compose the4 picture.
There is nothing here of the stately pace and formal dignity of the goddess, no cothurnus raising her above human stature, no mask petrifying the simple and natural play of the feelings, the smile in the eyes, the ready tears, the sweetness of the mouth, the lowered lashes, the quick and easy gesture full of spontaneous charm.
If this is a nymph of heaven, one thinks, then heaven must be beautifully like the earth.
Her terror and collapse in the episode of the5 abduction and rescue, where Chitraleqha manages pretty successfully to keep up her courage as a goddess, is certainly6 not Apsara-like7.
Chitraleqha with sisterly impatience expresses her sense of that, “Fie, sweet! thou art no Apsara8” — but it is nevertheless attractively human and seizes our sympathies for her from the outset.
Still9 more engaging is her timidity.
There is also a sensitiveness in her love, a quickness to take alarm and despond which make10 her very human.
If this is jealousy, it is a quick and generous jealousy having nothing in it of “jealous baseness”; it is hardly more than the quick rush of hasty temper which
leads to her separation from Pururavas, but rather a panic born of timidity and
an extreme diffidence and ignorance of the power of her own beauty11.
This detail is very carefully observed and emphasized as if Kalidasa wished to take especial pains to prevent even the most hidebound commentator from reading into12 her character any touch of the heavenly courtesan.
The ostentations13, splendours, the conscious allurements of the courtesan are not there14, but rather a divine simplicity and 
white candour of soul.
It is from an innate purity and openness that the frankness and impulsiveness of her love proceeds.
Incapable of disguise, hastily open, direct in words, even15 tremulously playful at times, she is easily dashed in her advances and quick to distrust her merit16.
And17 she can be very sweet and noble too, even dignified as in a few utterances of the Third Act, her reunion with Pururavas18 in the Fourth and all through the Fifth where she is wife and mother, and while losing the girlishness, petulance and playfulness of the earlier scenes has greatly deepened her charm.
I see nothing of the heavenly courtesan which some overprecise commentators insist on finding in her; within the four corners of the play which is all Kalidasa allows us to consider, she is wholly delightful, innocent, even modest, at any rate not immodest.
Certainly she is more frank and playful in her love than Shacountala or even Malavica could venture to be, but something must be allowed to a goddess and her demeanour is too much flavoured with timidity, her advances too easily dashed to give any disagreeable impression of forwardness.
There19 are few more graceful touches in lighter love-drama than her hasty appearance, unconsciously invisible, before Pururavas20, and her panic of dismay when he takes no notice of her.
In the same scene her half playful, half serious self-justification in21 embracing her lover and her immediate abashed silence at his retort, portray admirably the mixture of frank impulsiveness and shy timidity proper to her character.
These are the little magic half-noticeable touches of which Kalidasian characterisation is mainly composed, the hundred significant trifles which Kalidasa's refined taste in life felt to be the essence of character in action.
Urvasie's22 finest characteristic, however, is her sincerity in passion and affection.
The poet has taken great pains to discharge her utterance of all appearance of splendour, ornament and superfluity; her simple, direct and earnest diction is at the opposite pole to the gorgeous imaginativeness of the Ilian.
And while her manner of speech is always simple and ordinary, what she says is exactly the unstudied and obvious thing that a woman of no great parts, but natural and quick in her affections, would spontaneously say under the circumstances; it is even surprisingly natural.
For example, when she sees Ayus fondled 
by Pururavas23, “who is this youth”, she asks with the little inevitable undertone of half jealousy
Himself
My monarch binds his curls24 into a crest!
Who should this be so highly favoured?
and then she notices Satyavatie and understands. But there is no positive25 outburst of maternal joy and passion. “It is my Ayus! How he has grown!” That is all and nothing could be better or truer. Yet for all the surface colourlessness there is a charm in everything Urvasie says, the charm of absolute sincerity and direct unaffected feeling. Her passion for Pururavas26 is wonderfully genuine and fine from her first cry of “O Titans! You did me kindness!” to her last of “O a sword is taken out of my heart!” Whatever the mood, its speech has always a tender force and reality. Her words27 with Chitraleqha and the other Apsaras28, from the outburst, “O sisters, sisters, take me to your bosoms”, to her farewell “Chitraleqha, my sister! do not forget me”, are29 instinct, when moved, with “a passion of sisterliness” and at other times bright and limpid in their30 fair kindness and confidence. She comes to her son31 “with her whole rapt gaze
Grown mother, the veiled bosom heaving towards him
And wet with sacred milk”.
And her farewell to the Hermitess sets a model for the expression of genuine and tender friendship. Urvasie is doubtless not so noble and strong a portraiture as Shacountala, but she is inferior to no heroine of Sanskrit drama in beauty and sweetness of womanly nature.
Later edition of this work: The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.- Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 1.- Early Cultural Writings (1890 — 1910).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2003.- 784 p.
1 2003 ed.: Naraian
2 2003 ed.: sunlight and the
3 2003 ed.: is a natural
4 2003 ed.: her
5 2003 ed.: her
6 2003 ed.: goddess should, is
7 2003 ed.: Opsaralike
8 2003 ed.: Opsara
9 This sentence was absent in current edition and was taken from the edition of 2003 year.
10 2003 ed.: makes
11 2003 ed.: “jealous baseness”, but rather born of a panic of timidity and an extreme diffidence and ignorance of the power of her own beauty.
12 2003 ed.: in
13 2003 ed.: ostentatious
14 2003 ed.: here
15 2003 ed.: open, even
16 2003 ed.: her own merit
17 In the edition of 2003 year this sentence is placed after words ...quickness of a deep and strong nature. and starting with words With all this she can be...
18 2003 ed.: Pururavus
19 In the edition of 2003 year this sentence is placed after words ...quick to distrust her merit.
20 2003 ed.: Pururavus
21 2003 ed.: on
22 In the edition of 2003 year this sentence is placed after words ...impression of forwardness.
23 2003 ed.: Pururavus
24 2003 ed.: hair
25 2003 ed.: poetical
26 2003 ed.: Pururavus
27 2003 ed.: talk
28 2003 ed.: Opsaras
29 2003 ed.: is
30 2003 ed.: its
31 2003 ed.: To her son she comes