Aspiration   (THE NEW DAWN)   The rays of the sun clothe the blue heaven with beauty; the dark masses of the Night are driven far. There breaks from the lyre of the dawn a song of light and felicity, and the soul in its groves responds with quivering hope.   One whose hem trails over the dancing crests of the waters, and touches them to ripples of musical laughter, Comes chanted by the orient in hymns of worship, and twilight on its glimmering tambour beats dance-time to the note-play of the rays.   She whose absence kept Night starved and afraid in its shadows, a vibrant murmur now are her steps on the horizon:

    Tiruvalluvar   Opening of the Kural   1   1. Alpha of all letters the first, Of the worlds the original Godhead the beginning. 2. What fruit is by learning, if thou adore not The beautiful feet of the Master of luminous wisdom? 3. When man has reached the majestic feet of him whose walk is on flowers, Long upon earth is his living. 4. Not to the feet arriving of the one with whom none can compare, Hard from the heart to dislodge is its sorrow. 5. Not to the feet of the Seer, to the sea of righteousness coming, Hard to swim is this different ocean. 6. When man has come to the feet of him who has n

'Translations' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 30 VOLUME 5 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1999 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA Translations Publisher's Note   Translations comprises all of Sri Aurobindo's translations from Sanskrit, Bengali, Tamil, Greek and Latin into English, with the exception of his translations of Vedic and Upanishadic literature.

'Translations' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 30   Act IV   Scene I. — The sky near the doors of the sunrise; clouds everywhere. Chitralekha and Sahajanya.   SAHAJANYA Dear Chitralekha, like a fading flower The beauty of thy face all marred reveals Sorrow of heart. Tell me thy melancholy; I would be sad with thee.   CHITRALEKHA (sorrowfully) O Sahajanya! Sister, by rule of our vicissitude, I serving at the feet of the great Sun Was troubled at heart for want of Urvasie.   SAHAJANYA I know your mutual passion of sisterliness. What after?   CHITRALEKHA I had heard no news of her So many days. Then I collect

    Part Four   Translations from Greek   Two Epigrams   On a Satyr and Sleeping Love   Me whom the purple mead that Bromius owns And girdles rent of amorous girls did please, Now the inspired and curious hand decrees That waked quick life in these quiescent stones, To yield thee water pure. Thou lest the sleep Yon perilous boy unchain, more softly creep. PLATO     A Rose of Women   Now lilies blow upon the windy height, Now flowers the pansy kissed by tender rain, Narcissus builds his house of self-delight And Love's own fairest flower blooms again; Vainly your gems, O mea

'Translations' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 30   Act II   Scene. — Park of the King's palace in Pratisthana. — In the background the wings of a great building, near it the gates of the park, near the bounds of the park an arbour and a small artificial hill to the side. Manavaka enters.   MANAVAKA Houp! Houp! I feel like a Brahmin who has had an invitation  to dinner; he thinks dinner, talks dinner, looks dinner, his very sneeze has the music of the dinner-bell in it. I am simply bursting with the King's secret. I shall never manage to hold my tongue in that crowd. Solitude's my only safety. So until my friend gets up from the session of affairs, I will wait for h

  Uma   O thou inspired by a far effulgence, Adored of some distant Sun gold-bright, O luminous face on the edge of darkness Agleam with strange and viewless light!   A spark from thy vision's scintillations Has kindled the earth to passionate dreams, And the gloom of ages sinks defeated By the revel and splendour of thy beams.   In this little courtyard Earth thy rivers Have made to bloom heaven's many-rayed flowers, And, throned on thy lion meditation, Thou slayest with a sign the Titan powers.   Thou art rapt in unsleeping adoration And a thousand thorn-wounds are forgot; Thy hunger is for the unseizabl

  At the day-end   At the day-end behold the Golden Daughter of Imaginations — She sits alone under the Tree of Life — A form of the Truth of Being has risen before her rocking there like a lake And on it is her unwinking gaze. But from the unfathomed Abyss where it was buried, upsurges A tale of lamentation, a torrent-lightning passion, A melancholy held fixed in the flowing blood of the veins, — A curse thrown from a throat of light. The rivers of a wind that has lost its perfumes are bearing away On their waves the Mantra-rays that were her ornaments Into the blue self-born sea of a silent Dawn; The ceaseless vibra

  Part Five   Translations from Latin   Hexameters from Virgil and Horace   Horse-hooves trampled the crumbling plain with a four-footed gallop.   *   Fiercer griefs you have suffered; to these too God will give ending.   VIRGIL   Him shall not copious eloquence leave nor clearness and order.   HORACE   Page – 609  

'Translations' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 30   In the Gardens of Vidisha or Malavica and the King   Dramatis Personae   AGNIMITRA, King in Vidisha. VAHATAVA, his Minister. GAUTAMA, the Court jester. HORODUTTA, Master of the Stage to the King. GANADASA, Master of the Stage to the Queen. MAUDGALYA, the King's Chamberlain.   DHARINIE, Queen in Vidisha. IRAVATIE, a royal princess, wife of Agnimitra. MALAVICA, daughter of the Prince Madhavsena of Vidurbha, disguised as a maid in waiting on the Queen. COWSHIQIE, a female anchorite, sister of Madhavsena's Minister. VOCOOLAVALICA, maid in waiting on the Queen, friend of Ma