Kālidāsa Quotes

Wouldst thou the young year’s blossoms, and the fruits of its decline,
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed;
Wouldst thou the Earth and Heaven itself in one sole name combine?
I name thee, O Shakuntala! and all at once is said.

M. R. Kale, [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.53790/page/n235/mode/2up Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava Cantos I-VII] (Bombay: Standard Publishing Co., 1917)

A graceful arch of brows above great eyes;
Lips bathed in darting, smiling light that flies
Reflected from white teeth; a mouth as red
As red karkandhu-fruit; love’s brightness shed
O’er all her face in bursts of liquid charm—
The picture speaks, with living beauty warm.

In the whole world of Greek antiquity there is no poetical representation of beautiful love which approaches even afar.

W. J. Johnson, The Recognition of Sakuntala; Sakuntala in the Mahabharata (New York: Oxford UP, 2001)

God Shiva and his mountain bride,
Like word and meaning unified,
The world's great parents, I beseech
To join fit meaning to my speech.

Where find a soul that does not thrill
   In Kalidasa’s verse to meet
The smooth, inevitable lines
   Like blossom-clusters, honey-sweet?

Goethe seems to have taken from Kalidasa the idea of a prologue for Faust.