The Hero and the Nymph (Poem)

V The Hero and the Nymph From: A Flame for a Moth by Padma Devkota

“The court awaits your pleasure,” a bowed head
addressed the king. “Grave matters of the state
need to be addressed, my Lord! Will you come?”
the solemn Minister voiced his concern,
which His Majesty did not seem to hear,
but lost in painful reveries of love
he sighed his soul out like a rooted tree.

“O Urvashi!” he cried, “How can I live
alone in this palace without my love?
It's like an empty hole dug in the ground,
cold and dark and stifling that suffocates
the life breath out of me. Designed to kill,
infested with unctuous fools who like ants
swarm around their great honey-trickling lord
and smile their disgust with an envious heart,
rich in pompous vanity, envious
of power and wealth, stratified in rank,
it knows not serene peace nor harmony
of genuine soul to soul relation, which
embracing all embraces greatest bliss.
No, it is not such flattering company
but genuine friendship that thrives on love
most strongly nourishes our life with joy.
And I, quite close to such a joyous life
in the company of my honest queen,
having found greater joy in Urvashi,
am torn like a river by a boulder
that will not yield an easy path to joy,
so that divided into two currents
it must gush beyond this dark obstacle
to seek wholeness of a divided self.
Yet, the unequal currents of water
on either side of the obstructing rock
gush with different force towards the bend
in their life's journey, intoning a truth
spelled out clearly in the book of nature.
Thus am I torn, but why should I dispel
a greater joy with one of lesser kind?
Why should I so unlike the river be
and force a greater volume to one side
than it can lend an easy passage to
and let the other thirsty bed go dry?
This would be madness! And if mad I am,
I owe no obligation to the world
and seek no favour from it. Instead, I
enchanted by unearthly beauty will
here meditate upon a form that holds
the single key to my sad existence
in the frosty winter of her absence
that colours all I do. O Urvashi!
Commander of my heart! When will you come
to spouse me by the singing riverside?”

“And the people,” complained the Minister,
“shall I tell them that King Pururava
once true and just and loving and beloved
has drawn the curtains of the Golden Age
over his self, which now is blind to all
but what possesses him demonically
with its power of fatal seduction?
Shall I tell them that you love them no more
because another claim upon your heart
is so potent that you, forgetting all,
permit yourself from duty thus to fall?”

“Go, Minister, ascertain that the state
does not miss me. Perform your duty well.
See that the systems of the state run smooth,
lubricate the rust, replace broken cogs,
and, should you need more vision, come to me.
I have a personal need of solitude,
which you should learn to respect. Go hence
and let me dream a while of heaven’s gate
that swings a thousand times to release
its greatest beauty for a dreamer’s ease.”
So spoke the king and with his dreamy eyes
he sought the vision of his fevered heart
within the farthest reaches of the sky.

The Minister his concern expressed again:
“Your noble Majesty! Half-witted love!
You seek to own the moon whose lunar charm
has cast a spell upon the woodcock, you!
O, wake up to the smell of earth and trees
that surround you. Urvashi is a dream.
She is a fantasy beyond your grasp.
The queen at your disposal should outweigh
a million dreams of fairies on their wings
and since all kings are husband to the state
they should firmly grasp more relevant things.”

To which the king replied as if from far:
“Urvashi is the poem of my heart.
She is the lunar gleam with argent touch
that embalms the world in joyful repose,
she is the vision that creates the throb
of a devoted heart, she is the joy
of the woodcock, she is the cynosure
of heaven and earth, the only being
that can dispel the gloom both here and there
the light of heaven and earth is Urvashi!
Is there a beauty resides in oceans' depths?
In its snaky dazzles of broad daylight?
In snow-capped peaks of primordial dawn?
Or moon-blanched heights that open mysteries
of poppy-drugged fields to vague yearning hearts?
She is a decanted drop of beauty,
of fulfilling love, of true harmony.
Go Minister, see to the state's affairs,
rimeless hearts should not roam the gardens here.
So, leave me in peace to warm my hoarfrost
with sweetest reveries of happy days.”