TRANSLATIONS

 

SRI AUROBINDO

 

Contents 

 

 

I. FROM SANSKRIT

   

 

 

 

BHAGAVAD GITA

 
 

Chapter One

 
 

Chapter Two

 
 

Chapter Three

 
 

Chapter Four

 
 

Chapter Five

 
 

Chapter Six

 

 

 

KALIDASA

 
 

The Birth of the War-God

 Canto One:

 
 

The Birth of the War-God, Canto Two

 
 

Malavica and the King

 
 

The Line of Raghu

 

 

 

 

Sankaracharya

 
 

Bhavani

 

 

 

 

III FROM TAMIL

 

 IV. FROM GREEK AND LATIN

 
 

The Kural

 

Odyssey

 
 

Nammalwar’s Hymn of the Golden Age

 

On A Satyr and Seeping Love

 
 

Love-Mad

 

A Rose of Women

 
 

Refuge

 

To Lesbia

 
 

To the Cuckoo

     
 

I Dreamed a Dream

     
 

Ye Others

     

 

 

 

ON VIRTUE

Description of the Virtuous

Homage to him who keeps his heart a book

        For stainless matters, prone great talk to prize

And nearness of the good; whose faithful look

Rejoices in his own dear wife, whose eyes

Are humble to the Master good and wise;

A passion high for learning, noble fear

       Of public shame who feels; treasures the still

Sweet love of God; to self no minister,

But schools that ravener to his lordlier will,

Far from the evil herd on virtue’s hill.

 

The Noble Nature

 

Eloquence in the assembly; in the field

         The puissant arm, the lion’s heart; proud looks

Unshaken in defeat; but modest-kind

          Mercy when victory crowns; passionate for books

 High love of learning, thoughts to fame inclined; —

These things are natural to the noble mind.

 

The High and Difficult Road

 

To give in secret as beneath a shroud;

To honour all who to thy threshold come;

Do good by stealth and of thy deeds be dumb,

But of another’s noble acts be proud

And vaunt them in the senate and the crowd;

To keep low minds in fortune’s arrogant day;

       To speak of foemen without scorn or rage;

What finger appointed first this roughest way

Of virtue narrower than the falchion’s edge ? 

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Adornment

 

The hand needs not a bracelet for its pride,

        High liberality its greatness is;

The head no crown wants to show deified;

        Fallen at the Master’s feet it best doth please.

Truth-speaking makes the face more bright to shine,

        Deep study girds the brow with diamond rays;

Strength and not gold in conquering arms divine

        Triumphs; calm purity the heart arrays.

Nature’s great men have these for wealth and gem;

Riches they need not, nor a diadem.

 

The Softness and Hardness of the Noble

 

Being fortunate, how the noble heart grows soft

  As lilies! but in calamity’s rude shocks

  Rugged and high like a wild mountain’s rocks

It fronts the thunders, granite piled aloft.

 

The Power of Company

 

Behold the water’s way, — on iron red

When it falls hissing, not a trace remains,

Yet ‘tis the same that on the lotus shines,

A dewy thing like pearls, — yea, pearl indeed

Turns when the oyster-shell receives and heaven

To those rain-bringing stars their hour has given.

High virtue, vice or inconspicuous mean

‘Tis company that moulds in things or men.

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The Three Blessings

 

He is a son whose noble deeds and high

        His loving father’s heart rejoice;

She is a wife whose only jewellery

         Is her dear husband’s joy and bliss;

He the true friend whose actions are the same

In peaceful days or hours of bale and shame;

         These three who wins, finds earth his Paradise.

 

The Ways of the Good

 

Who would not honour good men and revere

       Whose loftiness by modesty is shown,  

Whose merits not by their own vaunts appear,

        Best in their constant praise of others known,

And for another’s good each power to brace

        To passionate effort is their selfishness.

 

Hark to their garrulous slanderer’s gurge of blame

         Foaming with censure violent and rude!

Yet they revile not back, but put to shame

         By their sweet patience and calm fortitude.

Such are their marvellous moods, their noble ways,

Whom men delight to honour and to praise.

 

Wealth of Kindness

 

Tis more than earrings when the ear inclines

        To wisdom; giving bracelets rich exceeds.

So the beneficent heart’s deep-stored mines

        Are worked for ore of sweet compassionate deeds,

And with that gold the very body shines. 

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The Good Friend

 

Thus is the good friend pictured by the pens

        Of good men: — still with gentle hand he turns

From sin and shame his friend, to noble gains

        Still spurs him on; deep in his heart inurns

His secret errors, blares his parts abroad,

Gives at his need, nor takes the traitor’s road

        Leaving with facile wings when fortune spurns.

 

The Nature of Beneficence

 

Freely the sun gives all his beams to wake

The lotus slumbering in the darkened lake;

The moon unasked expends her gentle light,

Wooing to bloom her lily of the night;

Unasked the cloud its watery burden gives.

The noble nature in beneficence lives;

Unsought, unsued, not asking kindness back

Does good in secret for that good’s sole sake.

 

The Abomination of Wickedness

 

Rare are the hearts that for another’s joy

       Fling from them self and hope of their own bliss;

Himself unhurt for other’s good to try

        Man’s impulse and his common nature is:

But they who for their poor and selfish aims

Hurt others, are but fiends with human names.

Who hurt their brother-men, themselves unhelped,

What they are we know not, nor what horror whelped,

Page– 190


Water and Milk

 

By water and sweet milk example Love.

      Milk all its sweetness to the water gives,

      For in one wedded self their friendship lives;

And when hot pangs the one to anguish move,

      The other immolates itself to fire.

      To steal his friend’s grief is a friend’s desire.

He seeing his friend’s hard state is minded too

      To seek the flame; but happily again

      Wedded to him is eased of all his pain.

This friendship is, one heart that’s shared by two.

 

Altruism Oceanic

 

Here Vishnu, sleeps, there find his foes their rest;

The hills have taken refuge; serried lie

Their armies in deep Ocean’s sheltering breast;

The clouds of doom are of his heart possessed,

        He harbours nether fire whence he must die.

Cherisher of all in vast equality,

Lo, the wide strong sublime and patient sea! 

Page– 191


The Aryan Ethic

 

Hear the whole Gospel and the Law thereto: —

      Speak truth, and in wise company abide;

      Slay lust, thine enemy; abandon pride;

Patience and sweet forgiveness to thee woo;

Set not in sin thy pleasure, but in God;

Follow the path high feet before thee trod;
 

Give honour to the honourable; conceal

      Thy virtues with a pudent veil of shame,

      Yet cherish to the end a stainless fame;

Speak sweetness to thy haters and their weal

Pursue; show pity to unhappy men,

Lift up the fallen, heal the sufferer’s pain.

 

The Altruist

 

How rare is he who for his fellows cares!

His mind, speech, body all are as pure jars

Full of his soul’s sweet nectar; so he goes

Filling the world with rows on shining rows

Of selfless actions ranked like the great stars.

 

He loves man so that he in others’ hearts

Finding an atom even of noble parts

Builds it into a mountain and thereon

His soul grows radiant like a flower full-blown;

Others are praised, his mind with pleasure starts.

Page– 192


Mountain Moloy

 

Legends of golden hills the fancy please,

But though they were real silver and solid gold,

Yet are the trees they foster only trees.

Moloy shall have my vote with whom, ‘tis told,

Harbouring the linden, pine and basest thorn

Ennobled turn to scent and earth adorn.

 

Page– 193