32 INTRODUCTION. 9. Some furourite subjects of the Bengali poets. The Table of Contents will show the details of subjects included in this work and I need not repeat them here. One point that will strike the reader is that the Bengali genius has always occupied itself with treating certain poetical subjects again and again. Not only do we find innumerable poets dwelling on the stories of the Rāmāyana, the Mahābhārata, the Bhāgavata etc., each according to his own power and many improving upon the work of their predecessors, but these writers have been particularly fond of describing the same poetical situations or incidents, vying with one another for excellence. Such for instance - - - is the Vāramāsī, or a description of the twelve The Varamasis. - - - - months. The seasons in this tropical clime of ours are well-marked, and its home-staying people have many opportunities of closely studying the peculiarities of each of the twelve months which constitute the year—associated, as they are, with the particular joys and sorrows of their home-life. Nature brings her offerings of particular flowers and fruit to their doors each month; but we do not meet gay flowers, sweet fruit and sun-shine always. There are the rainy months with their floods, bringing down the thatched walls of straw-built sheds and making their mud-hovels crumble—reducing the poor dwellers to the verge of starvation. The Vāramāsis, given by various poets, graphically portray these months with their joys and sorrows. The most remarkable of these were written by Kavi Kankana whose intimate knowledge of the life of the poor gives to his accounts a dismal and almost pessimistic aspect. I quote below some passages from Cowell's translation of Chandi by Kavi Kankaņa:— From the Wäramāsā of Fu//arā—the hunter’s wife. Next comes Aşa!h,* to soak the fields and roads; And e'en the rich in their well-stocked abodes Feel, as they watch their stored provisions fail, The ills which all the year the poor assail. I trudge to sell my goods from door to door, Thankful for refuse rice, nor hope for more. The leeches bite me as I wade the plains; Would’t were a serpent’s bite to end my pains!
- + * + 용
- Half May and June.
