from this error by enkindling in his heart a desire for her own surpassing loveliness of form and character; and under the parable of a human passion—too glowingly depicted by the Indian poet for exact transcription—the gradual emancipation of Krishna from sensuous distractions, and his union with Radha in a high and spiritualised happiness, are portrayed. This general interpretation, at any rate, though disputed by certain authorities, is maintained by Jones, Lassen, and others; and has been followed, not without occasional difficulty, in the subjoined version.
Lassen thus writes in his Latin prolegomena: "To speak my opinion in one word, Krishna is here the divinely-given soul manifested in humanity. . . . The recollection of this celestial origin abides deep in the mind, and even when it seems to slumber—drugged as it were by the fair shows of the world, the pleasures of visible things, and the intoxication of the senses—it now and again awakes, . . . full of yearning to recover the sweet serenity of its pristine condition. Then the soul begins to discriminate and to perceive that the love, which was its inmost principle, has been lavished on empty and futile objects; it grows a-wearied of things sensual, false, and unenduring; it longs to fix its affec-
