২। মধুসূদন রাজনারায়ণকে
I have finished the First Book of Meghanad. You shall have it as soon as I can get somebody to make a fair copy for you. I intend to send you the poem, as I proceed with it in manuscript, so that I may have the advantage and benefit of your remarks and suggestions before going to press. I am positive you will read with care and attention what I send you. It is my ambition to engraft the exquisite graces of the Greek mythology on our own; in the present poem, I mean to give free scope to my inventing Powers (such as they are) and to borrow as little as I can from Valmiki. Do not let this startle you. You shan’t have to complain again of the un-Hindu character of the Poem. I shall not borrow Greek stories but write, rather try to write, as a Greek would have done. Before I began this letter, I wrote the following opening lines for the Second Book of মেঘনাদ। These lines ought to give you some idea of the Episode that is to follow.
কি কারণে ত্যজি লঙ্কা কহ, শুভঙ্করি,
সারদে, প্রবাসে বাস করে শূরমণি,
মেঘনাদ? কোন দেব, মোহের শৃঙ্খলে,
(কি না তুমি জান সতি?) বাঁধেন কুমারে,
বন্দীসম, দূবে এরে—এ বিপত্তি কালে?
মদন সর্ব্বদমন। যে বীরকেশরী—
বাহত্রাসে বৃত্রাসুর-অবি, বজ্রপাণি,
কাতর, কন্দর্প, তার বীরদর্প ছবি,
প্রেমডোরে বাঁধি দূরে রাখেন কৌতুকে।
মায়াময় মায়াসুত-বিদিত জগতে।You will at once see whom I imitate;
“Who of the gods impelled them to contend?
Latona's son and Jove’s..."-Cowper’s Homer’s Iliad.Milton has imitated this—
“Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
The infernal serpent.”—Book I.—পৃ. ৩২৭-২৮।
