The Indians became still more convinced that we are the veritable
descendants of Hanuman, and that, if one only took the trouble
to examine carefully, our tails might easily be discovered. Our
narrow breeches and long skirts only add to the evidence, however
uncomplimentary the idea may be to us.
Still, if you consider seriously, what are we to say when Science,
in the person of Darwin, concedes this hypothesis to the wisdom
of ancient Aryas. We must perforce submit. And, really, it is
better to have for a forefather Hanu-man, the poet, the hero, the
god, than any other monkey, even though it be a tailless one.
Sita-Rama belongs to the category of mythological dramas, something
like the tragedies of Aeschylus. Listening to this production
of the remotest antiquity, the spectators are carried back to the
times when the gods, descending upon earth, took an active part
in the everyday life of mortals. Nothing reminds one of a modern
drama, though the exterior arrangement is the same. "From the
sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step," and vice versa.
The goat, chosen for a sacrifice to Bacchus, presented the world
tragedy (greek script here). The death bleatings and buttings of
the quadrupedal offering of antiquity have been polished by the
hands of time and of civilization, and, as a result of this process,
we get the dying whisper of Rachel in the part of Adrienne Lecouvreur,
and the fearfully realistic "kicking" of the modern Croisette in
the poisoning scene of The Sphinx.
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