Love Song of the Dark Lord (Gitagovinda)
Love Song of the Dark Lord is not an homage to Darth Vader. (And thankfully, the dialogue is a lot better than Episode II.)
It is a translation of a medieval Sanskrit poem called “Gitagovinda,” or “Krishna’s Song.” The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally described as dark-skinned.
At once sacred and sensual, the poem draws a parallel between the passion of a cowherdess for the divine Krishna, and the rapture of a human’s love of God. It is sometimes compared to the Biblical “Song of Songs.”
In twenty-four songs, the poet Jayadeva follows the longing of the beautiful Radha for the god incarnate, the efforts of her friend to bring them together, and the consummation of love in a “rite of spring.”
Along with refrains and heroic epithets comes an extraordinary voluptuousness of imagery and language:
“His soft mouth moves like an open lotus” (Sixteenth Song)
“Her belt sounds with her hips’ rolling motion” (Fourteenth Song)
“Lover, draw kohl glossier than a swarm of black bees on my eyes!
Your lips kissed away the lampblack bow that shoots arrows of Love.”
(Twenty-fourth song)
The musicality of repeated sounds in these lines is particularly appropriate for a work that is still sung in some temples today.
Along with her sensual, unsentimental translation, Barbara Stoler Miller sets the work in its literary and historical context in a scholarly introduction. The late Barnard professor discusses the finer points of Sanskrit metrics, the legends of the poet Jayadeva and his principal characters, and the dissemination of the poem through the ages.
Translation: Barbara Stoler Miller (Columbia University Press, 1977). 125 pages.
See Also:
Gita Govinda Multimedia Project
Translating Jayadeva
