SRI AUROBINDO
Translations
from Sanskrit and Other Languages
Kalidasa
Bhartrihari. The Century of Life
On Virtue
To give in secret as beneath a shroud;
To honour all who to thy threshold come;
Do good by stealth and of thy deeds be dumb,
But of another’s noble acts be proud
And vaunt them in the senate and the crowd;
To keep low minds in fortune’s arrogant day;
To speak of foemen without scorn or rage;
What finger appointed first this roughest way
Of virtue narrower than the falchion’s edge?