Abhisara: The Tryst | ISC Class 11 English Notes

This note covers Rabindranath Tagore and the poem, its form as a prose poem, a paragraph-by-paragraph summary, close reading of the two nights and the two meetings, Upagupta and the dancing girl, poetic devices and imagery, themes, tone, key quotations and vocabulary.

Who wrote the poem, and what kind of poem is it?

About Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer and thinker who lived from 1861 to 1941. He wrote mainly in Bengali and translated some of his own poems into English.

The poem comes from Fruit-Gathering, a collection that Tagore translated from Bengali himself and that Macmillan published in 1916. There it is poem XXXVII and has no title; Abhisara: The Tryst is the title it carries in Rhapsody. This note follows Tagore's own translation in Fruit-Gathering (1916).

What kind of poem is it?

It is a prose poem, a poem written in sentences and paragraphs instead of lines of verse, which still depends on imagery, rhythm and compression. It tells its story in twenty short paragraphs, many of them a single sentence. Paragraph numbers in this note count from the first; the row of dots after paragraph 10 is not counted.

It is also a narrative poem, one that tells a story with characters, settings and dialogue. Its story works like a parable, a short tale that carries a moral or spiritual lesson. The lesson is shown through what happens and is never stated.

The speaker and the situation

The narrator is an unnamed voice telling the story in the third person and the past tense. The narrator never says “I” and never explains the meaning. Two questions, in paragraphs 3 and 17, are the only places where this voice seems to wonder aloud.

Upagupta, a Buddhist monk, lies asleep by the city wall of Mathura, an ancient city in northern India. A dancing girl stumbles upon him in the dark, and the poem follows their two meetings.

In the Buddhist story that the poem retells, the dancing girl is named Vasavadatta. The poem itself never names her and calls her only “the dancing girl” and “the woman”. Abhisara is a Sanskrit word for a lover's going out to meet the beloved at an appointed place, and a tryst is an arranged meeting between lovers.

What is the summary of the poem, movement by movement?

The poem falls into two movements, or stages of the story, divided by a row of dots. The first takes place on a dark night in August and the second on a warm spring night of full moon.

Paragraphs 1 to 4: the monk asleep in the dark

Upagupta, the disciple of Buddha, lies asleep on the dust by the city wall. Every lamp is out, every door is shut and the stars are hidden by cloud. Suddenly feet wearing tinkling anklets touch his breast. He wakes with a start, and the light of a woman's lamp falls on his eyes.

Paragraphs 5 to 8: the invitation and the promise

The woman is a dancing girl, shining with jewels, wrapped in a pale-blue mantle and full of youthful confidence. She lowers her lamp and sees his young face, beautiful in a severe way. She asks him to forgive her and invites him to her house, since the dusty ground is no fit bed for him.

The ascetic tells her to go on her way. He adds that when the time is ripe he will come to her.

Paragraphs 9 and 10: the storm

Lightning flashes across the black night and a storm growls from a corner of the sky. The woman trembles with fear.

Paragraphs 11 to 15: the spring night

The trees along the road are heavy with blossom, and cheerful flute music drifts from a distance. The citizens have gone to the woods for the festival of flowers, so the town lies silent under the full moon. The young ascetic walks alone down the empty street while koels call from the mango trees.

Paragraphs 16 to 20: the second meeting

Upagupta passes through the city gates and stops at the foot of the rampart. A woman lies there in the shadow of the wall, struck by the black pestilence, her body covered in sores. She has been driven out of the town in haste.

He sits beside her, rests her head on his knees, wets her lips with water and spreads balm on her body. She asks who he is, calling him merciful. He answers that the time has at last come to visit her, and that he is here. Only this reply links her with the dancing girl.

How does the opening night create darkness and suspense?

A monk on the dust

The first sentence gives Upagupta's name, his identity as the disciple of Buddha and his bed: “the dust by the city wall of Mathura”. Sleeping on dust shows a man who has given up comfort. He lies at the edge of the city, outside its houses, a place he returns to at the end.

Paragraph 2 builds the darkness in three steps: “Lamps were all out, doors were all shut, and stars were all hidden by the murky sky of August.” The list moves from human light to human welcome to the light of the heavens.

The shut doors matter beyond the darkness. Mathura is closed for the night, and nobody offers the sleeping monk shelter. This prepares for the woman's invitation, the one door that opens to him in the first movement. August falls in the monsoon season in northern India, and murky suggests dark, heavy cloud.

Sound before sight

Paragraph 3 is a question: “Whose feet were those tinkling with anklets, touching his breast of a sudden?” The narrator does not yet say who has arrived. The reader shares the sleeper's confusion, hearing the anklets and feeling the touch before anything can be seen.

The anklets hint at a dancer before she is named, and “of a sudden” makes the contact abrupt; her later apology suggests it was accidental. The foot touching the breast is an intimate, startling contact between strangers.

In paragraph 4 the light from her lamp “struck his forgiving eyes”. Struck makes the light almost a blow after total darkness. The epithet forgiving is the narrator's first comment on his character, and it comes before she has asked for anything.

What happens when the dancing girl meets the ascetic?

How is she described?

Paragraph 5 gives her three descriptive phrases: “starred with jewels, clouded with a pale-blue mantle, drunk with the wine of her youth.” The stars hidden by cloud in paragraph 2 seem to reappear on her body as jewels, and the cloud as her mantle. She brings the night's lost brightness with her.

The phrase drunk with the wine of her youth suggests that youth and beauty excite her as wine excites a drinker. The phrase hints at a lack of restraint. It sets her in clear contrast with the self-discipline of the man on the ground.

In paragraph 6 she lowers her lamp and sees “the young face, austerely beautiful.” Now she is the one looking. Austerely means severely and plainly, which suggests that his beauty comes from discipline, not decoration. The pairing of these two words suggests that his restraint is itself what draws her.

The invitation and the refusal

Her speech in paragraph 7 begins “Forgive me, young ascetic”, which seems to apologise for her feet having touched him. She then asks him to “graciously come to my house”, as if he would be doing her an honour. Her reason is concern for him: the dusty earth is not a fit bed.

The invitation can be read in two ways at once. It is courtesy and kindness, and it is also attraction, since she has just seen his face. The narrator does not decide between them, and the title's idea of a tryst keeps both readings open.

His answer in paragraph 8 is calm and brief: “Woman, go on your way; when the time is ripe I will come to you.” He does not rebuke her, preach to her or reject her. He addresses her plainly as “Woman”, while she called him “young ascetic”, and he turns her invitation into a promise for the future.

Why does the storm follow?

The first movement closes with menace. The night “showed its teeth in a flash of lightning” and the storm “growled”, as though an animal were about to attack. It is the woman who trembles in fear, while nothing is said of fear in the ascetic.

The confidence of paragraph 5 has gone within a few sentences. The storm can be read as a warning of the suffering that waits for her, though the poem leaves the connection unspoken.

How does the spring night change the mood?

After the row of dots the season, the light and the sounds all change. The second movement opens with four paragraphs of setting before the ascetic appears in paragraph 15, which slows the story and builds a mood of beauty and longing.

A season of love

In paragraph 11 the branches of the wayside trees are “aching with blossom.” Aching suggests that the trees are so full of flowers that they hurt, and it also carries the sense of longing. Spring here is a season of desire.

Paragraph 12 brings “Gay notes of the flute” floating in the warm spring air “from afar”. Gay here means cheerful. The music is distant, so the celebration is happening somewhere else. Paragraph 13 suggests why: the citizens have gone to the woods for the festival of flowers.

An empty town under the moon

In paragraph 14 the full moon gazes from mid-sky “on the shadows of the silent town.” The hidden stars of August have given way to the brightest light of the night sky. Yet the moonlight falls on shadows, and the town below is silent and empty.

Paragraph 15 places the young ascetic in this scene, “walking in the lonely street”. In paragraph 1 he lay asleep; now he is awake and moving. Above him the “lovesick koels” call from the mango branches. The koel is an Indian cuckoo whose call is heard in spring, and in Indian poetry it is linked with love and longing.

The ascetic walks alone through this scene of romantic longing.

How is the promise kept at the second meeting?

Outside the gates

In paragraph 16 Upagupta “passed through the city gates, and stood at the base of the rampart.” He leaves the empty town behind. The rampart is the defensive wall around the town.

Paragraph 17 is the narrator's second question: “What woman lay in the shadow of the wall at his feet”. The woman lies in shadow even on a night of full moon.

What has happened to her?

She has been “struck with the black pestilence”. A pestilence is a deadly infectious disease, and black makes it darker and more frightening. Her body is “spotted with sores”, so her beauty has been destroyed.

She has also been “hurriedly driven away from the town”. The passive verb does not say who drove her out, but the town has rejected her. Hurriedly suggests fear of the disease and no care for her.

Four acts of care

Paragraph 18 lists what he does: he sits by her side, takes her head on his knees, moistens her lips with water and smears her body with balm. The ascetic who would not enter her house now touches and tends her diseased body.

Each act answers a need: company, rest, thirst and pain. Balm, a soothing ointment, is the gentlest of these.

The final words

In paragraph 19 she asks, “Who are you, merciful one?” She does not recognise him. She names him by the quality she has felt, mercy, without knowing his name.

His reply in paragraph 20 closes the poem: “The time, at last, has come to visit you, and I am here”. The words at last answer the open-ended “when” of paragraph 8. “I am here” is the simplest possible statement of presence: the tryst is kept.

How are Upagupta and the dancing girl presented?

Upagupta

Upagupta is consistent. Young, disciplined and gentle, he is the same in both movements. He refuses comfort, speaks little and keeps his word. His forgiving eyes in paragraph 4 and the woman's word “merciful” in paragraph 19 frame him with the same quality.

He is never shown as cold. His refusal carries a promise, and his final act is pure tenderness. The poem presents a spiritual discipline that holds back from desire but not from people in need.

The dancing girl

The dancing girl is presented through change. At first she is all sound, light and ornament, confident and courteous. By the end she has lost everything the first movement gave her, and she lies helpless on the ground. Even in sickness she speaks gently.

How do the two meetings mirror each other?

The second meeting repeats the first with the positions reversed, and several words return in changed form.

Which poetic devices and imagery shape the poem?

Rhyme, metre and rhythm

As a prose poem, the text has no rhyme scheme and no regular metre. Its rhythm comes instead from short sentences set apart in brief paragraphs. The white space between paragraphs works like a pause, so each image is read slowly and separately.

Rhythm also comes from parallelism, the repetition of a grammatical pattern. Paragraph 2 repeats “were all” three times, and paragraph 5 sets three descriptive phrases side by side. The row of dots after paragraph 10 is an ellipsis, marking a gap of time that the poem leaves untold.

Devices in the text

Imagery of light, sound and touch

Imagery is language that appeals to the senses. Light runs through the poem: lamps out, stars hidden, a woman's lamp, lightning, full moon and shadow. Light is given and taken away at each turn of the story.

Sound sets each mood: anklets and storm first, flute and koels later. Touch carries the human meaning, from her feet on his breast to his hands tending her.

Some objects also work as symbols, things that stand for ideas. The lamp suggests worldly brightness and the power to see, and the wall suggests the line between those the town accepts and those it shuts out.

What themes and message emerge from the poem?

A theme is a central idea that a literary work develops. Here each theme grows from the two meetings.

Compassion as the truest form of love

The title promises a lovers' meeting, and the spring night builds that expectation. The meeting that finally happens is an act of care for a sick outcast. The poem redefines a tryst: love in its highest form is compassion, selfless care given where it is needed most.

This produces irony, a gap between what is expected and what happens. The promise that seemed to agree to her invitation is fulfilled as mercy, not desire.

The passing of youth and beauty

The beauty and confidence that fill paragraph 5 have been replaced by disease in paragraph 17. The poem shows transience, the quality of lasting only a short time, through the woman's body itself.

Patience and the right time

The phrases “when the time is ripe” and “The time, at last, has come” frame the story. The ascetic's refusal is not a rejection of the woman but a waiting for the right moment. The poem values patience and faithfulness to a promise.

The outcast and the closed city

The city shuts its doors in paragraph 2, and in paragraph 17 the sick woman lies outside it, driven away in haste. On the night he finds her, its citizens are away at the festival of flowers. Upagupta crosses the line the town has drawn, passing through the gates to the person it has abandoned.

Together these themes give the poem's message: true love keeps faith, waits for the hour of need and serves the suffering without judging them.

How do tone and the narrator's attitude develop?

Tone is the attitude a text conveys through its words. Here the tone changes with each stage of the story, while the narrator's voice stays steady and restrained.

The narrator's attitude is sympathetic and non-judgemental. The voice never moralises, never praises the ascetic directly and never blames the woman. She is described with admiration while she is young and with pity when she suffers.

This restraint gives the ending its quiet force. Upagupta's two short speeches both concern the right time to come to her, and both are gentle.

Which key quotations support close-reading answers?

A close reading explains how particular words create meaning. A strong answer places a short quotation in its context, names the feature and explains its effect on this poem's story or theme.

“drunk with the wine of her youth”

Paragraph 5: her youthful pride.

Use this for the dancing girl's character and for transience, since the youth that intoxicates her does not last.

“when the time is ripe I will come to you”

Paragraph 8: refusal and promise together.

This is the hinge of the plot; answers on the ending or the title should link it with paragraph 20.

“hurriedly driven away from the town”

Paragraph 17: her rejection by the town.

This supports answers on society and the outcast, and explains why Upagupta must pass through the gates.

“Who are you, merciful one?”

Paragraph 19: the woman's question.

Use this for answers on mercy and the ending.

“The time, at last, has come to visit you, and I am here,”

Paragraph 20: the promise kept.

This supports answers on the title, compassion and structure, since the ending answers the first meeting.

Glossary

• Ascetic: A person who gives up comfort and pleasure for spiritual discipline; the dancing girl addresses Upagupta as a young ascetic.
• Abhisara: A Sanskrit word for a lover's going out to meet the beloved at an appointed place.
• Tryst: An arranged meeting between lovers, often secret; the poem fulfils the title's tryst in an unexpected way.
• Mantle: A loose cloak or wrap worn over other clothes; the dancing girl is clouded with a pale-blue one.
• Austerely: In a severe, plain and self-disciplined way; it describes the ascetic's beauty, which owes nothing to ornament.
• Gay: In this older sense, cheerful and light-hearted, describing the flute music of the spring festival.
• Koel: An Indian cuckoo whose call is heard in spring and is linked with love and longing in Indian poetry.
• Plaint: A mournful complaint or lament, here the koels' restless call through the night.
• Rampart: A defensive wall around a town; Upagupta stands at its base after passing through the city gates.
• Pestilence: A deadly infectious disease that spreads widely; the black pestilence has struck the woman and covered her with sores.
• Balm: A soothing ointment for wounds or sore skin, which Upagupta smears on the sick woman's body.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The poem is a romance in which the monk and the dancing girl become lovers. Correct: The title promises a lovers' meeting, but the meeting that happens is an act of compassion for a sick outcast.
• Misconception: Upagupta rejects the dancing girl harshly. Correct: He tells her to go on her way and promises to come when the time is ripe; he neither rebukes nor lectures her.
• Misconception: The poem names the woman Vasavadatta. Correct: The poem calls her only the dancing girl and the woman; the name comes from the Buddhist story it retells.
• Misconception: The narrator states that the sick woman is the dancing girl. Correct: The narrator asks “What woman lay in the shadow of the wall at his feet” without naming her; only Upagupta's reply, which echoes his promise, makes the link.
• Misconception: Upagupta knew that she would fall ill. Correct: The poem never says that he foresaw her illness; it shows only that he keeps his word when she needs help most.
• Misconception: The woman recognises Upagupta at the end. Correct: She asks “Who are you, merciful one?”, so she meets his mercy without knowing who he is.
• Misconception: The poem follows a rhyme scheme and metre. Correct: It is a prose poem in twenty short paragraphs, with no rhyme scheme and no regular metre.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Read the extract (paragraphs 7 and 8) and answer the questions that follow. “Forgive me, young ascetic,” said the woman; “graciously come to my house. The dusty earth is not a fit bed for you.” The ascetic answered, “Woman, go on your way; when the time is ripe I will come to you.” At the end of the poem he finds a sick woman outside the town, tends her and says, “The time, at last, has come to visit you, and I am here”. (a) What does the remark about the dusty earth show about the woman? (b) How do the two speakers address each other? (c) What does “when the time is ripe” suggest? (d) How is the promise fulfilled? [4 marks]

1. (a) It shows concern for his comfort and courtesy, since she thinks the ground unfit for him; her invitation may also express attraction.
2. (b) She addresses him respectfully as “young ascetic” and asks him to come “graciously”, while he calls her plainly “Woman”, calm but not harsh.
3. (c) Ripe compares time to fruit that ripens; he will come at the right moment, which has not yet arrived and cannot be hurried.
4. (d) He keeps his word when she lies sick and rejected outside the town, coming to her in compassion, not desire, as his closing words show.

Q2. The dancing girl appears “starred with jewels, clouded with a pale-blue mantle, drunk with the wine of her youth.” Just before this, the stars were “hidden by the murky sky of August.” Explain two ways this description presents her. [2 marks]

1. The words “starred” and “clouded” link her with the night sky, so she seems to bring back the brightness that the hidden stars had taken away.
2. The phrase “drunk with the wine of her youth” shows her excited and confident in her youth and beauty, in contrast with the ascetic's restraint.

Q3. The first night is described: “Lamps were all out, doors were all shut, and stars were all hidden by the murky sky of August.” Later, “the black night showed its teeth in a flash of lightning”, the storm “growled”, and the woman “trembled in fear.” Explain, in three points, how these lines create the atmosphere of the first movement. [3 marks]

1. The repeated “were all” builds total darkness step by step, cutting off human light, human welcome and the light of the stars.
2. Shut doors make the city closed and unwelcoming, so the sleeping monk lies alone and unsheltered.
3. The night baring its teeth and the growling storm are personified as a beast, turning darkness into menace that makes the woman tremble.

Q4. In the first meeting Upagupta lies asleep on the dust by the city wall when the dancing girl's feet, “tinkling with anklets”, touch his breast. She is “starred with jewels” and invites him to her house. Paragraph 17 asks, “What woman lay in the shadow of the wall at his feet, struck with the black pestilence, her body spotted with sores, hurriedly driven away from the town?” Explain four ways paragraph 17 reverses the first meeting. [4 marks]

1. Earlier Upagupta lay on the ground by the wall; now the woman lies in the shadow of the wall, so their positions are exchanged.
2. Her feet once touched his breast; now she lies at his feet, a sign of how low she has fallen.
3. The phrase “starred with jewels” gives way to “spotted with sores”, so the beauty that defined her is replaced by disease.
4. Once she invited him into her house; now she has been driven out of the town, so he must go out to her.

Q5. Abhisara is a Sanskrit word for a lover's going out to meet the beloved at an appointed place, and a tryst is an arranged meeting between lovers. In the poem a dancing girl, “drunk with the wine of her youth”, invites the ascetic to her house; he promises to come “when the time is ripe”; he comes only when she lies sick outside the town, tends her and says, “The time, at last, has come to visit you, and I am here”. Discuss the appropriateness of the title in five points. [5 marks]

1. The title promises a lovers' meeting, and the first movement seems to begin one, with a young dancing girl inviting the ascetic to her house.
2. His promise to come when the time is ripe makes the meeting an appointed one, the essential feature of a tryst.
3. By the time he comes, she lies sick outside the town and the youth that intoxicated her has given way to illness, which reverses the expectation.
4. The tryst is kept, but as an act of compassion: he comes to tend a sick woman, not to enjoy a lover's company, so the title is fulfilled ironically.
5. The title therefore redefines love. The truest meeting is selfless care at the hour of need, which makes the title apt and central to the meaning.

Q6. The poem is a prose poem with no rhyme scheme or regular metre. Discuss how it still achieves poetic effect, referring to: the parallel phrases “Lamps were all out, doors were all shut, and stars were all hidden” (paragraph 2); the sound words “tinkling” (paragraph 3) and “growled” (paragraph 10); the personification in “the black night showed its teeth” (paragraph 9) and “From the mid-sky gazed the full moon” (paragraph 14); the alliteration in “Gay notes of the flute came floating” (paragraph 12); the transferred epithet “sleepless plaint” (paragraph 15); and the row of dots after paragraph 10. [6 marks]

1. The parallel phrases of paragraph 2 create rhythm through repetition and build the darkness in three steps, from lamps to doors to stars.
2. The onomatopoeia of “tinkling” and “growled” lets the reader hear the anklets and the storm, making the scenes vivid.
3. Personification makes nature active: the night bares its teeth like a beast, while the moon watches over the silent town.
4. The alliteration of f sounds in “flute came floating” gives the line a soft, drifting music suited to festival notes heard from far away.
5. The transferred epithet “sleepless plaint” moves sleeplessness from the koels to their call, stressing the restless longing of the season of love.
6. The row of dots works as an ellipsis, marking an untold gap of time and dividing the poem into two movements.

Q7. Upagupta refuses the dancing girl's invitation when she is young and admired, promising to come “when the time is ripe”. He comes to her when she is sick, covered with sores and driven from the town. He takes her head on his knees, moistens her lips with water and smears her body with balm. She asks, “Who are you, merciful one?” Give a personal response to what the poem suggests about love and compassion, in six points. [6 marks]

1. True love, the poem suggests, is not the pursuit of beauty or pleasure but care for another person's need.
2. Upagupta's refusal is not coldness, since it carries a promise; his love waits for the moment when it can truly help.
3. He comes when the woman has nothing left to offer and the town has driven her out, which makes his care selfless.
4. His acts are simple and physical: water, balm and a resting place for her head. This is compassion as action, not words.
5. She names him “merciful” without knowing who he is, suggesting that compassion is recognised by what it does.
6. The ending is moving because no one is judged: the ascetic meets a rejected, suffering woman only with mercy and care.

Key takeaways

• Tagore's prose poem tells, in twenty short paragraphs, how the monk Upagupta meets a dancing girl twice by the city wall of Mathura.
• The first movement is a dark, stormy August night in which she invites him home and he promises to come when the time is ripe.
• The second movement is a moonlit spring night of festival, when he finds her struck by pestilence and driven out of the town.
• The two meetings mirror each other: positions, light and the woman's body are reversed, and the promise of paragraph 8 is answered in paragraph 20.
• The title's tryst is fulfilled ironically, as an act of compassion and not of desire, which redefines love as selfless care.
• The poem has no rhyme or metre; its effects come from parallelism, personification, metaphor, onomatopoeia, alliteration and a transferred epithet.
• Themes include compassion, the passing of youth and beauty, patience and the right time, the outcast, and mercy without judgement.
• The narrator is restrained and non-judgemental, leaving meaning to action and image, so the quiet ending carries great force.

Test yourself

Where is Upagupta sleeping at the start of the poem?

He lies asleep on the dust by the city wall of Mathura on a dark August night.

Why does the dancing girl invite him to her house?

She says the dusty earth is not a fit bed for him; she has also just seen his austerely beautiful young face.

What does Upagupta promise in paragraph 8?

He tells her to go on her way and promises that when the time is ripe he will come to her.

Why is the town silent in the second movement?

The citizens have gone to the woods for the festival of flowers, leaving the town empty under the full moon.

What has happened to the woman by paragraph 17?

She has been struck by the black pestilence, her body is spotted with sores, and she has been hurriedly driven away from the town.

Name the four acts of care in paragraph 18.

He sits by her side, takes her head on his knees, moistens her lips with water and smears her body with balm.

Why is “sleepless plaint” a transferred epithet?

Sleeplessness belongs to the lovesick koels, but the adjective is moved onto their call, stressing restless longing.