Sakuntala does not hear it, but Priyambada hears it and by entreaties
appeases the wrath of the sage, who being conciliated ordains that the
curse would cease at the sight of some ornament of recognition.

Sakuntala becomes quick with child and in the seventh month of her
pregnancy is sent by her foster-father to Hastinapur, in the company of
her sister Gautami, and his two disciples Sarngarva and Saradwata.
Priyambada stays in the hermitage. Sakuntala takes leave of the sacred
grove in which she has been brought up, of her flowers, her gazelles and
her friends.

The aged hermit of the grove thus expresses his feelings at the
approaching loss of Sakuntala:--

"My heart is touched with sadness at the thought, "Sakuntala must go
to-day"; my throat is choked with flow of tears repressed; my sight is
dimmed with pensiveness but if the grief of an old forest hermit is so
great, how keen must be the pang a father feels when freshly parted from
a cherished child!"

Then he calls upon the trees to give her a kindly farewell. They answer
with the Kokila's melodious cry.

Thereupon the following good wishes are uttered by voices in the air:--

"Thy journey be auspicious; may the breeze, gentle and soothing, fan the
cheek; may lakes, all bright with lily cups, delight thine eyes; the
sun-beam's heat be cooled by shady trees; the dust beneath thy feet be
the pollen of lotuses."