Kalidasa's The Recognition of Shakuntala is the story of how the king, Dushyanta, meets and secretly marries Shakuntala, the daughter of a sage. When he leaves, he gives her his ring, but she loses it and when she shows up in court with his son, Bharata, she doesn't recognize her until the gods intervene.
One of the themes may be the importance of paying attention to details. Shakuntala loses the ring because she is distracted while attending to the irritable sage Durvasa, and he curses her. But a more important theme is the theme of honesty and integrity. When Shakuntala and Bharata appear before Dushyanta, he at first does not recognize them or his secret marriage because the ring is lost, but then the gods call him out.
Given that Shankuntala must rely on a token, the ring, to remind Dushyanta of their love and their secret marriage vows before he will recongize her and his son, I'd say that this story takes a rather cynical view on love. It is written so that the characters are not entirely resposible for the mess their relationship is in (ie. a sage's curse seems to be the problem between them), but the point seems to be that they cannot act on their love without some public recognition of it. A more idealistic view would say that love conquers all: because they love each other, they can overcome the sage's curse.
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