Ramayana, Book 2, The

<SPAN name="toc277" id="toc277"></SPAN> <SPAN name="pdf278" id="pdf278"></SPAN> <SPAN name="CantoII-LXI" id="CantoII-LXI" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN> <h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">Canto LXI. Kausalyá's Lament.</span></h2> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>When, best of all who give delight,</div> <div>Her Ráma wandered far from sight,</div> <div>Kauśalyá weeping, sore distressed,</div> <div>The king her husband thus addressed:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“Thy name, O Monarch, far and wide</span></div> <div>Through the three worlds is glorified:</div> <div>Yet Ráma's is the pitying mind,</div> <div>His speed is true, his heart is kind.</div> <div>How will thy sons, good lord, sustain</div> <div>With Sítá, all their care and pain?</div> <div>How in the wild endure distress,</div> <div>Nursed in the lap of tenderness?</div> <div>How will the dear Videhan bear</div> <div>The heat and cold when wandering there</div> <div>Bred in the bliss of princely state,</div> <div>So young and fair and delicate?</div> <div>The large-eyed lady, wont to eat</div> <div>The best of finely seasoned meat—</div> <div>How will she now her life sustain</div> <div>With woodland fare of self-sown grain?</div> <div>Will she, with joys encompassed long,</div> <div>Who loved the music and the song,</div> <div>In the wild wood endure to hear</div> <div>The ravening lion's voice of fear?</div> <div>Where sleeps my strong-armed hero, where,</div> <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page167"></span><SPAN name="Pg167" id="Pg167" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN> <div>Like Lord Mahendra's standard, fair?</div> <div>Where is, by Lakshmaṇ's side, his bed,</div> <div>His club-like arm beneath his head?</div> <div>When shall I see his flower-like eyes,</div> <div>And face that with the lotus vies,</div> <div>Feel his sweet lily breath, and view</div> <div>His glorious hair and lotus hue?</div> <div>The heart within my breast, I feel,</div> <div>Is adamant or hardest steel,</div> <div>Or, in a thousand fragments split,</div> <div>The loss of him had shattered it,</div> <div>When those I love, who should be blest,</div> <div>Are wandering in the wood distressed,</div> <div>Condemned their wretched lives to lead</div> <div>In exile, by thy ruthless deed.</div> <div>If, when the fourteen years are past,</div> <div>Ráma reseeks his home at last,</div> <div>I think not Bharat will consent</div> <div>To yield the wealth and government.</div> <div>At funeral feasts some mourners deal</div> <div>To kith and kin the solemn meal,</div> <div>And having duly fed them all</div> <div>Some Bráhmans to the banquet call.</div> <div>The best of Bráhmans, good and wise,</div> <div>The tardy summoning despise,</div> <div>And, equal to the Gods, disdain</div> <div>Cups, e'en of Amrit, thus to drain.</div> <div>Nay e'en when Bráhmans first have fed,</div> <div>They loathe the meal for others spread,</div> <div>And from the leavings turn with scorn,</div> <div>As bulls avoid a fractured horn.</div> <div>So Ráma, sovereign lord of men,</div> <div>Will spurn the sullied kingship then:</div> <div>He born the eldest and the best,</div> <div>His younger's leavings will detest,</div> <div>Turning from tasted food away,</div> <div>As tigers scorn another's prey.</div> <div>The sacred post is used not twice,</div> <div>Nor elements, in sacrifice.</div> <div>But once the sacred grass is spread,</div> <div>But once with oil the flame is fed:</div> <div>So Ráma's pride will ne'er receive</div> <div>The royal power which others leave,</div> <div>Like wine when tasteless dregs are left,</div> <div>Or rites of Soma juice bereft.</div> <div>Be sure the pride of Raghu's race</div> <div>Will never stoop to such disgrace:</div> <div>The lordly lion will not bear</div> <div>That man should beard him in his lair.</div> <div>Were all the worlds against him ranged</div> <div>His dauntless soul were still unchanged:</div> <div>He, dutiful, in duty strong,</div> <div>Would purge the impious world from wrong.</div> <div>Could not the hero, brave and bold,</div> <div>The archer, with his shafts of gold,</div> <div>Burn up the very seas, as doom</div> <div>Will in the end all life consume?</div> <div>Of lion's might, eyed like a bull,</div> <div>A prince so brave and beautiful,</div> <div>Thou hast with wicked hate pursued,</div> <div>Like sea-born tribes who eat their brood.</div> <div>If thou, O Monarch, hadst but known</div> <div>The duty all the Twice-born own,</div> <div>If the good laws had touched thy mind,</div> <div>Which sages in the Scriptures find,</div> <div>Thou ne'er hadst driven forth to pine</div> <div>This brave, this duteous son of thine.</div> <div>First on her lord the wife depends,</div> <div>Next on her son and last on friends:</div> <div>These three supports in life has she,</div> <div>And not a fourth for her may be.</div> <div>Thy heart, O King, I have not won;</div> <div>In wild woods roams my banished son;</div> <div>Far are my friends: ah, hapless me,</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >Quite ruined and destroyed by thee.”</span></div> </div> <SPAN name="toc279" id="toc279"></SPAN> <SPAN name="pdf280" id="pdf280"></SPAN> <SPAN name="CantoII-LXII" id="CantoII-LXII" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN> <h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">Canto LXII. Dasaratha Consoled.</span></h2> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>The queen's stern speech the monarch heard,</div> <div>As rage and grief her bosom stirred,</div> <div>And by his anguish sore oppressed</div> <div>Reflected in his secret breast.</div> <div>Fainting and sad, with woe distraught,</div> <div>He wandered in a maze of thought;</div> <div>At length the queller of the foe</div> <div>Grew conscious, rallying from his woe.</div> <div>When consciousness returned anew</div> <div>Long burning sighs the monarch drew,</div> <div>Again immersed in thought he eyed</div> <div>Kauśalyá standing by his side.</div> <div>Back to his pondering soul was brought</div> <div>The direful deed his hand had wrought,</div> <div>When, guiltless of the wrong intent,</div> <div>His arrow at a sound was sent.</div> <div>Distracted by his memory's sting,</div> <div>And mourning for his son, the king</div> <div>To two consuming griefs a prey,</div> <div>A miserable victim lay.</div> <div>The double woe devoured him fast,</div> <div>As on the ground his eyes he cast,</div> <div>Joined suppliant hands, her heart to touch,</div> <div>And spake in the answer, trembling much:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“Kauśalyá, for thy grace I sue,</span></div> <div>Joining these hands as suppliants do.</div> <div>Thou e'en to foes hast ever been</div> <div>A gentle, good, and loving queen.</div> <div>Her lord, with noble virtues graced,</div> <div>Her lord, by lack of all debased,</div> <div>Is still a God in woman's eyes,</div> <div>If duty's law she hold and prize.</div> <div>Thou, who the right hast aye pursued,</div> <div>Life's changes and its chances viewed,</div> <div>Shouldst never launch, though sorrow-stirred,</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >At me distressed, one bitter word.”</span></div> </div> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>She listened, as with sorrow faint</div> <div>He murmured forth his sad complaint:</div> <div>Her brimming eyes with tears ran o'er,</div> <div>As spouts the new fallen water pour;</div> <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page168"></span><SPAN name="Pg168" id="Pg168" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN> <div>His suppliant hands, with fear dismayed</div> <div>She gently clasped in hers, and laid,</div> <div>Like a fair lotus, on her head,</div> <div>And faltering in her trouble said:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“Forgive me; at thy feet I lie,</span></div> <div>With low bent head to thee I cry.</div> <div>By thee besought, thy guilty dame</div> <div>Pardon from thee can scarcely claim.</div> <div>She merits not the name of wife</div> <div>Who cherishes perpetual strife</div> <div>With her own husband good and wise,</div> <div>Her lord both here and in the skies.</div> <div>I know the claims of duty well,</div> <div>I know thy lips the truth must tell.</div> <div>All the wild words I rashly spoke,</div> <div>Forth from my heart, through anguish, broke;</div> <div>For sorrow bends the stoutest soul,</div> <div>And cancels Scripture's high control.</div> <div>Yea, sorrow's might all else o'erthrows</div> <div>The strongest and the worst of foes.</div> <div>'Tis thus with all: we keenly feel,</div> <div>Yet bear the blows our foemen deal,</div> <div>But when a slender woe assails</div> <div>The manliest spirit bends and quails.</div> <div>The fifth long night has now begun</div> <div>Since the wild woods have lodged my son:</div> <div>To me whose joy is drowned in tears,</div> <div>Each day a dreary year appears.</div> <div>While all my thoughts on him are set</div> <div>Grief at my heart swells wilder yet:</div> <div>With doubled might thus Ocean raves</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >When rushing floods increase his waves.”</span></div> </div> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>As from Kauśalyá reasoning well</div> <div>The gentle words of wisdom fell,</div> <div>The sun went down with dying flame,</div> <div>And darkness o'er the landscape came.</div> <div>His lady's soothing words in part</div> <div>Relieved the monarch's aching heart,</div> <div>Who, wearied out by all his woes,</div> <div>Yielded to sleep and took repose.</div> </div> <SPAN name="toc281" id="toc281"></SPAN> <SPAN name="pdf282" id="pdf282"></SPAN> <SPAN name="CantoII-LXIII" id="CantoII-LXIII" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN> <h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">Canto LXIII. The Hermit's Son.</span></h2> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>But soon by rankling grief oppressed</div> <div>The king awoke from troubled rest,</div> <div>And his sad heart was tried again</div> <div>With anxious thought where all was pain.</div> <div>Ráma and Lakshmaṇ's mournful fate</div> <div>On Daśaratha, good and great</div> <div>As Indra, pressed with crushing weight,</div> <div>As when the demon's might assails</div> <div>The Sun-God, and his glory pales.</div> <div>Ere yet the sixth long night was spent,</div> <div>Since Ráma to the woods was sent,</div> <div>The king at midnight sadly thought</div> <div>Of the old crime his hand had wrought,</div> <div>And thus to Queen Kauśalyá cried</div> <div>Who still for Ráma moaned and sighed:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“If thou art waking, give, I pray,</span></div> <div>Attention to the words I say.</div> <div>Whate'er the conduct men pursue,</div> <div>Be good or ill the acts they do,</div> <div>Be sure, dear Queen, they find the meed</div> <div>Of wicked or of virtuous deed.</div> <div>A heedless child we call the man</div> <div>Whose feeble judgment fails to scan</div> <div>The weight of what his hands may do,</div> <div>Its lightness, fault, and merit too.</div> <div>One lays the Mango garden low,</div> <div>And bids the gay Paláśas grow:</div> <div>Longing for fruit their bloom he sees,</div> <div>But grieves when fruit should bend the trees.</div> <div>Cut by my hand, my fruit-trees fell,</div> <div>Paláśa trees I watered well.</div> <div>My hopes this foolish heart deceive,</div> <div>And for my banished son I grieve.</div> <div>Kauśalyá, in my youthful prime</div> <div>Armed with my bow I wrought the crime,</div> <div>Proud of my skill, my name renowned,</div> <div>An archer prince who shoots by sound.</div> <div>The deed this hand unwitting wrought</div> <div>This misery on my soul has brought,</div> <div>As children seize the deadly cup</div> <div>And blindly drink the poison up.</div> <div>As the unreasoning man may be</div> <div>Charmed with the gay Paláśa tree,</div> <div>I unaware have reaped the fruit</div> <div>Of joying at a sound to shoot.</div> <div>As regent prince I shared the throne,</div> <div>Thou wast a maid to me unknown,</div> <div>The early Rain-time duly came,</div> <div>And strengthened love's delicious flame.</div> <div>The sun had drained the earth that lay</div> <div>All glowing 'neath the summer day,</div> <div>And to the gloomy clime had fled</div> <div>Where dwell the spirits of the dead.<SPAN id="noteref_335" name="noteref_335" href="#note_335"><span class="tei tei-noteref" ><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">335</span></span></SPAN></div> <div>The fervent heat that moment ceased,</div> <div>The darkening clouds each hour increased</div> <div>And frogs and deer and peacocks all</div> <div>Rejoiced to see the torrents fall.</div> <div>Their bright wings heavy from the shower,</div> <div>The birds, new-bathed, had scarce the power</div> <div>To reach the branches of the trees</div> <div>Whose high tops swayed beneath the breeze.</div> <div>The fallen rain, and falling still,</div> <div>Hung like a sheet on every hill,</div> <div>Till, with glad deer, each flooded steep</div> <div>Showed glorious as the mighty deep.</div> <div>The torrents down its wooded side</div> <div>Poured, some unstained, while others dyed</div> <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page169"></span><SPAN name="Pg169" id="Pg169" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN> <div>Gold, ashy, silver, ochre, bore</div> <div>The tints of every mountain ore.</div> <div>In that sweet time, when all are pleased,</div> <div>My arrows and my bow I seized;</div> <div>Keen for the chase, in field or grove,</div> <div>Down Sarjú's bank my car I drove.</div> <div>I longed with all my lawless will</div> <div>Some elephant by night to kill,</div> <div>Some buffalo that came to drink,</div> <div>Or tiger, at the river's brink.</div> <div>When all around was dark and still,</div> <div>I heard a pitcher slowly fill,</div> <div>And thought, obscured in deepest shade,</div> <div>An elephant the sound had made.</div> <div>I drew a shaft that glittered bright,</div> <div>Fell as a serpent's venomed bite;</div> <div>I longed to lay the monster dead,</div> <div>And to the mark my arrow sped.</div> <div>Then in the calm of morning, clear</div> <div>A hermit's wailing smote my ear:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“Ah me, ah me,”</span> he cried, and sank,</div> <div>Pierced by my arrow, on the bank.</div> <div>E'en as the weapon smote his side,</div> <div>I heard a human voice that cried:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“Why lights this shaft on one like me,</span></div> <div>A poor and harmless devotee?</div> <div>I came by night to fill my jar</div> <div>From this lone stream where no men are.</div> <div>Ah, who this deadly shaft has shot?</div> <div>Whom have I wronged, and knew it not?</div> <div>Why should a boy so harmless feel</div> <div>The vengeance of the winged steel?</div> <div>Or who should slay the guiltless son</div> <div>Of hermit sire who injures none,</div> <div>Who dwells retired in woods, and there</div> <div>Supports his life on woodland fare?</div> <div>Ah me, ah me, why am I slain,</div> <div>What booty will the murderer gain?</div> <div>In hermit coils I bind my hair,</div> <div>Coats made of skin and bark I wear.</div> <div>Ah, who the cruel deed can praise</div> <div>Whose idle toil no fruit repays,</div> <div>As impious as the wretch's crime</div> <div>Who dares his master's bed to climb?</div> <div>Nor does my parting spirit grieve</div> <div>But for the life which thus I leave:</div> <div>Alas, my mother and my sire,—</div> <div>I mourn for them when I expire.</div> <div>Ah me, that aged, helpless pair,</div> <div>Long cherished by my watchful care,</div> <div>How will it be with them this day</div> <div>When to the Five<SPAN id="noteref_336" name="noteref_336" href="#note_336"><span class="tei tei-noteref" ><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">336</span></span></SPAN> I pass away?</div> <div>Pierced by the self-same dart we die,</div> <div>Mine aged mother, sire, and I.</div> <div>Whose mighty hand, whose lawless mind</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >Has all the three to death consigned?”</span></div> </div> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>When I, by love of duty stirred,</div> <div>That touching lamentation heard,</div> <div>Pierced to the heart by sudden woe,</div> <div>I threw to earth my shafts and bow.</div> <div>My heart was full of grief and dread</div> <div>As swiftly to the place I sped,</div> <div>Where, by my arrow wounded sore,</div> <div>A hermit lay on Sarjú's shore.</div> <div>His matted hair was all unbound,</div> <div>His pitcher empty on the ground,</div> <div>And by the fatal arrow pained,</div> <div>He lay with dust and gore distained.</div> <div>I stood confounded and amazed:</div> <div>His dying eyes to mine he raised,</div> <div>And spoke this speech in accents stern,</div> <div>As though his light my soul would burn:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“How have I wronged thee, King, that I</span></div> <div>Struck by thy mortal arrow die?</div> <div>The wood my home, this jar I brought,</div> <div>And water for my parents sought.</div> <div>This one keen shaft that strikes me through</div> <div>Slays sire and aged mother too.</div> <div>Feeble and blind, in helpless pain,</div> <div>They wait for me and thirst in vain.</div> <div>They with parched lips their pangs must bear,</div> <div>And hope will end in blank despair.</div> <div>Ah me, there seems no fruit in store</div> <div>For holy zeal or Scripture lore,</div> <div>Or else ere now my sire would know</div> <div>That his dear son is lying low.</div> <div>Yet, if my mournful fate he knew,</div> <div>What could his arm so feeble do?</div> <div>The tree, firm-rooted, ne'er may be</div> <div>The guardian of a stricken tree.</div> <div>Haste to my father, and relate</div> <div>While time allows, my sudden fate,</div> <div>Lest he consume thee as the fire</div> <div>Burns up the forest, in his ire.</div> <div>This little path, O King, pursue:</div> <div>My father's cot thou soon wilt view.</div> <div>There sue for pardon to the sage,</div> <div>Lest he should curse thee in his rage.</div> <div>First from the wound extract the dart</div> <div>That kills me with its deadly smart,</div> <div>E'en as the flushed impetuous tide</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >Eats through the river's yielding side.”</span></div> </div> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>I feared to draw the arrow out,</div> <div>And pondered thus in painful doubt:</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“Now tortured by the shaft he lies,</span></div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >But if I draw it forth he dies.”</span></div> <div>Helpless I stood, faint, sorely grieved:</div> <div>The hermit's son my thought perceived;</div> <div>As one o'ercome by direst pain</div> <div>He scarce had strength to speak again.</div> <div>With writhing limb and struggling breath,</div> <div>Nearer and ever nearer death</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >“My senses undisturbed remain,</span></div> <div>And fortitude has conquered pain:</div> <div>Now from one tear thy soul be freed.</div> <div>Thy hand has made a Bráhman bleed.</div> <div>Let not this pang thy bosom wring:</div> <div>No twice-born youth am I, O King,</div> <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page170"></span><SPAN name="Pg170" id="Pg170" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN> <div>For of a Vaiśya sire I came,</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >Who wedded with a Śúdra dame.”</span></div> </div> <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"> <div>These words the boy could scarcely say,</div> <div>As tortured by the shaft he lay,</div> <div>Twisting his helpless body round,</div> <div>Then trembling senseless on the ground.</div> <div>Then from his bleeding side I drew</div> <div>The rankling shaft that pierced him through.</div> <div>With death's last fear my face he eyed,</div> <div><span class="tei tei-q" >And, rich in store of penance, died.”</span></div> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />