She thought upon her lord and sighed,
And thus in gentle tones replied:
‘Beseems thee not, O King, to woo
A matron, to her husband true.
Thus vainly one might hope by sin
And evil deeds success to win.
Shall I, so highly born, disgrace
My husband’s house, my royal race?
Shall I, a true and loyal dame,
Defile my soul with deed of shame?’
Then on the king her back she turned,
And answered thus the prayer she spurned:
‘Turn, Rávan, turn thee from thy sin;
Seek virtue’s paths and walk therein.
To others dames be honour shown;
Protect them as thou wouldst thine own.
Taught by thyself, from wrong abstain
Which, wrought on thee, thy heart would pain. [1]
Beware: this lawless love of thine
Will ruin thee and all thy line;
And for thy sin, thy sin alone,
Will Lanká perish overthrown.
Dream not that wealth and power can sway
My heart from duty’s path to stray
Linked like the Day-God and his shine,
I am my lord’s and he is mine.
Repent thee of thine impious deed;
To Ráma’s side his consort lead.
Be wise; the hero’s friendship gain,
Nor perish in his fury slain.
Go, ask the God of Death to spare,
Or red bolt flashing through the air.
But look in vain for spell or charm
To stay my Ráma’s vengeful arm.
Thou, when the hero bends his bow,
Shalt hear the clang that heralds woe,
Loud as the clash when clouds are rent
And Indra’s bolt to earth is sent.
Then shall his furious shafts be sped,
Each like a snake with fiery head.
And in their flight shall hiss and flame
Marked with the mighty archer’s name. [2]
Then in the fiery deluge all
Thy giants round their king shall fall.’
[ p. 408 ]
Then anger swelled in Rávan’s breast,
Who fiercely thus the dame addressed:
‘Tis ever thus: in vain we sue
To woman, and her favour woo.
A lover’s humble words impel
Her wayward spirit to rebel.
The love of thee that fills my soul
Still keeps my anger in control.
As charioteers with bit and rein
The swerving of the steed restrain.
The love that rules me bids me spare
Thy forefeit life, O thou most fair.
For this, O Sítá, have I borne
The keen reproach, the bitter scorn,
And the fond love thou boastest yet
For that poor wandering anchoret;
Else had the words which thou hast said
Brought death upon thy guilty head.
Two months, fair dame, I grant thee still
To bend thee to thy lover’s will.
If when that respite time is fled
Thou still refuse to share my bed,
My cooks shall mince thy limbs with steel
And serve thee for my morning meal.’ [3]
The minstrel daughters of the skies
Looked on her woe with pitying eyes,
And sun-bright children of the Gods [4]
Consoled the queen with smiles and nods.
She saw, and with her heart at ease,
Addressed the fiend in words like these;
‘Hast thou no friend to love thee, none
In all this isle to bid thee shun
The ruin which thy crime will bring
On thee and thine, O impious King?
Who in all worlds save thee could woo
Me, Ráma’s consort pure and true,
As though he tempted with his love
Queen Sachí [5] on her throne above?
How canst thou hope, vile wretch, to fly
The vengeance that e’en now is nigh,
When thou hast dared, untouched by shame,
To press thy suit on Ráma’s dame?
Where woods are thick and grass is high
A lion and a hare may lie;
My Ráma is the lion, thou
Art the poor hare beneath the bough,
Thou railest at the lord of men.
But wilt not stand within his ken,
What! is that eye unstricken yet
Whose impious glance on me was set?
Still moves that tongue that would not spare
The wife of Das’aratha’s heir?’
Then, hissing like a furious snake,
The fiend again to Sítá spake:
‘Deaf to all prayers and threats art thou,
Devoted to thy senseless vow.
No longer respite will I give,
And thou this day shalt cease to live;
Now I, as sunlight kills the morn,
Will slay thee for thy scathe and scorn.’
The Rákshas guard was summoned: all
The monstrous crew obeyed the call,
And hastened to the king to take
The orders which he fiercely spake:
‘See that ye guard her well, and tame,
Like some wild thing, the stubborn dame,
Until her haughty boul be bent
By mingled threat and blandishment.’ 1b
The monsters heard: away he strode,
And passed within his queens’ abode.
Then round the helpless Sítá drew
With fiery eyes the hideous crew,
And thus assailed her, all and each,
With insult, taunt, and threatening speech:
‘What! can it be thou prizest not
This happy chance, this glorious lot,
To be the chosen wife of one
So strong and great, Pulastya’s son?
Pulastya—thus have sages told—
Is mid the Lords of Life [6] enrolled.
Lord Brahmá’s mind-born son was he,
Fourth of that glorious company.
Vis’ravas from Pulastya sprang,—
Through all the worlds his glory rang.
And of Vis’ravas, large-eyed dame!
Our king the mighty Rávan came.
His happy consort thou mayst be:
Scorn not the words we say to thee’
One awful demon, fiery-eyed,
Stood by the Maithil queen and cried:
‘Come and be his, if thou art wise.
Who smote the sovereign of the skies,
And made the thirty Gods and three, [7]
O’ercome in furious battle, flee.
[ p. 409 ]
Thy lover turns away with scorn
From wives whom grace and youth adorn.
Thou art his chosen consort, thou
Shall be his pride and darling now.”
Another, Vikatá by name,
In words like these addressed the dame:
The king whose blows, in fury dealt,
The Nágas [8] and Gandharvas [9] felt,
In battle’s fiercest brunt subdued,
Has stood by thee and humbly wooed.
And wilt thou in thy folly miss
The glory of a love like this?
Scared by his eye the sun grows chill,
The wanderer wind is hushed and still.
The rains at his command descend,
And trees with new-blown blossoms bend.
His word the hosts of demons fear.
And wilt thou, dame, refuse to hear?
Be counselled; with his will comply,
Or, lady, thou shalt surely die.’
Still with reproaches rough and rude
Those fiends the gentle queen pursued:
What! can so fair a life displease,
To dwell with him in joyous ease?
Dwell in his bowers a happy queen
In silk and gold and jewels’ sheen?
Still must thy woman fancy cling
To Ráma and reject our king?
Die in thy folly, or forget
That wretched wandering anchoret.
Come, Sita, in luxurious bowers
Spend with our lord thy happy hours;
The mighty lord who makes his own
The treasures of the worlds o’erthrown.’
Then, as a tear bedewed her eye,
The hapless lady made reply:
‘I loathe, with heart and soul detest
The shameful life your words suggest.
Eat, if you will, this mortal frame:
My soul rejects the sin and shame.
A homeless wanderer though he be,
In him my lord, my life I see,
And, till my earthly days be done,
Will cling to great Ikshváku’s son.
Then with fierce eyes on Sítá set
They cried again with taunt and threat:
Each licking with her fiery tongue
The lip that to her bosom hung,
And menacing the lady’s life
With axe, or spear or murderous knife:
‘Hear, Sítá, and our words obey.
Or perish by our hands to-day,
Thy love for Raghu’s son forsake,
And Rávan for thy husband take,
Or we will rend thy limbs apart
And banquet on thy quivering heart.
Now from her body strike the head,
And tell the king the dame is dead.
Then by our lord’s commandment she
A banquet for our band shall be.
Come, let the wine be quickly brought
That frees each heart from saddening thought.
Then to the western gate repair,
And we will dance and revel there.’
On the bare earth the lady sank,
And trembling from their presence shrank
Like a strayed fawn, when night is dark,
And hungry wolves around her bark.
[ p. 410 ]
Then to a shady tree she crept,
And thought upon her lord and wept.
By fear and bitter woe oppressed
She bathed the beauties of her breast
With her hot tears’ incessant flow,
And found no respite from her woe.
As shakes a plantain in the breeze
She shook, and fell on trembling knees;
While at each demon’s furious look
Her cheek its native hue forsook.
She lay and wept and made her moan
In sorrow’s saddest undertone,
And, wild with grief, with fear appalled,
On Ráma and his brother called:
‘O dear Kaus’alyá, 1 hear me cry!
Sweet Queen Sumitrá 2, list my sigh!
True is the saw the wise declare:
Death comes not to relieve despair.
‘Tis vain for dame or man to pray;
Death will not hear before his day;
Since I, from Ráma’s sight debarred,
And tortured by my cruel guard,
Still live in hopeless woe to grieve
And loathe the life I may not leave.
Here, like a poor deserted thing,
My limbs upon the ground I fling,
And, like a bark beneath the blast,
Shall sink oppressed with woes at last.
Ah, blest are they, supremely blest,
Whose eyes upon my lord may rest;
Who mark his lion, port, and hear
His gentle speech that charms the ear.
Alas, what antenatal crime,
What trespass of forgotten time
Waighs on my soul, and bids me bow
Beneath this load of misery now?’
‘I Ráma’s wife, on that sad day.
By Rávan’s arm was borne away,
Seized, while I sat and feared no ill,
By him who wears each form at will,
A helpless captive, left forlorn
To demons’ threats and taunts and scorn,
Here for my lord I weep and sigh,
And worn with woe would gladly die.
For what is life to me afar
From Ráma of the mighty car?
The robber in his fruitless sin
Would hope his captives love to win.
My meaner foot shall never touch
The demon whom I loathe so much.
The senseless fool! he knows me not,
Nor the proud soul his love would blot.
Yea, limb from limb will I be rent,
But never to his prayer consent;
Be burnt and perish in the fire,
But never meet his base desire.
My lord was grateful, true and wise,
And looked on woe with piting eyes;
But now, recoiling from the strife
He pities not his captive wife.
Alone in Janasthán he slew
The thousands of the Rákshas crew.
His arm was strong, his heart was brave,
Why comes he not to free and save?
Why blame my lord in vain surmise
He knows not where his lady lies.
O, if he knew, o’er land and sea
His feet were swift to set me free;
This Lanká, girdled by the deep.
Would fall consumed, a shapeless heap,
And from each ruined home would rise
A Rákshas widow’s groans and cries.’
Their threats unfeared, their counsel spurned,
The demons’ breasts with fury burned.
Some sought the giant king to bear
The tale of Sita’s fixt despair.
With threats and taunts renewed the rest
Around the weeping lady pressed.
But Trijatá, of softer mould,
A Rákshas matron wife and old,
With pity for the captive moved,
In words like these the fiends reproved:
“Me, me,’ she cried,'eat me, but spare
The spouse of Das’aratha’s heir
Last night I dreamt a dream; and still
The fear and awe my bosom chill;
For in that dream I saw foreshown,
Our race by Ráma’s hand o’erthrown.
I saw a chariot high in the air,
Of ivory exceeding fair.
A hundred steeds that chariot drew
As swiftly through the clouds it flew,
And, clothed in white, with wreaths that shone,
The sons of Raghu rode thereon,
I looked and saw this lady here,
Clad in the purest white, appear
High on the snow white hill whose feet
The angry waves of ocean beat.
And she and Ráma met at last
Like light and sun when night is past,
Again I saw them side by side.
On Rávan’s car they seemed to ride,
And with the princely Lakshman flee
To northern realms beyond the sea.
[ p. 411 ]
Then Rávan, shaved and shorn, besmeared
With oil from head to foot, appeared.
He quaffed, he raved: his robes were red:
Fierce was his eye, and bare his head.
I saw him from his chariot thrust;
I saw him rolling in the dust.
A woman came and dragged away
The stricken giant where he lay,
And on a car which asses drew
The monarch of our race she threw,
He rose erect, he danced and laughed,
With thirsty lips the oil he quaffed,
Then with wild eyes and streaming mouth
Sped on the chariot to the south. 1
Then, dropping oil from every limb,
His sons the princes followed him,
And Kumbhakarna, 2 shaved and shorn,
Was southward on a camel borne.
Then royal Lanká reeled and fell
With gate and tower and citadel,
This ancient city, far-renowned:
All life within her walls was drowned;
And the wild waves of ocean rolled
O’er Lanká and her streets of gold.
Warned by these signs I bid you fly;
Or by the hand of Ráma die,
Whose vengeance will not spare the life
Of one who vexed his faithful wife.
Your bitter taunts and threats forgo:
Comfort the lady in her woe,
And humbly pray her to forgive;
For so you may be spared and live,’
The Vánar watched concealed: each word
Of Sítá and the fiends he heard,
And in a maze of anxious thought
His quick-conceiving bosom wrought.
‘At length my watchful eyes have seen,
Pursued so long, the Maithil queen,
Sought by our Vánar hosts in vain
From east to west, from main to main,
A cautious spy have I explored
The palace of the Rákhshas lord,
And thoroughly learned, concealed from sight,
The giant monarch’s power and might.
And now my task must be to cheer
The royal dame who sorrows here.
For if I go, and sooth her not,
A captive in this distant spot,
She, when she finds no comfort nigh,
Will sink beneath her woes and die.
How shall my tale, if unconsoled
I leave her. be to Ráma told?
How shall I answer Raghu’s son,
‘No message from my darling, none!’
The husband’s wrath, to fury fanned,
Will scorch me lifeless where I stand,
Or if I urge my lord the king
To Lanká’s isle his hosts to bring,
In vain will be his zeal, in vain
The toil, the danger, and the pain.
Yea, this occasion must I seize
That from her guard the lady frees, [11]
To win her ear with soft address
And whisper hope in dire distress.
Shall I, a puny Vánar, choose
The Sanskrit men delight to use?
If. as a man of Bráhman kind,
I speak the tongue by rules refined.
The lady, yielding to her fears,
Will think 'tis Rávan’s voice she hears.
I must assume my only plan—
The language of a common [12] man.
Yet, if the lidy sees me nigh,
second passage, may perhaps be understood
not a language in which words different
from Sanskrit were used, but the employment
of formal and elaborate diction,
MUIR’S Sanskrit Texts, Part II. p. 166.}
[ p. 412 ]
In terror she will start and cry;
And all the demon band, alarmed,
Will come with various weapons armed.
With their wild shouts the grove will fill.
And strive to take me, or to kill.
And, at my death or capture, dies
The hope of Ráma’s enterprise.
For none can leap, save only me,
A hundred leagues across the sea.
It is a sin in me, I own,
To talk with Janak’s child alone.
Yet greater is the sin if I
Be silent, and the lady die.
First I will utter Ráma’s name.
And laud the hero’s gifts and fame.
Perchance the name she holds so dear
Will soothe the faithful lady’s fear.’
This charity is to embrace not human beings only, but bird and beast as well: “He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small”
407:1b Do unto others as thou wouldst they should do unto thee, is a precept frequently occurring in the old Indian poems. ↩︎
407:2b It was the custom of Indian warriors to mark their arrows with their ciphers or names, and it seems to have been regarded as a point of honour to give an enemy the satisfaction of knowing who had shot at him. This passage however contains, if my memory serves me well, the first mention in the poem of this practice, and as arrows have been so frequently mentioned and described with almost every conceivable epithet, its occurrence here seems suspicious. No mention of, or allusion to writing has hitherto occurred in the poem. ↩︎
408:1 This threat in the same words occurs in Book III. Canto LVI. ↩︎
408:2 Rávan carried off and kept in his palace not only earthly princesses but the daughters of Gods and Gandharvas. ↩︎
408:3 The wife of Indra. ↩︎
408:2b Prajápatis are the ten lords of created beings first created by Brahmá; somewhat like the Demiurgi of the Gnostics. ↩︎
408:3b “This is the number of the Vedic divinities mentioned in the Rig-veda. In p. 409 Ashtaka I. Súkta XXXIV. the Rishi Hiranyastúpa invoking the As’vins says: À Násatyá tribhirekádasair iha devebniryátam: ”O Násatyas (As’vins) come hither with the thrice eleven Gods,“ And in Súkta XLV. the Rishi Praskanva addressing his hymn to Agni (ignis, fire), thus invokes him: ”Lord of the red steeds, propitiated by our prayers lead hither the thirty-three Gods.“ This number must certainly have been the actual number in the early days of the Vedic religion: although it appears probable enough that the thirty-three Vedic divinities could not then be found co-ordinated in so systematic a way as they were arranged more recently by the authors of the Upanishads. In the later ages of Bramanism the number went on increasing without measure by successive mythical and religious creations which peopled the Indian Olympus with abstract beings of every kind. But through lasting veneration of the word of tha Veda the custom regained of giving the name of ”the thirty-three Gods“ to the immense phalanx of the multiplied deities.” GORRESIO. ↩︎
409:1 Serpent-Gods who dwell in the regions under the earth. ↩︎
409:2 In the mythology of the epics the Gandharvas are the heavenly singers or musicians who form the orchestra at the banquets of the Gods, and they belong to the heaven of India in whose battles they share. ↩︎
411:3 I omit the 28th and 29th Cantos as an unmistakeable interpolation. Instead of advancing the story it goes back to Canto XVII. containing a lamentation of Sítá after Rávan has left her, and describes the the auspicious signs sent to cheer her, the throbbing of her left eye, arm, and side. The Canto is found in the Bengal recension. Gorresio translates it. and observes: "I think that Chapter XXVIII.—The Auspicious Signs—is an addition, a later interpolation by the Rhapsodists. It has no bond of connexion either with what precedes or follows it, and may be struck out not only without injury to, but positively to the advantage of the poem. The metre in which this chapter is written differs from that which is generally adopted in the course of the poem.’ ↩︎
411:1b The guards are still in the grove, but they are asleep; and Sítá has crept to a tree at some distance from them. ↩︎
411:2b "As the reason assigned in these passages for not addressing Sítá in Sanskrit such as a Bráhman would use is not that she would not understand it, but that it would alarm her and be unsuitable to the speaker, we must take them as indicating that Sanskrit, if not spoken by women of the upper classes at the time when the Rámáyana was written (whenever that may have been), was at least understood by them, and was commonly spoken by men of the priestly class, and other educated persons, By the Sanskrit proper to p. 412 an [ordinary ↩︎