The Sanskrit Epics

by Delphi Classics

  But let thy tears in torrent flow,

  And lie enamoured of thy woe.

  Well do I know thou long hast been,

  And ever art, his darling queen.

  For thy dear sake, O well-loved dame,

  The mighty king would brave the flame,

  But ne’er would anger thee, or brook

  To meet his favourite’s wrathful look.

  Thy loving lord would even die

  Thy fancy, Queen, to gratify,

  And never could he arm his breast

  To answer nay to thy request.

  Listen and learn, O dull of sense,

  Thine all-resistless influence.

  Gems he will offer, pearls and gold:

  Refuse his gifts, be stern and cold.

  Those proffered boons at length recall,

  And claim them till he grants thee all.

  And O my lady, high in bliss,

  With heedful thought forget not this.

  When from the ground his queen he lifts

  And grants again the promised gifts,

  Bind him with oaths he cannot break

  And thy demands unflnching, make.

  That Ráma travel to the wild

  Five years and nine from home exiled,

  And Bharat, best of all who reign,

  The empire of the land obtain.

  For when this term of years has fled

  Over the banished Ráma’s head,

  Thy royal son to vigour grown

  And rooted firm will stand alone.

  The king, I know, is well inclined,

  And this the hour to move his mind.

  Be bold: the threatened rite prevent,

  And force the king from his intent.”

  She ceased. So counselled to her bane

  Disguised beneath a show of gain,

  Kaikeyí in her joy and pride

  To Manthará again replied:

  “Thy sense I envy, prudent maid;

  With sagest lore thy lids persuade.

  No hump-back maid in all the earth,

  For wise resolve, can match thy worth.

  Thou art alone with constant zeal

  Devoted to thy lady’s weal.

  Dear girl, without thy faithful aid

  I had not marked the plot he laid.

  Full of all guile and sin and spite

  Misshapen hump-backs shock the sight:

  But thou art fair and formed to please,

  Bent like a lily by the breeze.

  I look thee o’er with watchful eye,

  And in thy frame no fault can spy;

  The chest so deep, the waist so trim,

  So round the lines of breast and limb.271

  Thy cheeks with moonlike beauty shine,

  And the warm wealth of youth is thine.

  Thy legs, my girl, are long and neat,

  And somewhat long thy dainty feet,

  While stepping out before my face

  Thou seemest like a crane to pace.

  The thousand wiles are in thy breast

  Which Śambara the fiend possessed,

  And countless others all thine own,

  O damsel sage, to thee are known.

  Thy very hump becomes thee too,

  O thou whose face is fair to view,

  For there reside in endless store

  Plots, wizard wiles, and warrior lore.

  A golden chain I’ll round it fling

  When Ráma’s flight makes Bharat king:

  Yea, polished links of finest gold,

  When once the wished for prize I hold

  With naught to fear and none to hate,

  Thy hump, dear maid, shall decorate.

  A golden frontlet wrought with care,

  And precious jewels shalt thou wear:

  Two lovely robes around thee fold,

  And walk a Goddess to behold,

  Bidding the moon himself compare

  His beauty with a face so fair.

  With scent of precious sandal sweet

  Down to the nails upon thy feet,

  First of the household thou shalt go

  And pay with scorn each battled foe.”

  Kaikeyí’s praise the damsel heard,

  And thus again her lady stirred,

  Who lay upon her beauteous bed

  Like fire upon the altar fed:

  “Dear Queen, they build the bridge in vain

  When swollen streams are dry again.

  Arise, thy glorious task complete,

  And draw the king to thy retreat.”

  The large-eyed lady left her bower

  Exulting in her pride of power,

  And with the hump-back sought the gloom

  And silence of the mourner’s room.

  The string of priceless pearls that hung

  Around her neck to earth she flung,

  With all the wealth and lustre lent

  By precious gem and ornament.

  Then, listening to her slave’s advice,

  Lay, like a nymph from Paradise.

  As on the ground her limbs she laid

  Once more she cried unto the maid:

  “Soon must thou to the monarch say

  Kaikeyí’s soul has past away,

  Or, Ráma banished as we planned,

  My son made king shall rule the land.

  No more for gold and gems I care,

  For brave attire or dainty fare.

  If Ráma should the throne ascend,

  That very hour my life will end.”

  The royal lady wounded through

  The bosom with the darts that flew

  Launched from the hump-back’s tongue

  Pressed both her hands upon her side,

  And o’er and o’er again she cried

  With wildering fury stung:

  “Yes, it shall be thy task to tell

  That I have hurried hence to dwell

  In Yáma’s realms of woe,

  Or happy Bharat shall be king,

  And doomed to years of wandering

  Kauśalyá’s son shall go.

  I heed not dainty viands now

  Fair wreaths of flowers to twine my brow,

  Soft balm or precious scent:

  My very life I count as naught,

  Nothing on earth can claim my thought

  But Ráma’s banishment.”

  She spoke these words of cruel ire;

  Then stripping off her gay attire,

  The cold bare floor she pressed.

  So, falling from her home on high,

  Some lovely daughter of the sky

  Upon the ground might rest.

  With darkened brow and furious mien,

  Stripped of her gems and wreath, the queen

  In spotless beauty lay,

  Like heaven obscured with gathering cloud,

  When shades of midnight darkness shroud

  Each star’s expiring ray.

  Canto X. Dasaratha’s Speech.

  AS QUEEN KAIKEYÍ thus obeyed

  The sinful counsel of her maid

  She sank upon the chamber floor,

  As sinks in anguish, wounded sore,

  An elephant beneath the smart

  Of the wild hunter’s venomed dart.

  The lovely lady in her mind

  Revolved the plot her maid designed,

  And prompt the gain and risk to scan

  She step by step approved the plan.

  Misguided by the hump-back’s guile

  She pondered her resolve awhile,

  As the fair path that bliss secured

  The miserable lady lured,

  Devoted to her queen, and swayed

  By hopes of gain and bliss, the maid

  Rejoiced, her lady’s purpose known,

  And deemed the prize she sought her own.

  Then bent upon her purpose dire,

  Kaikeyí with her soul on fire,

  Upon the floor lay, languid, down,

  Her brows
contracted in a frown.

  The bright-hued wreath that bound her hair,

  Chains, necklets, jewels rich and rare,

  Stripped off by her own fingers lay

  Spread on the ground in disarray,

  And to the floor a lustre lent

  As stars light up the firmament.

  Thus prostrate in the mourner’s cell,

  In garb of woe the lady fell,

  Her long hair in a single braid,

  Like some fair nymph of heaven dismayed.272

  The monarch, Ráma to install,

  With thoughtful care had ordered all,

  And now within his home withdrew,

  Dismissing first his retinue.

  Now all the town has heard, thought he,

  What joyful rite the morn will see.

  So turned he to her bower to cheer

  With the glad news his darling’s ear.

  Majestic, as the Lord of Night,

  When threatened by the Dragon’s might,

  Bursts radiant on the evening sky

  Pale with the clouds that wander by,

  So Daśaratha, great in fame,

  To Queen Kaikeyí’s palace came.

  There parrots flew from tree to tree,

  And gorgeous peacocks wandered free,

  While ever and anon was heard

  The note of some glad water-bird.

  Here loitered dwarf and hump-backed maid,

  There lute and lyre sweet music played.

  Here, rich in blossom, creepers twined

  O’er grots with wondrous art designed,

  There Champac and Aśoka flowers

  Hung glorious o’er the summer bowers,

  And mid the waving verdure rose

  Gold, silver, ivory porticoes.

  Through all the months in ceaseless store

  The trees both fruit and blossom bore.

  With many a lake the grounds were graced;

  Seats gold and silver, here were placed;

  Here every viand wooed the taste,

  It was a garden meet to vie

  E’en with the home of Gods on high.

  Within the mansion rich and vast

  The mighty Daśaratha passed:

  Not there was his beloved queen

  On her fair couch reclining seen.

  With love his eager pulses beat

  For the dear wife he came to meet,

  And in his blissful hopes deceived,

  He sought his absent love and grieved.

  For never had she missed the hour

  Of meeting in her sumptuous bower,

  And never had the king of men

  Entered the empty room till then.

  Still urged by love and anxious thought

  News of his favourite queen he sought,

  For never had his loving eyes

  Found her or selfish or unwise.

  Then spoke at length the warder maid,

  With hands upraised and sore afraid:

  “My Lord and King, the queen has sought

  The mourner’s cell with rage distraught.”

  The words the warder maiden said

  He heard with soul disquieted,

  And thus as fiercer grief assailed,

  His troubled senses wellnigh failed.

  Consumed by torturing fires of grief

  The king, the world’s imperial chief,

  His lady lying on the ground

  In most unqueenly posture, found.

  The aged king, all pure within,

  Saw the young queen resolved on sin,

  Low on the ground, his own sweet wife,

  To him far dearer than his life,

  Like some fair creeping plant uptorn,

  Or like a maid of heaven forlorn,

  A nymph of air or Goddess sent

  From Swarga down in banishment.

  As some wild elephant who tries

  To soothe his consort as she lies

  Struck by the hunter’s venomed dart,

  So the great king disturbed in heart,

  Strove with soft hand and fond caress

  To soothe his darling queen’s distress,

  And in his love addressed with sighs

  The lady of the lotus eyes:

  “I know not, Queen, why thou shouldst be

  Thus angered to the heart with me.

  Say, who has slighted thee, or whence

  Has come the cause of such offence

  That in the dust thou liest low,

  And rendest my fond heart with woe,

  As if some goblin of the night

  Had struck thee with a deadly blight,

  And cast foul influence on her

  Whose spells my loving bosom stir?

  I have Physicians famed for skill,

  Each trained to cure some special ill:

  My sweetest lady, tell thy pain,

  And they shall make thee well again.

  Whom, darling, wouldst thou punished see?

  Or whom enriched with lordly fee?

  Weep not, my lovely Queen, and stay

  This grief that wears thy frame away;

  Speak, and the guilty shall be freed.

  The guiltless be condemned to bleed,

  The poor enriched, the rich abased,

  The low set high, the proud disgraced.

  My lords and I thy will obey,

  All slaves who own thy sovereign sway;

  And I can ne’er my heart incline

  To check in aught one wish of thine.

  Now by my life I pray thee tell

  The thoughts that in thy bosom dwell.

  The power and might thou knowest well,

  Should from thy breast all doubt expel.

  I swear by all my merit won,

  Speak, and thy pleasure shall be done.

  Far as the world’s wide bounds extend

  My glorious empire knows no end.

  Mine are the tribes in eastern lands,

  And those who dwell on Sindhu’s sands:

  Mine is Suráshṭra, far away,

  Suvíra’s realm admits my sway.

  My best the southern nations fear,

  The Angas and the Vangas hear.

  And as lord paramount I reign

  O’er Magadh and the Matsyas’ plain,

  Kośal, and Káśi’s wide domain:273

  All rich in treasures of the mine,

  In golden corn, sheep, goats, and kine.

  Choose what thou wilt. Kaikeyí, thence:

  But tell me, O my darling, whence

  Arose thy grief, and it shall fly

  Like hoar-frost when the sun is high.”

  She, by his loving words consoled,

  Longed her dire purpose to unfold,

  And sought with sharper pangs to wring

  The bosom of her lord the king.

  Canto XI. The Queen’s Demand.

  TO HIM ENTHRALLED by love, and blind,

  Pierced by his darts who shakes the mind,274

  Kaikeyí with remorseless breast

  Her grand purpose thus expressed:

  “O King, no insult or neglect

  Have I endured, or disrespect.

  One wish I have, and faith would see

  That longing granted, lord, by thee.

  Now pledge thy word if thou incline

  To listen to this prayer of mine,

  Then I with confidence will speak,

  And thou shalt hear the boon I seek.”

  Ere she had ceased, the monarch fell,

  A victim to the lady’s spell,

  And to the deadly snare she set

  Sprang, like a roebuck to the net.

  Her lover raised her drooping head,

  Smiled, playing with her hair, and said:

  “Hast thou not learnt, wild dame, till now

  That there is none so dear as thou

  To me thy loving husband, save

  My Ráma bravest of the brave?

  By him my race�
�s high-souled heir,

  By him whom none can match, I swear,

  Now speak the wish that on thee weighs:

  By him whose right is length of days,

  Whom if my fond paternal eye

  Saw not one hour I needs must die, —

  I swear by Ráma my dear son,

  Speak, and thy bidding shall be done.

  Speak, darling; if thou choose, request

  To have the heart from out my breast;

  Regard my words, sweet love, and name

  The wish thy mind thinks fit to frame.

  Nor let thy soul give way to doubt:

  My power should drive suspicion out.

  Yea, by my merits won I swear,

  Speak, darling, I will grant thy prayer.”

  The queen, ambitious, overjoyed

  To see him by her plot decoyed,

  More eager still her aims to reach,

  Spoke her abominable speech:

  “A boon thou grantest, nothing loth,

  And swearest with repeated oath.

  Now let the thirty Gods and three

  My witnesses, with Indra, be.

  Let sun and moon and planets hear,

  Heaven, quarters, day and night, give ear.

  The mighty world, the earth outspread,

  With bards of heaven and demons dread;

  The ghosts that walk in midnight shade,

  And household Gods, our present aid,

  A every being great and small

  To hear and mark the oath I call.”

  When thus the archer king was bound,

  With treacherous arts and oaths enwound,

  She to her bounteous lord subdued

  By blinding love, her speech renewed:

  “Remember, King, that long-past day

  Of Gods’ and demons’ battle fray.

  And how thy foe in doubtful strife

  Had nigh bereft thee of thy life.

  Remember, it was only I

  Preserved thee when about to die,

  And thou for watchful love and care

  Wouldst grant my first and second prayer.

  Those offered boons, pledged with thee then,

  I now demand, O King of men,

  Of thee, O Monarch, good and just,

  Whose righteous soul observes each trust.

  If thou refuse thy promise sworn,

  I die, despised, before the morn.

  These rites in Ráma’s name begun —

  Transfer them, and enthrone my son.

  The time is come to claim at last

  The double boon of days long-past,

  When Gods and demons met in fight,

  And thou wouldst fain my care requite.

  Now forth to Daṇḍak’s forest drive

  Thy Ráma for nine years and five,

  And let him dwell a hermit there

  With deerskin coat and matted hair.

  Without a rival let my boy

  The empire of the land enjoy,