The Sanskrit Epics

by Delphi Classics

  In woods with honey redolent.

  In forest shades thy mighty arm

  Would keep a stranger’s life from harm,

  And how shall Sítá think of fear

  When thou, O glorious lord, art near?

  Heir of high bliss, my choice is made,

  Nor can I from my will be stayed.

  Doubt not; the earth will yield me roots,

  These will I eat, and woodland fruits;

  And as with thee I wander there

  I will not bring thee grief or care.

  I long, when thou, wise lord, art nigh,

  All fearless, with delighted eye

  To gaze upon the rocky hill,

  The lake, the fountain, and the rill;

  To sport with thee, my limbs to cool,

  In some pure lily-covered pool,

  While the white swan’s and mallard’s wings

  Are plashing in the water-springs.

  So would a thousand seasons flee

  Like one sweet day, if spent with thee.

  Without my lord I would not prize

  A home with Gods above the skies:

  Without my lord, my life to bless,

  Where could be heaven or happiness?

  Forbid me not: with thee I go

  The tangled wood to tread.

  There will I live with thee, as though

  This roof were o’er my head.

  My will for thine shall be resigned;

  Thy feet my steps shall guide.

  Thou, only thou, art in my mind:

  I heed not all beside.

  Thy heart shall ne’er by me be grieved;

  Do not my prayer deny:

  Take me, dear lord; of thee bereaved

  Thy Sítá swears to die.”

  These words the duteous lady spake,

  Nor would he yet consent

  His faithful wife with him to take

  To share his banishment.

  He soothed her with his gentle speech;

  To change her will he strove;

  And much he said the woes to teach

  Of those in wilds who rove.

  Canto XXVIII. The Dangers Of The Wood.

  THUS SÍTÁ SPAKE, and he who knew

  His duty, to its orders true,

  Was still reluctant as the woes

  Of forest life before him rose.

  He sought to soothe her grief, to dry

  The torrent from each brimming eye,

  And then, her firm resolve to shake,

  These words the pious hero spake:

  “O daughter of a noble line,

  Whose steps from virtue ne’er decline,

  Remain, thy duties here pursue,

  As my fond heart would have thee do.

  Now hear me, Sítá, fair and weak,

  And do the words that I shall speak.

  Attend and hear while I explain

  Each danger in the wood, each pain.

  Thy lips have spoken: I condemn

  The foolish words that fell from them.

  This senseless plan, this wish of thine

  To live a forest life, resign.

  The names of trouble and distress

  Suit well the tangled wilderness.

  In the wild wood no joy I know,

  A forest life is nought but woe.

  The lion in his mountain cave

  Answers the torrents as they rave,

  And forth his voice of terror throws:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  There mighty monsters fearless play,

  And in their maddened onset slay

  The hapless wretch who near them goes:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  ’Tis hard to ford each treacherous flood,

  So thick with crocodiles and mud,

  Where the wild elephants repose:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  Or far from streams the wanderer strays

  Through thorns and creeper-tangled ways,

  While round him many a wild-cock crows:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  On the cold ground upon a heap

  Of gathered leaves condemned to sleep,

  Toil-wearied, will his eyelids close:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  Long days and nights must he content

  His soul with scanty aliment,

  What fruit the wind from branches blows:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  O Sítá, while his strength may last,

  The ascetic in the wood must fast,

  Coil on his head his matted hair,

  And bark must be his only wear.

  To Gods and spirits day by day

  The ordered worship he must pay,

  And honour with respectful care

  Each wandering guest who meets him there.

  The bathing rites he ne’er must shun

  At dawn, at noon, at set of sun,

  Obedient to the law he knows:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  To grace the altar must be brought

  The gift of flowers his hands have sought —

  The debt each pious hermit owes:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  The devotee must be content

  To live, severely abstinent,

  On what the chance of fortune shows:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  Hunger afflicts him evermore:

  The nights are black, the wild winds roar;

  And there are dangers worse than those:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  There creeping things in every form

  Infest the earth, the serpents swarm,

  And each proud eye with fury glows:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  The snakes that by the rives hide

  In sinuous course like rivers glide,

  And line the path with deadly foes:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  Scorpions, and grasshoppers, and flies

  Disturb the wanderer as he lies,

  And wake him from his troubled doze:

  The wood, my love, is full of woes.

  Trees, thorny bushes, intertwined,

  Their branched ends together bind,

  And dense with grass the thicket grows:

  The wood, my dear, is full of woes,

  With many ills the flesh is tried,

  When these and countless fears beside

  Vex those who in the wood remain:

  The wilds are naught but grief and pain.

  Hope, anger must be cast aside,

  To penance every thought applied:

  No fear must be of things to fear:

  Hence is the wood for ever drear.

  Enough, my love: thy purpose quit:

  For forest life thou art not fit.

  As thus I think on all, I see

  The wild wood is no place for thee.”

  Canto XXIX. Sítá’s Appeal.

  THUS RÁMA SPAKE. Her lord’s address

  The lady heard with deep distress,

  And, as the tear bedimmed her eye,

  In soft low accents made reply:

  “The perils of the wood, and all

  The woes thou countest to appal,

  Led by my love I deem not pain;

  Each woe a charm, each loss a gain.

  Tiger, and elephant, and deer,

  Bull, lion, buffalo, in fear,

  Soon as thy matchless form they see,

  With every silvan beast will flee.

  With thee, O Ráma, I must go:

  My sire’s command ordains it so.

  Bereft of thee, my lonely heart

  Must break, and life and I must part.

  While thou, O mighty lord, art nigh,

  Not even He who rules the sky,

  Though He is strongest of the strong,

  With all his
might can do me wrong.

  Nor can a lonely woman left

  By her dear husband live bereft.

  In my great love, my lord, I ween,

  The truth of this thou mayst have seen.

  In my sire’s palace long ago

  I heard the chief of those who know,

  The truth-declaring Bráhmans, tell

  My fortune, in the wood to dwell.

  I heard their promise who divine

  The future by each mark and sign,

  And from that hour have longed to lead

  The forest life their lips decreed.

  Now, mighty Ráma, I must share

  Thy father’s doom which sends thee there;

  In this I will not be denied,

  But follow, love, where thou shalt guide.

  O husband, I will go with thee,

  Obedient to that high decree.

  Now let the Bráhmans’ words be true,

  For this the time they had in view.

  I know full well the wood has woes;

  But they disturb the lives of those

  Who in the forest dwell, nor hold

  Their rebel senses well controlled.

  In my sire’s halls, ere I was wed,

  I heard a dame who begged her bread

  Before my mother’s face relate

  What griefs a forest life await.

  And many a time in sport I prayed

  To seek with thee the greenwood shade,

  For O, my heart on this is set,

  To follow thee, dear anchoret.

  May blessings on thy life attend:

  I long with thee my steps to bend,

  For with such hero as thou art

  This pilgrimage enchants my heart.

  Still close, my lord, to thy dear side

  My spirit will be purified:

  Love from all sin my soul will free:

  My husband is a God to me.

  So, love, with thee shall I have bliss

  And share the life that follows this.

  I heard a Bráhman, dear to fame,

  This ancient Scripture text proclaim:

  “The woman whom on earth below

  Her parents on a man bestow,

  And lawfully their hands unite

  With water and each holy rite,

  She in this world shall be his wife,

  His also in the after life.”

  Then tell me, O beloved, why

  Thou wilt this earnest prayer deny,

  Nor take me with thee to the wood,

  Thine own dear wife so true and good.

  But if thou wilt not take me there

  Thus grieving in my wild despair,

  To fire or water I will fly,

  Or to the poisoned draught, and die.”

  So thus to share his exile, she

  Besought him with each earnest plea,

  Nor could she yet her lord persuade

  To take her to the lonely shade.

  The answer of the strong-armed chief

  Smote the Videhan’s soul with grief,

  And from her eyes the torrents came

  bathing the bosom of the dame.

  Canto XXX. The Triumph Of Love.

  THE DAUGHTER OF Videha’s king,

  While Ráma strove to soothe the sting

  Of her deep anguish, thus began

  Once more in furtherance of her plan:

  And with her spirit sorely tried

  By fear and anger, love and pride,

  With keenly taunting words addressed

  Her hero of the stately breast:

  “Why did the king my sire, who reigns

  O’er fair Videha’s wide domains,

  Hail Ráma son with joy unwise,

  A woman in a man’s disguise?

  Now falsely would the people say,

  By idle fancies led astray,

  That Ráma’s own are power and might,

  As glorious as the Lord of Light.

  Why sinkest thou in such dismay?

  What fears upon thy spirit weigh,

  That thou, O Ráma, fain wouldst flee

  From her who thinks of naught but thee?

  To thy dear will am I resigned

  In heart and body, soul and mind,

  As Sávitrí gave all to one,

  Satyaván, Dyumatsena’s son.304

  Not e’en in fancy can I brook

  To any guard save thee to look:

  Let meaner wives their houses shame,

  To go with thee is all my claim.

  Like some low actor, deemst thou fit

  Thy wife to others to commit —

  Thine own, espoused in maiden youth,

  Thy wife so long, unblamed for truth?

  Do thou, my lord, his will obey

  For whom thou losest royal sway,

  To whom thou wouldst thy wife confide —

  Not me, but thee, his wish may guide.

  Thou must not here thy wife forsake,

  And to the wood thy journey make,

  Whether stern penance, grief, and care,

  Or rule or heaven await thee there.

  Nor shall fatigue my limbs distress

  When wandering in the wilderness:

  Each path which near to thee I tread

  Shall seem a soft luxurious bed.

  The reeds, the bushes where I pass,

  The thorny trees, the tangled grass

  Shall feel, if only thou be near,

  Soft to my touch as skins of deer.

  When the rude wind in fury blows,

  And scattered dust upon me throws,

  That dust, beloved lord, to me

  Shall as the precious sandal be.

  And what shall be more blest than I,

  When gazing on the wood I lie

  In some green glade upon a bed

  With sacred grass beneath us spread?

  The root, the leaf, the fruit which thou

  Shalt give me from the earth or bough,

  Scanty or plentiful, to eat,

  Shall taste to me as Amrit sweet.

  As there I live on flowers and roots

  And every season’s kindly fruits,

  I will not for my mother grieve,

  My sire, my home, or all I leave.

  My presence, love, shall never add

  One pain to make the heart more sad;

  I will not cause thee grief or care,

  Nor be a burden hard to bear.

  With thee is heaven, where’er the spot;

  Each place is hell where thou art not.

  Then go with me, O Ráma; this

  Is all my hope and all my bliss.

  If thou wilt leave thy wife who still

  Entreats thee with undaunted will,

  This very day shall poison close

  The life that spurns the rule of foes.

  How, after, can my soul sustain

  The bitter life of endless pain,

  When thy dear face, my lord, I miss?

  No, death is better far than this.

  Not for an hour could I endure

  The deadly grief that knows not cure,

  Far less a woe I could not shun

  For ten long years, and three, and one.”

  While fires of woe consumed her, such

  Her sad appeal, lamenting much;

  Then with a wild cry, anguish-wrung,

  About her husband’s neck she clung.

  Like some she-elephant who bleeds

  Struck by the hunter’s venomed reeds,

  So in her quivering heart she felt

  The many wounds his speeches dealt.

  Then, as the spark from wood is gained,305

  Down rolled the tear so long restrained:

  The crystal moisture, sprung from woe,

  From her sweet eyes began to flow,

  As runs the water from a pair

  Of lotuses divinely fair.

  And Sítá’s face with long dark eyes,

  P
ure as the moon of autumn skies,

  Faded with weeping, as the buds

  Of lotuses when sink the floods.

  Around his wife his arms he strained,

  Who senseless from her woe remained,

  And with sweet words, that bade her wake

  To life again, the hero spake:

  “I would not with thy woe, my Queen,

  Buy heaven and all its blissful sheen.

  Void of all fear am I as He,

  The self-existent God, can be.

  I knew not all thy heart till now,

  Dear lady of the lovely brow,

  So wished not thee in woods to dwell;

  Yet there mine arm can guard thee well.

  Now surely thou, dear love, wast made

  To dwell with me in green wood shade.

  And, as a high saint’s tender mind

  Clings to its love for all mankind,

  So I to thee will ever cling,

  Sweet daughter of Videha’s king.

  The good, of old, O soft of frame,

  Honoured this duty’s sovereign claim,

  And I its guidance will not shun,

  True as light’s Queen is to the Sun.

  I cannot, pride of Janak’s line,

  This journey to the wood decline:

  My sire’s behest, the oath he sware,

  The claims of truth, all lead me there.

  One duty, dear the same for aye,

  Is sire and mother to obey:

  Should I their orders once transgress

  My very life were weariness.

  If glad obedience be denied

  To father, mother, holy guide,

  What rites, what service can be done

  That stern Fate’s favour may be won?

  These three the triple world comprise,

  O darling of the lovely eyes.

  Earth has no holy thing like these

  Whom with all love men seek to please.

  Not truth, or gift, or bended knee,

  Not honour, worship, lordly fee,

  Storms heaven and wins a blessing thence

  Like sonly love and reverence.

  Heaven, riches, grain, and varied lore,

  With sons and many a blessing more,

  All these are made their own with ease

  By those their elders’ souls who please.

  The mighty-souled, who ne’er forget,

  Devoted sons, their filial debt,

  Win worlds where Gods and minstrels are,

  And Brahmá’s sphere more glorious far.

  Now as the orders of my sire,

  Who keeps the way of truth, require,

  So will I do, for such the way

  Of duty that endures for aye:

  To take thee, love, to Daṇḍak’s wild

  My heart at length is reconciled,

  For thee such earnest thoughts impel

  To follow, and with me to dwell.

  O faultless form from feet to brows,