{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry098.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry098.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry098.htm","text":"But in the monarch's palace, when\n Sped from the bower that lord of men,\n Up from the weeping women went\n A mighty wail and wild lament:\n 'Ah, he who ever freely did\n His duty ere his sire could bid,\n Our refuge and our sure defence,\n This day will go an exile hence,\n He on Kaus'aly\u00e1 loves to wait\n Most tender and affectionate,\n And as he treats his mother, thus\n From childhood has he treated us.\n On themes that sting he will not speak,\n And when reviled is calm and meek.\n He soothes the angry, heals offence:\n He goes to-day an exile hence.\n Our lord the king is most unwise,\n And looks on life with doting eyes,\n Who in his folly casts away\n The world's protection, hope, and stay.'\n \n \n Thus in their woe, like kine bereaved\n Of their young calves, \u00a01 the ladies grieved,\n \n \n \n And ever as they wept and wailed\n With keen reproach the king assailed.\n Their lamentation, mixed with tears,\n Smote with new grief the monarch's ears,\n Who, burnt with woe too great to bear,\n Fell on his couch and fainted there.\n \n \n Then R\u00e1ma, smitten with the pain\n His heaving heart could scarce restrain,\n Groaned like an elephant and strode\n With Lakshman to the queen's abode.\n A warder there, whose hoary eld\n In honour high by all was held,\n Guarding the mansion, sat before\n The portal, girt with many more.\n Swift to their feet the warders sprang,\n And loud the acclamation rang,\n Hail, R\u00e1ma! as to him they bent,\n Of victor chiefs pre\u00ebminent.\n One court he passed, and in the next\n Saw, masters of each Veda text,\n A crowd of Br\u00e1hmans, good and sage,\n Dear to the king for lore and age.\n To these he bowed his reverent head,\n Thence to the court beyond he sped.\n Old dames and tender girls, their care\n To keep the doors, were stationed there.\n And all, when R\u00e1ma came in view,\n Delighted to the chamber flew,\n To bear to Queen Kaus'aly\u00e1s ear\n The tidings that she loved to hear.\n The queen, on rites and prayer intent,\n In careful watoh the night had spent,\n And at the dawn, her son to aid,\n To Vishnu holy offerings made.\n Firm in her vows, serenely glad.\n In robes of spotless linen clad,\n As texts prescribe, with grace implored,\n Her offerings in the fire she poured.\n Within her splendid bower he came,\n And saw her feed the sacred flame\n There oil, and grain, and vases stood,\n With wreaths, and curds, and cates, and wood,\n And milk, and sesamum, and rice,\n The elements of sacrifice.\n She, worn and pale with many a fast\n And midnight hours in vigil past,\n In robes of purest white arrayed,\n To Lakshm\u00ed Queen drink-offerings paid.\n So long away, she flew to meet\n \u00a0\u00a0 The darling of her soul:\n So runs a mare with eager feet\n \u00a0\u00a0 To welcome back her foal.\n He with his firm support upheld\n \u00a0\u00a0 The queen, as near she drew,\n And, by maternal love impelled,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Her arms around him threw.\n Her hero son, her matchless boy\n \u00a0\u00a0 She kissed upon the head:\n She blessed him in her pride and joy\n \u00a0\u00a0 With tender words, and said:\n \n \n \"Be like thy royal sires of old,\n The nobly good, the lofty-souled!\n Their lengthened days and fame be thine,\n And virtue, as beseems thy line!\n The pious king, thy father, see\n True to his promise made to thee:\n That truth thy sire this day will show,\n And regent's power on thee bestow.\"\n \n \n She spoke. He took the proffered seat,\n And as she pressed her son to eat,\n Raised reverent bands, and, touched with shame,\n Made answer to the royal dame:\n \n \n \u00a0 \"Dear lady, thou hast yet to know\n That danger threats, and heavy woe:\n A grief that will with sore distress\n On S\u00edt\u00e1, thee, and Lakshman press.\n What need of seats have such as I?\n This day to Dandak wood I fly.\n The hour is come, a time, unmeet\n For silken couch and gilded seat.\n I must to lonely wilds repair,\n Abstain from flesh, and living there\n On roots, fruit, honey, hermit's food,\n Pass twice seven years in solitude.\n To Bharat's hand the king will yield\n The regent power I thought to wield,\n And me, a hermit, will he send\n My days in Dandak wood to spend.\"\n \n \n As when the woodman's axe has lopped\n A S'al branch in the grove, she dropped:\n So from the skies a Goddess falls\n Ejected from her radiant halls.\n \n \n When R\u00e1ma saw her lying low,\n Prostrate by too severe a blow,\n Around her form his arms he wound\n And raised her fainting from the ground.\n His hand upheld her like a mare\n Who feels her load too sore to bear,\n And sinks upon the way o'ertoiled,\n And all her limbs with dust are soiled.\n He soothed her in her wild distress\n With loving touch and soft caress.\n She, meet for highest fortune, eyed\n The hero watching by her side,\n And thus, while Lakshman bent to hear,\n Addressed her son with many a tear:\n \"If, R\u00e1ma, thou had ne'er been born\n My child to make thy mother mourn,\n Though reft of joy, a childless queen,\n Such woe as this I ne'er had seen.\n Though to the childless wife there clings\n One sorrow armed with keenest stings,\n 'No child have I: no child have I,'\n No second misery prompts the sigh.\n When long I sought, alas, in vain,\n My husband's love and bliss to gain,\n In R\u00e1ma all my hopes I set\n And dreamed I might be happy yet.\n I, of the consorts first and best,\n Must bear my rivals' taunt and jest,\n And brook, though better far than they,\n The soul distressing words they say.\n What woman can be doomed to pine\n In misery more sore than mine,\n Whose hopeless days must still be spent\n In grief that ends not and lament?\n They scorned me when my son was nigh;\n When he is banished I must die.\n Me, whom my husband never prized,\n Kaikey\u00ed's retinue despised\n With boundless insolence, though she\n Tops not in rank nor equals me.\n And they who do me service yet,\n Nor old allegiance quite forget,\n Whene'er they see Kaikey\u00ed's son,\n With silent lips my glances shun.\n How, O my darling, shall I brook\n Each menace of Kaikey\u00ed's look,\n And listen, in my low estate,\n To taunts of one so passionate?\n For seventeen years since thou wast born\n I sat and watched, ah me, forlorn!\n Hoping some blessed day to see\n Deliverance from my woes by thee.\n Now comes this endless grief and wrong,\n So dire I cannot bear it long,\n Sinking, with age and sorrow worn.\n Beneath my rivals' taunts and scorn.\n How shall I pass in dark distress\n My long lone days of wretchedness\n Without my R\u00e1ma's face, as bright\n As the full moon to cheer my sight?\n Alas, my cares thy steps to train,\n And fasts, and vows, and prayers are vain.\n Hard, hard, I ween, must be this heart\n To hear this blow nor burst apart,\n As some great river bank, when first\n The floods of Rain-time on it burst.\n \u00a0\u00a0 No, Fate that speeds not will not slay,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nor Yama's halls vouchsafe me room,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Or, like a lion's weeping prey,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Death now had borne me to my doom.\n \u00a0\u00a0 Hard is my heart and wrought of steel\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That breaks not with the crushing blow,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Or in the pangs this day I feel\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My lifeless frame had sunk below.\n \u00a0\u00a0 Death waits his hour, nor takes me now:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But this sad thought augments my pain,\n \u00a0\u00a0 That prayer and largess, fast and vow,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And Heavenward service are in vain.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ah me, ah me! with fruitless toil\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of rites austere a child I sought:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thus seed cast forth on barren soil\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Still lifeless lies and comes to naught.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If ever wretch by anguish grieved\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Before his hour to death had fled,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I mourning, like a cow bereaved,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Had been this day among the dead.\"\n \n \n116:1 The comparison may to a European reader seem a homely one. But Spenser likens an infuriate woman to a cow 'That is berobbed of her youngling dere.' Shakspeare also makes King Henry VI. compare himself to the calf's mother that 'Runs lowing up and down, Looking the way her harmless young one went.' 'Cows,' says De Quincey, 'are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young, when deprived of them, and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these gentle creatures.'","title":"Book II: Canto XX.: Kaus'aly\u00e1's Lament.","type":"page"}