{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry208.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry208.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry208.htm","text":"The words that S\u00edt\u00e1 uttered, spurred\n By truest love, the hero heard:\n Then he who ne'er from virtue strayed\n To Janak's child his answer made:\n 'In thy wise speech, sweet love, I find\n True impress of thy gentle mind,\n Well skilled the warrior's path to trace,\n Thou pride of Janak's ancient race.\n What fitting answer shall I frame\n To thy good words, my honoured dame?\n Thou sayst the warrior bears the bow\n That misery's tears may cease to flow;\n And those pure saints who love the shade\n Of Dandak wood are sore dismayed.\n They sought me of their own accord,\n With suppliant prayers my aid implored:\n They, fed on roots and fruit, who spend\n Their lives where bosky wilds extend,\n My timid love, enjoy no rest\n By these malignant fiends distressed.\n These make the flesh of man their meat:\n The helpless saints they kill and eat.\n The hermits sought my side, the chief\n Of Brahman race declared their grief.\n I heard, and from my lips there fell\n The words which thou rememberest well:\n I listened as the hermits cried,\n And to their prayers I thus replied:\n \u00a0\u00a0 'Your favour, gracious lords, I claim,\n O'erwhelmed with this enormous shame\n That Br\u00e1hmans, great and pure as you,\n Who should be sought, to me should sue.'\n And then before the saintly crowd,\n 'What can I do?' I cried aloud.\n Then from the trembling hermits broke\n One long sad cry, and thus they spoke:\n 'Fiends of the wood, who wear at will\n Each varied shape, afflict us still.\n To thee in our distress we fly:\n O help us, R\u00e1ma, or we die.\n When sacred rites of fire are due,\n When changing moons are full or new,\n These fiends who bleeding flesh devour\n Assail us with resistless power.\n They with their cruel might torment\n The hermits on their vows intent:\n We look around for help and see\n Our surest refuge, Prince, in thee.\n We, armed with powers of penance, might\n Destroy the rovers of the night:\n But loth were we to bring to naught\n The merit years of toil have bought.\n Our penance rites are grown too hard,\n By many a check and trouble barred,\n But though our saints for food are slain\n The withering curse we yet restrain.\n \n \n Thus many a weary day distressed\n By giants who this wood infest,\n We see at length deliverance, thou\n With Lakshman art our guardian now.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 As thus the troubled hermits prayed,\n I promised, dame, my ready aid,\n And now--for truth I hold most dear--\n Still to my word must I adhere.\n My love, I might endure to be\n Deprived of Lakshman, life, and thee,\n But ne'er deny my promise, ne'er\n To Br\u00e1hmans break the oath I sware.\n I must, enforced by high constraint,\n Protect them all. Each suffering saint\n In me, unasked, his help had found;\n Still more in one by promise bound.\n I know thy words, mine own dear dame,\n From thy sweet heart's affection came:\n I thank thee for thy gentle speech,\n For those we love are those we teach.\n 'Tis like thyself, O fair of face,\n 'Tis worthy of thy noble race:\n Dearer than life, thy feet are set\n In righteous paths they ne'er forget.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus to the Maithil monarch's child,\n His own dear wife, in accents mild\n \u00a0\u00a0 The high-souled hero said:\n Then to the holy groves which lay\n Beyond them fair to see, their way\n \u00a0\u00a0 The bow-armed chieftain led.","title":"BOOK III: Canto X.: R\u00e1ma's Reply.","type":"page"}