{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry231.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry231.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry231.htm","text":"Burning with anger, in the ring\n Of counsellors who girt their king,\n To R\u00e1van, ravener of man,\n With bitter words she thus began:\n \n \n 'Wilt thou absorbed in pleasure, still\n Pursue unchecked thy selfish will:\n Nor turn thy heedless eyes to see\n The coming fate which threatens thee?\n The king who days and hours employs\n In base pursuit of vulgar joys\n Must in his people's sight be vile\n As fire that smokes on funeral pile.\n He who when duty calls him spares\n No time for thought of royal cares,\n Must with his realm and people all\n Involved in fatal ruin fall.\n As elephants in terror shrink\n From the false river's miry brink,\n Thus subjects from a monarch flee\n Whose face their eyes may seldom see,\n Who spends the hours for toil ordained\n In evil courses unrestrained.\n He who neglects to guard and hold\n His kingdom by himself controlled,\n Sinks nameless like a hill whose head\n Is buried in the ocean's bed.\n \n \n Thy foes are calm and strong and wise,\n Fiends, Gods, and warriors of the skies,--\n How, heedless, wicked, weak, and vain,\n Wilt thou thy kingly state maintain?\n Thou, lord of giants, void of sense,\n Slave of each changing influence,\n Heedless of all that makes a king.\n Destruction on thy head wilt bring.\n O conquering chief, the prince, who boasts,\n Of treasury and rule and hosts,\n By others led, though lord of all,\n Is meaner than the lowest thrall.\n For this are monarchs said to be\n Long-sighted, having power to see\n Things far away by faithful eyes\n Of messengers and loyal spies.\n But aid from such thou wilt not seek:\n Thy counsellors are blind and weak,\n Or thou from these hadst surely known\n Thy legions and thy realm o'erthrown.\n Know, twice seven thousand, fierce in might,\n Are slain by R\u00e1ma in the fight,\n And they, the giant host who led,\n Khara and D\u00fashan, both are dead.\n Know, R\u00e1ma with his conquering arm\n Has freed the saints from dread of harm,\n Has smitten Janasth\u00e1n and made\n Asylum safe in Dandak's shade.\n Enslaved and dull of blinded sight,\n Intoxicate with vain delight,\n Thou closest still thy heedless eyes\n To dangers in thy realm that rise.\n A king besotted, mean, unkind,\n Of niggard hand and slavish mind.\n Will find no faithful followers heed\n Their master in his hour of need.\n The friend on whom he most relies,\n In danger, from a monarch flies,\n Imperious in his high estate,\n Conceited, proud, and passionate;\n Who ne'er to state affairs attends\n With wholesome fear when woe impends\n Most weak and worthless as the grass,\n Soon from his sway the realm will pass.\n For rotting wood a use is found,\n For clods and dust that strew the ground,\n But when a king has lost his sway,\n Useless he falls, and sinks for aye.\n As raiment by another worn,\n As faded garland crushed and torn,\n So is, unthroned, the proudest king,\n Though mighty once, a useless thing.\n But he who every sense subdues\n And each event observant views,\n Rewards the good and keeps from wrong,\n Shall reign secure and flourish long.\n Though lulled in sleep his senses lie\n He watches with a ruler's eye,\n Untouched by favour, ire, and hate,\n And him the people celebrate.\n O weak of mind, without a trace\n \n \n Of virtues that a king should grace,\n Who hast not learnt from watchful spy\n That low in death the giants lie.\n Scorner of others, but enchained\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By every base desire,\n \u00a0\u00a0 By thee each duty is disdained\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Which time and place require.\n \u00a0\u00a0 Soon wilt thou, if thou canst not learn,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ere yet it be too late,\n \u00a0\u00a0 The good from evil to discern,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fall from thy high estate.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 As thus she ceased not to upbraid\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The king with cutting speech,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And every fault to view displayed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Naming and marking each,\n \u00a0\u00a0 The monarch of the sons of night,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of wealth and power possessed,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And proud of his imperial might,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Long pondered in his breast. \n \n \n \n \n268:1 Pulastya is considered as the ancestor of the Rakshases or giants, as he is the father of Vis'ravas, the father of R\u00e1van and his brethren.","title":"BOOK III: Canto XXXIII.: S\u00farpanakh\u00e1's Speech.","type":"page"}