{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry293.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry293.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry293.htm","text":"No answer gave the V\u00e1nar king\n To R\u00e1ma's prudent counselling.\n Battered and bruised by tree and stone,\n By R\u00e1ma's arrow overthrown,\n Fainting upon the ground he lay,\n Gasping his troubled life away.\n \u00a0\u00a0 But T\u00e1r\u00e1 in the V\u00e1nar's hall\n Heard tidings of her husband's fall;\n Heard that a shaft from R\u00e1ma's bow\n Had laid the royal B\u00e1li low.\n Her darling Angad by her side,\n Distracted from her home she hied.\n Then nigh the place of battle drew\n The V\u00e1nars, Angad's retinue.\n They saw the bow-armed R\u00e1ma: dread\n Fell on them, and they turned and fled.\n Like helpless deer, their leaders slain,\n So wildly fled the startled train.\n But T\u00e1r\u00e1 saw, and nearer pressed.\n And thus the flying band addressed:\n 'O V\u00e1nars, ye who ever stand\n About our king, a trusty band,\n Where is the lion master? why\n Forsake ye thus your lord and fly?\n Say, lies he dead upon the plain,\n A brother by a brother slain,\n Or pierced by shafts from R\u00e1ma's bow\n That rain from far upon the foe?'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus T\u00e1r\u00e1 questioned, and was still:\n Then, wearers of each shape at will,\n The V\u00e1nars thus with one accord\n Answered the Lady of their lord:\n 'Turn, T\u00e1r\u00e1 turn, and half undone\n Save Angad thy beloved son.\n Tnere R\u00e1ma stands in death's disguise,\n And conquered B\u00e1li faints and dies.\n He by whose strong arm, thick and fast,\n Uprooted trees and rocks were cast,\n Lies smitten by a shaft that came\n Resistless as the lightning flame.\n When he, whose splendour once could vie\n With Indra's, regent of the sky,\n Fell by that deadly arrow, all\n The V\u00e1nars fled who marked his fall.\n Let all our chiefs their succours bring,\n And Angad be anointed king:\n \n \n For all who come of V\u00e1nar race\n Will serve him set in B\u00e1li's place.\n Or else our conquering foes to-day\n Within our wall will force their way,\n Polluting with their hostile feet\n The chambers of thy loved retreat.\n Great fear is on us. all and one.\n Those who have wives and who have none,\n They lust for power, are fierce and bold,\n Or hate us for the strife of old.'\n \n \n She heard their speech as, sore afraid,\n Arrested in their flight, they stayed,\n And gave her answer as became\n Tne spirit of so true a dame:\n 'Nay, what have I to do with pelf,\n With son, with kingdom, or with self,\n When he, my noble lord, who leads\n The V\u00e1nars 'like a loin, bleeds?\n His high-souled victor will I meet,\n And throw me prostrate at his feet.'\n She hastened forth, her bosom rent\n With anguish, weeping as she went,\n And striking, mastered by her woes,\n Her head and breast with frantic blows.\n She hurried to the field and found\n Her husband postrate on the ground,\n Who quelled the hostile V\u00e1nars' might,\n Whose bank was never turned in flight:\n Whose arm a massy rock could throw\n As Indra hurls his bolts below:\n Fierce as the rushing tempest, loud\n As thunder from a labouring cloud:\n Whene'er he roared his voice of fear\n Struck terror on the boldest ear:\n Now slain, as, hungry for the prey,\n A tiger might a lion slay:\n Or when, his serpent foe to seek,\n Suparna\u00a01 with his furious beak\n Tears up a sacred hillock, long\n The reverence of a village throng,\n Its altar with their offerings spread,\n And the gay flag that waved o erhead.\n She looked and saw the victor stand\n Renting upon his bow his hand:\n And fierce Sugriva she descried,\n And Lakshman by his brother's side,\n She passed them by, nor stayed to view,\n Swift to her husband's side she flew;\n Then as she looked, her strength gave way.\n And in the dust she fell and lay.\n Then, as if startled ere the close\n Of slumber, from the earth she rose.\n Upon her dying husband, round\n Whose soul the coils of Death were wound,\n Her eyes in agony she bent\n And called him with a shrill lament.\n Sugriva, when he heard her cries,\n Aud saw the queen with weeping eyes,\n \n \n And youthful Angad standing there,\n His load of grief could hardly bear.\n \n \n \n \n349:1 A name of Garuda the king of birds, the great enemy of the Serpents.","title":"BOOK IV: Canto XIX.: T\u00e1r\u00e1's Grief.","type":"page"}