{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry298.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry298.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry298.htm","text":"But when Sugr\u00edva saw her weep\n O'erwhelmed in sorrow's rushing deep.\n Swift through his bosom pierced the sting\n Of anguish for the fallen king.\n At the sad sight his eyes beheld\n A flood of bitter tears outwelled,\n And, with his bosom racked and rent,\n To R\u00e1ma with his train he went.\n He came with faltering steps and slow\n Where R\u00e1ma held his mighty bow\n And arrow like a venomed snake,\n And to the son of Raghu spake:\n 'Well hast thou kept, O King, thy vow:\n The promised fruit is gathered now.\n But life is marred, my soul to-day\n Turns sickening from all joy away.\n \n \n For, while this queen laments and sighs\n Amid a mourning people's cries,\n And Angad weeps his father slain,\n How can my heart delight to reign?\n For outrage, fury, senseless pride,\n My brother, doomed of yore, has died.\n Yet, Raghu's son, in bitter woe\n I mourn his fated overthrow.\n Ah, better far in pain and ill\n To dwell on Rishyam\u00faka still\n Than gain the heaven of Gods and all\n Its pleasures by my brother's fall.\n Did not he cry,--great-hearted foe,--\n 'Go, for I will not slay thee, Go'?\n With his brave soul those words agree:\n My speech, my deeds, are worthy me.\n How can a brother counterweigh\n His grievous loss with joys of sway,\n And see with dull unpitying eye\n So brave and good a brother die?\n His lofty soul was nobly blind:\n My death alas, he ne'er designed;\n But I, urged blindly on by hate,\n Sought with his life my rage to sate.\n He smote me with a splintered tree:\n I groaned aloud and turned to flee,\n From stern reproaches he forbore,\n And gently bade me sin no more.\n Serene and dutiful and good\n He kept the laws of brotherhood:\n I, fierce and greedy, vengeful, base,\n Showed all the vices of our race.\n Ah me, dear friend, my brother's fate\n Lays on my soul a crushing weight:\n A sin no heart should e'er conceive,\n But at the thought each soul should grieve:\n Sin such as Indra's when his blow\n Laid heavenly Vis'var\u00fapa \u00a01b low.\n Yet earth, the waters of the seas,\n The race of women and the trees\n Were fain upon themselves to take\n The weight of sin for Indra's sake.\n But who a V\u00e1nar's soul will free,\n Or ease the load that crushes me?\n Wretch that I am, I may not claim\n The reverence due to royal name.\n How shall I reign supreme, or dare\n Affect the power I should not share?\n Ah me, I sorrow for my sin,\n The ruin of my race and kin,\n Polluted by a hideous crime\n World-hated till the end of time.\n Alas, the floods of sorrow roll\n With whelming force upon my soul:\n So gathers the descending rain\n In the deep hollow of the plain.\n \n \n353:1 Sacrifices and all religious rites begin and end with ablution, and the wife of the officiating Brahman takes an important part in the performance of the holy ceremonies.\n353:1b Vis'var\u00fapa, a son of Twashtri or Vis'vakarma the heavenlv architect, was a three-headed monster slain by Indra.","title":"BOOK IV: Canto XXIV.: Sugr\u00edva's Lament.","type":"page"}