{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry352.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry352.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry352.htm","text":"Apart a dais of crystal rose\n With couches spread for soft repose.\n Adorned with gold and gems of price\n Meet for the halls of Paradise.\n A canopy was o'er them spread\n Pale as the light the moon beams shed,\n And female figures,\u00a01 deftly planned,\n The faces of the sleepers fanned,\n There on a splendid couch, asleep\n On softest skins of deer and sheep.\n Dark as a cloud that dims the day\n The monarch of the giants lay,\n Perfumed with sandal's precious scent\n And gay with golden ornament.\n \n \n His fiery eyes in slumber closed,\n In glittering robes the king reposed\n Like Mandar's mighty hill asleep\n With flowery trees that clothe his steep.\n Near and more near the V\u00e1nar\n The monarch of the fiends to view,\n And saw the giant stretched supine\n Fatigued with play and drunk with wine.\n While, shaking all the monstrous frame,\n His breath like hissing serpents' came.\n With gold and glittering bracelets gay\n His mighty arms extended lay\n Huge as the towering shafts that bear\n The flag of Indra high in air.\n Scars by Air\u00e1vat's impressed\n Showed red upon his shaggy breast.\n And on his shoulders were displayed\n The dints the thunder-bolt had made. \u00a01\n The spouses of the giant king\n Around their lord were slumbering,\n And, gay with sparkling earrings, shone\n Fair as the moon to look upon.\n There by her husband's side was seen\n Mandodar\u00edfavourite queen,\n The beauty of whose youthful face\n Beamed a soft glory through the place.\n The V\u00e1nared the dame more fair\n Than all the royal ladies there,\n And thought, 'These rarest beauties speak\n The matchless dame I come to seek.\n Peerless in grace and splendour, she\n The Maithil queen must surely be.'\n \n \n \n \n401:1 Women, says V\u00e1lm\u00edki. But the commentator says that automatic figures only are meant. Women would have seen Hanum\u00e1n and given the alarm.","title":"BOOK V: Canto X.: R\u00e1van Asleep.","type":"page"}