{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry411.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry411.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry411.htm","text":"The king in counsel unsurpassed\n His eye around the synod cast,\n And fierce Prahasta, first and best\n Of all his captains, thus addressed:\n \u00a0\u00a0 'Brave master of each warlike art,\n Arouse thee and perform thy part.\n Array thy fourfold forces \u00a01 well\n To guard our isle and citadel.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 The captain of the hosts obeyed,\n The troops with prudent skill arrayed;\n Then to the hall again he hied,\n And stood before the king and cried:\n \u00a0\u00a0 'Each inlet to the town is closed\n Without, within, are troops disposed.\n With fearless heart thine aim pursue\n And do the deed thou hast in view,'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus spoke Prahasta in the zeal\n That moved him for the kingdom's weal.\n And thus the monarch, who pursued\n His own delight, his speech renewed:\n 'In ease and bliss, in toil and pain,\n In doubts of duty, pleasure, pain,\n Your proper path I need not tell.\n For of yourselves ye know it well.\n The Storm-Gods, Moon, and planets bring\n New glory to their heavenly king,\u00a02\n And, ranged about your monarch, ye\n Give joy and endless fame to me.\n My secret counsel have I kept,\n While senseless Kumbhakarna slept.\n Six months the warrior's slumbers last\n And bind his torpid senses fast;\n Bat now his deep repose he breaks,\n The beat of all our champions wakes.\n I captured, R\u00e1ma's heart to wring,\n This daughter of Videha's king.\n And brought her from that distant land \u00a03\n Where wandered many a R\u00e1kshas band.\n \n \n Disdainful still my love she spurns.\n Still from each prayer and offering turns,\n Yet in all lands beneath the sun\n No dame may rival S\u00edt\u00e1, none,\n Her dainty waist is round and slight,\n Her cheek like autumn's moon is bright.\n And she like fruit in graven gold\n Mocks her \u00a01b whom Maya framed of old.\n Faultless in form, how firmly tread\n Her feet whose soles are rosy red!\n Ah, as I gaze her beauty takes\n My spirit, and my passion wakes.\n Looking for R\u00e1ma far away\n She sought with tears a year's delay\n Nor gazing on her love-lit eye\n Could I that earnest prayer deny.\n But baffled hopes and vain desire\n At length my patient spirit tire.\n How shall the sons of Raghu sweep\n To vengeance o'er the pathless deep?\n How shall they lead the V\u00e1nar train\n Across the monster-teeming main?\n One V\u00e1nar yet could find a way\n To Lank\u00e1's town, and burn and slay.\n Take counsel then, remembering still\n That we from men need fear no ill;\n And give your sentence in debate,\n For matchless is the power of fate.\n Assailed by you the Gods who dwell\n In heaven beneath our fury fell.\n And shall we fear these creatures bred\n In forests, by Sugr\u00edva led?\n E'en now on ocean's farther strand,\n The sons of Das'aratha stand.\n And follow, burning to attack\n Their giant foes, on S\u00edt\u00e1's track.\n Consult then, lords for ye are wise:\n A seasonable plan devise.\n The captive lady to retain,\n And triumph when the foes are slain.\n No power can bring across the foam\n Those V\u00e1nars to our island home;\n Or if they madly will defy\n Our conquering might, they needs must die.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then Kumbhakarna's anger woke.\n And wroth at R\u00e1van's words he spoke:\n 'O Monarch, when thy ravished eyes\n First looked upon thy lovely prize,\n Then was the time to bid us scan\n Each peril and mature a plan.\n Blest is the king who acts with heed,\n And ne'er repents one hasty deed;\n And hapless he whose troubled soul\n Mourns over days beyond control.\n \n \n Thou hast, in beauty's toils ensnared,\n A desperate deed of boldness dared;\n By fortune saved ere R\u00e1ma's steel\n One wound, thy mortal bane, could deal.\n But, R\u00e1van, as the deed is done,\n The toil of war I will not shun.\n This arm, O rover of the night,\n Thy foemen to the earth shall smite,\n Though Indra with the Lord of Flame,\n The Sun and Storms, against me came.\n E'en Indra, monarch of the skies,\n Would dread my club and mountain size,\n Shrink from these teeth and quake to hear\n The thunders of my voice of fear.\n No second dart shall R\u00e1ma cast:\n The first he aims shall be the last.\n He falls, and these dry lips shall drain\n The blood of him my hand has slain;\n And Sit\u00e1, when her champion dies,\n Shall be thine undisputed prize.'\n \n \n \n \n435:1 Consisting of warriors on elephants, warriors in chariots, charioteers, and infantry.\n435:2 Indra, generally represented as surrounded by the Maruts or Storm-Gods.\n435:3 Janasth\u00e1n, where R\u00e1ma a lived as an ascetic.\n435:1b M\u00e1y\u00e1, regarded as the paragon of female beauty, was the creation of Maya the chief artificer of the Datyas or Dinavs.","title":"BOOK VI: Canto XII.: Ravan's Speech.","type":"page"}