{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry430.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry430.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry430.htm","text":"The tyrant's troubled eye confessed\n The secret fear that filled his breast.\n With dread of coming woe dismayed\n He called his counsellors to aid;\n Then sternly silent, deep in thought,\n His chamber in the palace sought.\n Then, as the surest hope of all,\n The monarch bade his servants call\n \n \n Vidyujjihva, whom magic skill\n Made master of the means of ill.\n Then spake the lord of Lanka's isle:\n \u00a0 'Come, Sita with thine arts beguile.\n With magic skill and deftest care\n A head like R\u00e1ma's own prepare.\n This head, long shafts and mighty bow,\n To Janak's daughter will we show.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 He ceased. Vidyujjihva obeyed,\n And wondrous magic skill displayed;\n And R\u00e1van for the art he showed\n An ornament of price bestowed.\n Then to the grove where Sit\u00e1 lay\n The lord of Lank\u00e1 took his way.\n Pale, wasted, weeping, on the ground\n The melancholy queen he found,\n Whose thoughts in utmost stress of ill\n Were fixed upon her husband still.\n The giant king approached the dame,\n Declared in tones of joy his name;\n Then heeding naught her wild distress\n Bespake her, stern and pitiless:\n \u00a0 \"The prince to whom thy fancies cling\n Though loved and wooed by Lank\u00e1's king,\n Who slew the noble Khara,--he\n Is slain by warriors sent by me.\n Thy living root is hewn away.\n Thy scornful pride is tamed to-day.\n Thy lord in battle's front has died,\n And Sit\u00e1 shall be R\u00e1van's bride.\n Hence, idle thoughts: thy hope is fled;\n What wilt thou, Sit\u00e1, with the dead?\n Rise, child of Janak, rise and be\n The queen of all my queens and me.\n Incline thine ear, and I will tell,\n Dear lady, how thy husband fell.\n He bridged his way across the sea\n With countless troops to fight with me.\n The setting sun had flushed the west\n When on the shore they took their rest.\n Weary with toil no watch they kept,\n Securely on the sand they slept.\n Prahasta's troops assailed our foes,\n And smote them in their deep repose.\n Scarce could their bravest prove their might;\n They perished in the dark of night.\n Axe, spear, and sword, directed well,\n Upon the sleeping myriads fell.\n First in the fight Prahasta's sword\n Reft of his head thy slumbering lord,\n Roused at the din Vibh\u00edshan rose,\n The captive of surrounding foes,\n And Lakshman through the woods that spread\n Around him with his V\u00e1nars fled.\n Hanum\u00e1n fell: one deadly stroke\n The neck of King Sugriva broke\n And Maunta sank, and Dwivil lay\n Gasping in hand his life away.\n The V\u00e1nars died, or fled dispersed\n \n \n Like cloudlets when the storm has burst.\n Some rose aloft in air, and more\n Ran to the sea and filled the shore.\n On shore, in woods, on hill and plain\n Our conquering giants left the slain.\n Thus my victorious host o'erthrew\n The Vanars, and thy husband slew:\n See, rudely stained with dust, and red \n With dropping blood, the severed head.\"\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then, turning to a R\u00e1kshas slave,\n The ruthless king his mandate gave;\n And straight Vidyujjihva who bore\n The head still wet with dripping gore,\n The arrows and the mighty bow,\n Bent down before his master low.\n \u00a0 'Vidyujjihva,' cried R\u00e1van, 'place\n The head before the lady's'face,\n And let her see with weeping eyes\n That low in death her husband lies.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Before the queen the giant laid\n The beauteous head his art had made.\n And Ravan cried: 'Thine eyes will know\n These arrows and the mighty bow.\n With fame of this by R\u00e1ma strung\n The earth and heaven and hell have rung.\n Prahasta brought it hither when\n His hand had slain thy prince of men.\n Now, widowed Queen, thy hopes resign:\n Forget thy husband and be mine.'\n \n \n \n \n450:1 I omit the rest of this canto, which is mere repetition. R\u00e1van gives in the same words his former answer that the Gods, Gandharvas and fiends combined shall not force him to give up Sit\u00e1. He then orders S'\u00e1rd\u00fala to tell him the names of the V\u00e1nar chieftains whom he has seen in R\u00e1ma's army. These have already been mentioned by S'uka and S\u00e1ran.","title":"BOOK VI: Canto XXXI.: The Magic Head.","type":"page"}