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Book V. Canto Liii. The Punishment

Canto Liii.: The Punishment.


King Rvan, by his pleading moved,

The counsel of the chief approved:

'Thy words are wise and true; to kill

An envoy would beseem us ill

Yet must we for his crime invent

Some fitting mode of punishment.

The tail, I fancy, is the part

Most cherished by a monkey's heart. 1

Make ready: set his tail aflame,

And let him leave us as he came,

And thus disfigured and disgraced

Back to his king and people haste.'

The giants heard their monarch's speech;

And, filled with burning fury, each

Brought strips of cotton cloth, and round

The monkey's tail the bandage wound.

As round big tail the bands they drew

His mighty form dilating grew

Vast as the flame that bursts on high

Where trees are old and grass is dry.

Each hand and strip they soaked in oil,

And set on fire the twisted coil.

Delighted as they viewed the blaze,

The cruel demons stood at gaze:

And mid loud drums and shells rang out

The triumph of their joyful shout.

They pressed about him thick and fast

As through the crowded streets he passed,

Observing with attentive care

Each rich and wondrous structure there,

Still heedless of the eager cry

That rent the air, The spy! the spy!

Some to the captive lady ran.

And thus in joyous words began:

'That copper-visaged monkey, he

Who in the garden talked with thee,

Through Lank's town is led a show,

And round his tail the red flames glow.'

The mournful news the lady heard

That with fresh grief her bosom stirred.

Swift to the kindled fire she went

And prayed before it reverent:

'If I my husband have obeyed,

And kept the ascetic vows I made,

Free, ever free, from stain and blot,

O spare the Vnar; harm him not.'

Then leapt on high the flickering flame

And shone in answer to the dame.

The pitying fire its rage forbore:

The Vnar felt the heat no more.

Then, to minutest size reduced, 1b

The bonds that bound his limbs he loosed,

And, freed from every band and chain,

Rose to his native size again.

He seized a club of ponderous weight

That lay before him by the gate,

Rushed at the fiends that hemmed him round,

And laid them lifeless on the ground,

Through Lank's town again he strode,

And viewed each street and square and road,--

Still wreathed about with harmless blaze,

A sun engarlanded with rays.

p. 424

Footnotes

423:1 I
have not attempted to tone down anything in this Canto. I give a faithful translation.

423:
1b "Behold a wonder! they but now who seemed In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs in narrow room Throng numberless."

"Paradise Lost", I, 716.
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