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Book Iii. Canto X. R'ama's Reply

Canto X.: Rma'S Reply.


The words that St uttered, spurred

By truest love, the hero heard:

Then he who ne'er from virtue strayed

To Janak's child his answer made:

'In thy wise speech, sweet love, I find

True impress of thy gentle mind,

Well skilled the warrior's path to trace,

Thou pride of Janak's ancient race.

What fitting answer shall I frame

To thy good words, my honoured dame?

Thou sayst the warrior bears the bow

That misery's tears may cease to flow;

And those pure saints who love the shade

Of Dandak wood are sore dismayed.

They sought me of their own accord,

With suppliant prayers my aid implored:

They, fed on roots and fruit, who spend

Their lives where bosky wilds extend,

My timid love, enjoy no rest

By these malignant fiends distressed.

These make the flesh of man their meat:

The helpless saints they kill and eat.

The hermits sought my side, the chief

Of Brahman race declared their grief.

I heard, and from my lips there fell

The words which thou rememberest well:

I listened as the hermits cried,

And to their prayers I thus replied:

'Your favour, gracious lords, I claim,

O'erwhelmed with this enormous shame

That Brhmans, great and pure as you,

Who should be sought, to me should sue.'

And then before the saintly crowd,

'What can I do?' I cried aloud.

Then from the trembling hermits broke

One long sad cry, and thus they spoke:

'Fiends of the wood, who wear at will

Each varied shape, afflict us still.

To thee in our distress we fly:

O help us, Rma, or we die.

When sacred rites of fire are due,

When changing moons are full or new,

These fiends who bleeding flesh devour

Assail us with resistless power.

They with their cruel might torment

The hermits on their vows intent:

We look around for help and see

Our surest refuge, Prince, in thee.

We, armed with powers of penance, might

Destroy the rovers of the night:

But loth were we to bring to naught

The merit years of toil have bought.

Our penance rites are grown too hard,

By many a check and trouble barred,

But though our saints for food are slain

The withering curse we yet restrain.

Thus many a weary day distressed

By giants who this wood infest,

We see at length deliverance, thou

With Lakshman art our guardian now.'

As thus the troubled hermits prayed,

I promised, dame, my ready aid,

And now--for truth I hold most dear--

Still to my word must I adhere.

My love, I might endure to be

Deprived of Lakshman, life, and thee,

But ne'er deny my promise, ne'er

To Brhmans break the oath I sware.

I must, enforced by high constraint,

Protect them all. Each suffering saint

In me, unasked, his help had found;

Still more in one by promise bound.

I know thy words, mine own dear dame,

From thy sweet heart's affection came:

I thank thee for thy gentle speech,

For those we love are those we teach.

'Tis like thyself, O fair of face,

'Tis worthy of thy noble race:

Dearer than life, thy feet are set

In righteous paths they ne'er forget.'

Thus to the Maithil monarch's child,

His own dear wife, in accents mild

The high-souled hero said:

Then to the holy groves which lay

Beyond them fair to see, their way

The bow-armed chieftain led.
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