Book Vi. Canto Xlvii. Sit'a

Canto Xlvii.: Sit.


Still on the ground where Rma slept

Their faithful watch the Vnars kept.

There Angad stood o'erwhelmed with grief

And many a lord and warrior chief;

And, ranged in densest mass around,

Their tree-armed legions held the ground.

Far ranged each Vnar's eager eye,

Now swept the land, now sought the sky,

All fearing, if a leaf was stirred,

A Rkshas in the sound they heard.

The lord of Lank in his hall,

Rejoicing at his foeman's fall,

Commanded and the warders came

Who ever watched the Maithil dame.

'Go,' cried the Rkshas king, 'relate

To Janak's child her husband's fate.

Low on the earth her Rma lies,

And dark in death are Lakshman's eyes.

Bring forth my car and let her ride

To view the chieftains side by side.

The lord to whom her fancy turned

For whose dear sake my love she spurned,

Lies smitten, as he fiercely led

The battle, with his brother dead.

Lead forth the royal lady: go

Her husband's lifeless body show.

Then from all doubt and terror free

Her softening heart will turn to me.'

They heard his speech: the car was brought;

That shady grove the warders sought

Where, mourning Rma night and day,

The melancholy lady lay.

They placed her in the car and through

The yielding air they swiftly flew.

The lady looked upon the plain,

Looked on the heaps of Vnar slain,

Saw where, triumphant in the fight,

Thronged the fierce rovers of the night,

And Vnar chieftains, mournful-eyed,

Watched by the fallen brothers' side.

There stretched upon his gory bed

Each brother lay as lie the dead,

With shattered mail and splintered bow

Pierced by the arrows of the foe.

When on the pair her eyes she bent,

Burst from her lips a wild lament

Her eyes o'erflowed, she groaned and sighed

And thus in trembling accents cried: