The Ramayana Part 128

Thou carest naught for n.o.ble gain, And treatest virtue with disdain, While every sense its captive draws To follow pleasure's changing laws.

I wronged thee not in word or deed, But by thy deadly dart I bleed.

What wilt thou, mid the virtuous, say To purge thy lasting stain away?

All these, O King, must sink to h.e.l.l, The regicide, the infidel, He who in blood and slaughter joys, A Brahman or a cow destroys, Untimely weds in law's despite Scorning an elder brother's right,(590) Who dares his Teacher's bed ascend, The miser, spy, and treacherous friend.

These impious wretches, one and all, Must to the h.e.l.l of sinners fall.

My skin the holy may not wear, Useless to thee my bones and hair; Nor may my slaughtered body be The food of devotees like thee.

These five-toed things a man may slay And feed upon the fallen prey; The mailed rhinoceros may die, And, with the hare his food supply.

Iguanas he may kill and eat, With porcupine and tortoise meat.(591) But all the wise account it sin To touch my bones and hair and skin.

My flesh they may not eat; and I A useless prey, O Rama, die.

In vain my Tara reasoned well, On dull deaf ears her counsel fell.

I scorned her words though sooth and sweet, And hither rushed my fate to meet.

Ah for the land thou rulest! she Finds no protection, lord, from thee, Neglected like some n.o.ble dame By a vile husband dead to shame.

Mean-hearted coward, false and vile, Whose cruel soul delights in guile, Could Dasaratha, n.o.blest king, Beget so mean and base a thing?

Alas! an elephant, in form Of Rama, in a maddening storm Of pa.s.sion casting to the ground The girth of law(592) that clipped him round, Too wildly pa.s.sionate to feel The p.r.i.c.k of duty's guiding steel,(593) Has charged me unawares, and dead I fall beneath his murderous tread.

How, stained with this my base defeat, How wilt thou dare, where good men meet, To speak, when every tongue will blame With keen reproach this deed of shame?

Such hero strength and valour, shown Upon the innocent alone, Thou hast not proved in manly strife On him who robbed thee of thy wife.

Hadst thou but fought in open field And met me boldly unconcealed, This day had been thy fate to fall, Slain by this hand, to Yama's hall.

In vain I strove, and struck by thee Fell by a hand I could not see.

Thus bites a snake, for sins of yore, A sleeping man who wakes no more.

Sugriva's foeman thou hast killed, And thus his heart's desire fulfilled; But, Rama, hadst thou sought me first, And told the hope thy soul has nursed, That very day had I restored The Maithil lady to her lord; And, binding Rava? with a chain, Had laid him at thy feet unslain.

Yea, were she sunk in deepest h.e.l.l, Or whelmed beneath the ocean's swell, I would have followed on her track And brought the rescued lady back, As Hayagriva(594) once set free From h.e.l.l the white Asvatari.(595) That when my spirit wings its flight Sugriva reign, is just and right.

But most unjust, O King, that I, Slain by thy treacherous hand, should lie.

Be still, my heart: this earthly state Is darkly ruled by sovereign Fate.

The realm is lost and won: defy Thy questioners with apt reply."(596)

Canto XVIII. Rama's Reply.

He ceased: and Rama's heart was stirred At every keen reproach he heard.

There Bali lay, a dim dark sun, His course of light and glory run: Or like the bed of Ocean dried Of his broad floods from side to side, Or helpless, as the dying fire, Hushed his last words of righteous ire.

Then Rama, with his spirit moved, The Vanar king in turn reproved: "Why dost thou, Bali, thus revile, And castest not a glance the while On claims of duty, love, and gain, And customs o'er the world that reign?

Why dost thou blame me, rash and blind, Fickle as all thy Vanar kind, Slighting each rule of ancient days Which all the good and prudent praise?

This land, each hill and woody chase, Belongs to old Ikshvaku's race: With bird and beast and man, the whole Is ours to cherish and control.

Now Bharat, prompt at duty's call, Wise, just, and true, is lord of all.

Each claim of law, love, gain he knows, And wrath and favour duly shows.

A king from truth who never bends, And grace with vigour wisely blends; With valour worthy of his race, He knows the claims of time and place.

Now we and other kings of might, By his ensample taught aright, The lands of every region tread That justice may increase and spread.

While royal Bharat, wise and just, Rules the broad earth, his glorious trust, Who shall attempt, while he is lord, A deed by Justice held abhorred?

We now, as Bharat has decreed, Let justice guide our every deed, And toil each sinner to repress Who scorns the way of righteousness.

Thou from that path hast turned aside, And virtue's holy law defied, Left the fair path which kings should tread, And followed pleasure's voice instead.

The man who cleaves to duty's law Regards these three with filial awe- The sire, the elder brother, third Him from whose lips his lore he heard.

Thus too, for duty's sake, the wise Regard with fond paternal eyes The well-loved younger brother, one Their lore has ripened, and a son.

Fine are the laws which guide the good, Abstruse, and hardly understood; Only the soul, enthroned within The breast of each, knows right from sin.

But thou art wild and weak of soul, And spurnest, like thy race, control; The true and right thou canst not find, The blind consulting with the blind.

Incline thine ear and I will teach The cause that prompts my present speech.

This tempest of thy soul a.s.suage, Nor blame me in thine idle rage.

On this great sin thy thoughts bestow, The sin for which I lay thee low.

Thou, Bali, in thy brother's life Hast robbed him of his wedded wife, And keepest, scorning ancient right, His Ruma for thine own delight.

Thy son's own wife should scarcely be More sacred in thine eyes than she.

All duty thou hast scorned, and hence Comes punishment for dire offence.

For those who blindly do amiss There is, I ween, no way but this: To check the rash who dare to stray From customs which the good obey, I may not, sprung of Kshatriya line, Forgive this heinous sin of thine: The laws for those who sin like thee The penalty of death decree.

Now Bharat rules with sovereign sway, And we his royal word obey.

There was no hope of pardon, none, For the vile deed that thou hast done, That wisest monarch dooms to die The wretch whose crimes the law defy; And we, chastising those who err, His righteous doom administer.

My soul accounts Sugriva dear E'en as my brother Lakshma? here.

He brings me blessing, and I swore His wife and kingdom to restore: A bond in solemn honour bound When Vanar chieftains stood around.

And can a king like me forsake His friend, and plighted promise break?

Reflect, O Vanar, on the cause, The sanction of eternal laws, And, justly smitten down, confess Thou diest for thy wickedness.

By honour was I bound to lend a.s.sistance to a faithful friend; And thou hast met a righteous fate Thy former sins to expiate.

And thus wilt thou some merit win And make atonement for thy sin.

For hear me, Vanar King, rehea.r.s.e What Manu(597) spake in ancient verse,- This holy law, which all accept Who honour duty, have I kept: "Pure grow the sinners kings chastise, And, like the virtuous, gain the skies; By pain or full atonement freed, They reap the fruit of righteous deed, While kings who punish not incur The penalties of those who err."

Mandhata(598) once, a n.o.ble king, Light of the line from which I spring, Punished with death a devotee When he had stooped to sin like thee; And many a king in ancient time Has punished frantic sinners' crime, And, when their impious blood was spilt, Has washed away the stain of guilt.

Cease, Bali, cease: no more complain: Reproaches and laments are vain, For thou art justly punished: we Obey our king and are not free.

Once more, O Bali, lend thine ear Another weightiest plea to hear.

For this, when heard and pondered well, Will all complaint and rage dispel.

My soul will ne'er this deed repent, Nor was my shaft in anger sent.

We take the silvan tribes beset With snare and trap and gin and net, And many a heedless deer we smite From thickest shade, concealed from sight.

Wild for the slaughter of the game, At stately stags our shafts we aim.

We strike them bounding scared away, We strike them as they stand at bay, When careless in the shade they lie, Or scan the plain with watchful eye.

They turn away their heads; we aim, And none the eager hunter blame.

Each royal saint, well trained in law Of duty, loves his bow to draw And strike the quarry, e'en as thou Hast fallen by mine arrow now, Fighting with him or unaware,- A Vanar thou.-I little care.(599) But yet, O best of Vanars, know That kings who rule the earth bestow Fruit of pure life and virtuous deed, And lofty duty's hard-won meed.

Harm not thy lord the king: abstain From act and word that cause him pain; For kings are children of the skies Who walk this earth in men's disguise.

But thou, in duty's claims untaught, Thy breast with blinding pa.s.sion fraught, a.s.sailest me who still have clung To duty, with thy bitter tongue."

He ceased: and Bali sore distressed The sovereign claims of law confessed, And freed, o'erwhelmed with woe and shame, The lord of Raghu's race from blame.

Then, reverent palm to palm applied, To Rama thus the Vanar cried: "True, best of men, is every word That from thy lips these ears have heard, It ill beseems a wretch like me To bandy empty words with thee.

Forgive the angry taunts that broke From my wild bosom as I spoke.

And lay not to my charge, O King, My mad reproaches' idle sting.

Thou, in the truth by trial trained, Best knowledge of the right hast gained: And layest, just and pure within, The meetest penalty on sin.

Through every bond of law I burst, The boldest sinner and the worst.

O let thy right-instructing speech Console my heart and wisely teach."

Like some sad elephant who stands Fast sinking in the treacherous sands, Thus Bali raised despairing eyes; Then spake again with sobs and sighs:

"Not for myself, O King, I grieve, For Tara or the friends I leave, As for sweet Angad, my dear son, My n.o.ble, only little one.

For, nursed in luxury and bliss, His father he will mourn and miss, And like a stream whose fount is dry Will waste away and sink and die,- My own dear child, my only boy, His mother Tara's hope and joy.

Spare him, O son of Raghu, spare The child entrusted to thy care.

My Angad and Sugriva treat E'en as thy heart considers meet, For thou, O chief of men, art strong To guard the right and punish wrong.

O, if thou wilt thine ear incline To hear these dying words of mine, He and Sugriva will to thee As Bharat and as Lakshma? be.

Let not my Tara, left forlorn, Weep for Sugriva's wrathful scorn; Nor let him, for her lord's offence, Condemn her faithful innocence.

And well and wisely may he reign If thy dear grace his power sustain: If, following thee his friend and guide, He turn not from thy hest aside: Thus may he reign with glory, nay Thus to the skies will win his way.

Though stayed by Tara's fond recall, By thy dear hand I longed to fall.

Against my brother rushed and fought, And gained the death I long have sought."

Then Rama thus the prince consoled From whose clear eyes the mists were rolled: "Grieve not for those thou leavest thus, Nor tremble for thyself or us, For we will deal with thine and thee As duty and the laws decree.

He who exacts and he who pays, Is justly slain or justly slays, Shall in the life to come have bliss; For each has done his task in this.

Thou, wandering from the right, art made Pure by the forfeit thou hast paid.

Thy weight of sins is cast aside, And duty's claim is satisfied.