The Ramayana-Book II-Sec 1 -Canto XXXVIII.Care For Kaus'alya
Sept 22, 2018 16:55:00 GMT 1
Post by Anne Terri on Sept 22, 2018 16:55:00 GMT 1
"GOD'S LIVING BIBLE ---- THE THIRD TESTAMENT ----- RESEARCH LIBRARY" ©*
THE RÁMÁYAN OF VÁLMÍKI
Translated into English Verse
BY
RALPH T. H. GRIFFITH, M. A.,
[(Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith), b. 1826 d. 1906]
PRINCIPAL OF THE BENARES COLLEGE
London: Trübner & Co.
Benares: E. J. Lazarus and Co.
[1870-1874]
RAMAYANA-
BOOK II
CANTO XXXVIII.: CARE FOR KAUS'ALYÁ
Then when the people wroth and sad
Saw Sítá in bark vesture clad,
Though wedded, like some widowed thing,
They cried out, 'Shame upon thee, King!'
Grieved by their cry and angry look
The lord of earth at once forsook
All hope in life that still remained,
In duty, self, and fame unstained.
Ikshváku's son with burning sighs
On Queen Kaikeyí bent his eyes,
And said: 'But Sítá must not flee
In garments of a devotee.
My holy guide has spoken truth:
Unfit is she in tender youth,
p. 140
So gently nurtured, soft and fair,
The hardships of the wood to share.
How has she sinned, devout and true,
The noblest monarch's child,
That she should garb of bark indue
And journey to the wild?
That she should spend her youthful days
Amid a hermit band,
Like some poor mendicant who strays
Sore troubled, through the land?
Ah, let the child of Janak throw
Her dress of bark aside,
And let the royal lady go
With royal wealth supplied.
Not such the pledge I gave before,
Unfit to linger here:
The oath, which I the sinner swore
Is kept, and leaves her clear.
Won from her childlike love this too
My instant death would be,
As blossoms on the old bamboo
Destroy the parent tree. 1
If aught amiss by Ráma done
Offend thee, O thou wicked one,
What least transgiession canst thou find
In her, thou worst of womankind?
What shade of fault in her appears,
Whose full soft eye is like the deer's?
What canst thou blame in Janak's child,
So gentle, modest, true, and mild?
Is not one crime complete, that sent
My Ráma forth to banishment!
And wilt thou other sins commit.
Thou wicked one, to double it?
This is the pledge and oath I swore,
What thou besoughtest, and no more,
Of Ráma--for I heard thee, dame--
When he for consecration came.
Now with this limit not content,
In hell should be thy punishment,
Who fain the Maithil bride wouldst press
To clothe her limbs with hermit dress.'
Thus spake the father in his woe;
And Ráma, still prepared to go,
To him who sat with drooping head
Spake in return these words and said:
'Just King, here stands my mother dear,
Kaus'alyá, one whom all revere.
Submissive, gentle, old is she,
And keeps her lips from blame of thee,
For her, kind lord, of me bereft
A sea of whelming woe is left.
O, show her in her new distress
Still fonder love and tenderness.
Well honoured by thine honoured hand
Her grief for me let her withstand,
Who wrapt in constant thought of me
In me would live a devotee.
Peer of Mahendra, O, to her be kind,
And treat I pray, my gentle mother so,
That, when I dwell afar, her life resigned,
She may not, pass, to Yama's realm for woe.'
Then when the people wroth and sad
Saw Sítá in bark vesture clad,
Though wedded, like some widowed thing,
They cried out, 'Shame upon thee, King!'
Grieved by their cry and angry look
The lord of earth at once forsook
All hope in life that still remained,
In duty, self, and fame unstained.
Ikshváku's son with burning sighs
On Queen Kaikeyí bent his eyes,
And said: 'But Sítá must not flee
In garments of a devotee.
My holy guide has spoken truth:
Unfit is she in tender youth,
p. 140
So gently nurtured, soft and fair,
The hardships of the wood to share.
How has she sinned, devout and true,
The noblest monarch's child,
That she should garb of bark indue
And journey to the wild?
That she should spend her youthful days
Amid a hermit band,
Like some poor mendicant who strays
Sore troubled, through the land?
Ah, let the child of Janak throw
Her dress of bark aside,
And let the royal lady go
With royal wealth supplied.
Not such the pledge I gave before,
Unfit to linger here:
The oath, which I the sinner swore
Is kept, and leaves her clear.
Won from her childlike love this too
My instant death would be,
As blossoms on the old bamboo
Destroy the parent tree. 1
If aught amiss by Ráma done
Offend thee, O thou wicked one,
What least transgiession canst thou find
In her, thou worst of womankind?
What shade of fault in her appears,
Whose full soft eye is like the deer's?
What canst thou blame in Janak's child,
So gentle, modest, true, and mild?
Is not one crime complete, that sent
My Ráma forth to banishment!
And wilt thou other sins commit.
Thou wicked one, to double it?
This is the pledge and oath I swore,
What thou besoughtest, and no more,
Of Ráma--for I heard thee, dame--
When he for consecration came.
Now with this limit not content,
In hell should be thy punishment,
Who fain the Maithil bride wouldst press
To clothe her limbs with hermit dress.'
Thus spake the father in his woe;
And Ráma, still prepared to go,
To him who sat with drooping head
Spake in return these words and said:
'Just King, here stands my mother dear,
Kaus'alyá, one whom all revere.
Submissive, gentle, old is she,
And keeps her lips from blame of thee,
For her, kind lord, of me bereft
A sea of whelming woe is left.
O, show her in her new distress
Still fonder love and tenderness.
Well honoured by thine honoured hand
Her grief for me let her withstand,
Who wrapt in constant thought of me
In me would live a devotee.
Peer of Mahendra, O, to her be kind,
And treat I pray, my gentle mother so,
That, when I dwell afar, her life resigned,
She may not, pass, to Yama's realm for woe.'
Footnotes
140:1 It is said that the bamboo dies after flowering.
NEXT The Ramayana-Book II-Sec 1 -t Canto XXXIX.: Counsel To Sítá.
The Ramayana (/rɑːˈmɑːjənə/; Sanskrit: रामायणम्, Rāmāyaṇam [rɑːˈmɑːjəɳəm]) is an ancient Indian epic poem which narrates the struggle of the divine prince Rama to rescue his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana. Along with the Mahabharata, it forms the Hindu Itihasa.
The epic, traditionally ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki, narrates the life of Rama, the legendary prince of the Kosala Kingdom. It follows his fourteen-year exile to the forest from the kingdom, by his father King Dasharatha, on request of his second wife Kaikeyi. His travels across forests in India with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, the kidnapping of his wife by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, resulting in a war with him, and Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya to be crowned king.
There have been many attempts to unravel the epic's historical growth and compositional layers; various recent scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text range from the 7th to 4th centuries BCE, with later stages extending up to the 3rd century CE. Wikipedia
“God / Brahman Speaking To Anne Terri Through The Holy Spirit: Today is August 25, 2018, and I have Asked Anne to begin to place The Ramayana within Our Research Library, for future links to research areas within. AMEN”
*© NOTICE OF ATTRIBUTION
Scanned at sacred-texts.com by John B. Hare. OCRed and Proofed at Distributed Proofing, Juliet Sutherland, Project Manager. Post-processing, computer programming, and additional proofreading by John B. Hare at sacred-texts.com. This text is in the public domain. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice of attribution is left intact.
Note: This verse translation by Griffith...was scanned in 2000 from an original copy, which had very poor typesetting. Due to the difficulty of converting this 600 page text to etext, the project was put on hold for several years until OCR technology matured. Finally in 2003, the text was OCR-ed and proofed at Distributed Proofing. However, despite best efforts, there are several places in this text where the proofing was difficult or impossible. These are indicated by asterisks or (illegible). We are in the process of cleaning up these issues and hope to have a definitive version of this text at some point. In the meantime we hope you enjoy this epic, which is one of the most popular tales of Indian mythology.
Scanned at sacred-texts.com by John B. Hare. OCRed and Proofed at Distributed Proofing, Juliet Sutherland, Project Manager. Post-processing, computer programming, and additional proofreading by John B. Hare at sacred-texts.com. This text is in the public domain. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice of attribution is left intact.
Note: This verse translation by Griffith...was scanned in 2000 from an original copy, which had very poor typesetting. Due to the difficulty of converting this 600 page text to etext, the project was put on hold for several years until OCR technology matured. Finally in 2003, the text was OCR-ed and proofed at Distributed Proofing. However, despite best efforts, there are several places in this text where the proofing was difficult or impossible. These are indicated by asterisks or (illegible). We are in the process of cleaning up these issues and hope to have a definitive version of this text at some point. In the meantime we hope you enjoy this epic, which is one of the most popular tales of Indian mythology.