The RÁMÁYAN of VÁLMÍKI - Part 2 - 28 in English Spiritual Stories by MB (Official) books and stories PDF | The RÁMÁYAN of VÁLMÍKI - Part 2 - 28

Featured Books
Categories
Share

The RÁMÁYAN of VÁLMÍKI - Part 2 - 28

28
Canto XXVIII. 
The Dangers Of The Wood.
Thus Sítá spake, and he who knew

His duty, to its orders true,

Was still reluctant as the woes

Of forest life before him rose.

He sought to soothe her grief, to dry

The torrent from each brimming eye,

And then, her firm resolve to shake,

These words the pious hero spake:

“O daughter of a noble line,

Whose steps from virtue ne'er decline,

Remain, thy duties here pursue,

As my fond heart would have thee do.

Now hear me, Sítá, fair and weak,

And do the words that I shall speak.

Attend and hear while I explain

Each danger in the wood, each pain.

Thy lips have spoken: I condemn

The foolish words that fell from them.

This senseless plan, this wish of thine

To live a forest life, resign.

The names of trouble and distress

Suit well the tangled wilderness.

In the wild wood no joy I know,

A forest life is nought but woe.

The lion in his mountain cave

Answers the torrents as they rave,

And forth his voice of terror throws:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

There mighty monsters fearless play,

And in their maddened onset slay

The hapless wretch who near them goes:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

'Tis hard to ford each treacherous flood,

So thick with crocodiles and mud,

Where the wild elephants repose:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

Or far from streams the wanderer strays

Through thorns and creeper-tangled ways,

While round him many a wild-cock crows:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

On the cold ground upon a heap

Of gathered leaves condemned to sleep,

Toil-wearied, will his eyelids close:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

Long days and nights must he content

His soul with scanty aliment,

What fruit the wind from branches blows:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

O Sítá, while his strength may last,

The ascetic in the wood must fast,

Coil on his head his matted hair,

And bark must be his only wear.

To Gods and spirits day by day

The ordered worship he must pay,

And honour with respectful care

Each wandering guest who meets him there.

The bathing rites he ne'er must shun

At dawn, at noon, at set of sun,

Obedient to the law he knows:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

To grace the altar must be brought

The gift of flowers his hands have sought—

The debt each pious hermit owes:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

The devotee must be content

To live, severely abstinent,

On what the chance of fortune shows:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

Hunger afflicts him evermore:

The nights are black, the wild winds roar;

And there are dangers worse than those:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

There creeping things in every form

Infest the earth, the serpents swarm,

And each proud eye with fury glows:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

The snakes that by the rives hide

In sinuous course like rivers glide,

And line the path with deadly foes:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

Scorpions, and grasshoppers, and flies

Disturb the wanderer as he lies,

And wake him from his troubled doze:

The wood, my love, is full of woes.

Trees, thorny bushes, intertwined,

Their branched ends together bind,

And dense with grass the thicket grows:

The wood, my dear, is full of woes,

With many ills the flesh is tried,

When these and countless fears beside

Vex those who in the wood remain:

The wilds are naught but grief and pain.

Hope, anger must be cast aside,

To penance every thought applied:

No fear must be of things to fear:

Hence is the wood for ever drear.

Enough, my love: thy purpose quit:

For forest life thou art not fit.

As thus I think on all, I see

The wild wood is no place for thee.”