Now Kaikeyi had a wicked handmaid, by name Mantharâ. Her ideas, first distorted and made her a very storehouse of meanness, and then went their way.
When Mantharâ saw the preparations in the city, the joyous festivities, the music and the singing, she asked the people, “What mean these rejoicings?” When she heard of Râma’s inauguration, her soul was afire and she plotted, wicked wretch that she was, how that very night to defeat it; like a crafty hill-woman, who has spied a honeycomb hanging from a tree and schemes how to get hold of it. So she went crying to Bharat’s mother. “What is wrong now?” the queen smiled and said. She gave no answer, but drew a deep sigh and, like a woman, began shedding a flood of tears. Said the queen laughing: “You were always an impudent girl, and Lakshman, I suspect, has been giving you a lesson.” Still the wicked handmaid said not a word, but breathed hard like some venomous serpent.
When Mantharâ saw the preparations in the city, the joyous festivities, the music and the singing, she asked the people, “What mean these rejoicings?” When she heard of Râma’s inauguration, her soul was afire and she plotted, wicked wretch that she was, how that very night to defeat it; like a crafty hill-woman, who has spied a honeycomb hanging from a tree and schemes how to get hold of it. So she went crying to Bharat’s mother. “What is wrong now?” the queen smiled and said. She gave no answer, but drew a deep sigh and, like a woman, began shedding a flood of tears. Said the queen laughing: “You were always an impudent girl, and Lakshman, I suspect, has been giving you a lesson.” Still the wicked handmaid said not a word, but breathed hard like some venomous serpent.