Seeing that his disease was incurable, the king fell upon the ground and beat his head, sobbing out in most lamentable tones: “O Râma, Râma.”
Chaupâi
The king’s whole body was so broken down by distress that he seemed like the tree of paradise that some elephant had uprooted. His throat was dry, speech failed his lips, like some poor fish deprived of water. Again Kaikeyi plied him with biting taunts, infusing as it were poison into his wounds: “If you meant to act thus in the end, what compulsion was there to say ask, ask?
Is it possible, sire, to be two things at once? To laugh and jest and at the same time mourn; to be called the munificent, and yet be miserly; to live without anxiety, and yet be a king? Either break your word or show more fortitude; do not, like a woman, appeal to compassion. It is said that life, wife, sons, home, wealth, nay the whole world, all are but as a straw compared to the ocean of truth.
Chaupâi
The king’s whole body was so broken down by distress that he seemed like the tree of paradise that some elephant had uprooted. His throat was dry, speech failed his lips, like some poor fish deprived of water. Again Kaikeyi plied him with biting taunts, infusing as it were poison into his wounds: “If you meant to act thus in the end, what compulsion was there to say ask, ask?
Is it possible, sire, to be two things at once? To laugh and jest and at the same time mourn; to be called the munificent, and yet be miserly; to live without anxiety, and yet be a king? Either break your word or show more fortitude; do not, like a woman, appeal to compassion. It is said that life, wife, sons, home, wealth, nay the whole world, all are but as a straw compared to the ocean of truth.