The king fell to the ground crying again and again: “Why have you wrought this ruin?” But the perfidious queen spoke not a word, like a funeral pile that is ever burning.
The king in his distress sobbing out “Râma, Râma,” was like some luckless bird clipped of its wings. In his heart he was praying: “May the day never break nor any one go and tell Râma. Rise not, great patriarch of the solar race, for at the sight of Avadh your breast will be consumed with anguish.” The king’s affection and Kaikeyi’s cruelty were both the most extreme that God could make. While the monarch was yet lamenting, day broke and the music of lute and pipe and conch resounded at his gate. Bards recited his titles, minstrels sung his praises; but like arrows they wounded the king, as he heard them. All tokens of rejoicing pleased him as little as the adornments of a widow who ascends the funeral pile. That night no one had slept, from the joyous anticipation of beholding Râma.
The king in his distress sobbing out “Râma, Râma,” was like some luckless bird clipped of its wings. In his heart he was praying: “May the day never break nor any one go and tell Râma. Rise not, great patriarch of the solar race, for at the sight of Avadh your breast will be consumed with anguish.” The king’s affection and Kaikeyi’s cruelty were both the most extreme that God could make. While the monarch was yet lamenting, day broke and the music of lute and pipe and conch resounded at his gate. Bards recited his titles, minstrels sung his praises; but like arrows they wounded the king, as he heard them. All tokens of rejoicing pleased him as little as the adornments of a widow who ascends the funeral pile. That night no one had slept, from the joyous anticipation of beholding Râma.