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are evidently an interpolation. They contain nothing that has not been already related: the words only are altered. As the whole poem could not be recited at once, the rhapsodists at the beginning of a fresh recitation would naturally remind their hearers of the events immediately preceding.

2 The śloka or distich which I have been forced to expand into these nine lines is evidently spurious, but is found in all the commented MSS. which Schlegel consulted.

      Canto 11. The Queen’s Demand.

      To him enthralled by love, and blind,

Pierced by his darts who shakes the mind,1

      Kaikeyí with remorseless breast

      Her grand purpose thus expressed:

      “O King, no insult or neglect

      Have I endured, or disrespect.

      One wish I have, and faith would see

      That longing granted, lord, by thee.

      Now pledge thy word if thou incline

      To listen to this prayer of mine,

      Then I with confidence will speak,

      And thou shalt hear the boon I seek.”

      Ere she had ceased, the monarch fell,

      A victim to the lady’s spell,

      And to the deadly snare she set

      Sprang, like a roebuck to the net.

      Her lover raised her drooping head,

      Smiled, playing with her hair, and said:

      “Hast thou not learnt, wild dame, till now

      That there is none so dear as thou

      To me thy loving husband, save

      My Ráma bravest of the brave?

      By him my race’s high-souled heir,

      By him whom none can match, I swear,

      Now speak the wish that on thee weighs:

      By him whose right is length of days,

      Whom if my fond paternal eye

      Saw not one hour I needs must die —

      I swear by Ráma my dear son,

      Speak, and thy bidding shall be done.

      Speak, darling; if thou choose, request

      To have the heart from out my breast;

      Regard my words, sweet love, and name

      The wish thy mind thinks fit to frame.

      Nor let thy soul give way to doubt:

      My power should drive suspicion out.

      Yea, by my merits won I swear,

      Speak, darling, I will grant thy prayer.”

      The queen, ambitious, overjoyed

      To see him by her plot decoyed,

      More eager still her aims to reach,

      Spoke her abominable speech:

      “A boon thou grantest, nothing loth,

      And swearest with repeated oath.

      Now let the thirty Gods and three

      My witnesses, with Indra, be.

      Let sun and moon and planets hear,

      Heaven, quarters, day and night, give ear.

      The mighty world, the earth outspread,

      With bards of heaven and demons dread;

      The ghosts that walk in midnight shade,

      And household Gods, our present aid,

      A every being great and small

      To hear and mark the oath I call.”

      When thus the archer king was bound,

      With treacherous arts and oaths enwound,

      She to her bounteous lord subdued

      By blinding love, her speech renewed:

      “Remember, King, that long-past day

      Of Gods’ and demons’ battle fray.

      And how thy foe in doubtful strife

      Had nigh bereft thee of thy life.

      Remember, it was only I

      Preserved thee when about to die,

      And thou for watchful love and care

      Wouldst grant my first and second prayer.

      Those offered boons, pledged with thee then,

      I now demand, O King of men,

      Of thee, O Monarch, good and just,

      Whose righteous soul observes each trust.

      If thou refuse thy promise sworn,

      I die, despised, before the morn.

      These rites in Ráma’s name begun —

      Transfer them, and enthrone my son.

      The time is come to claim at last

      The double boon of days long-past,

      When Gods and demons met in fight,

      And thou wouldst fain my care requite.

      Now forth to Daṇḍak’s forest drive

      Thy Ráma for nine years and five,

      And let him dwell a hermit there

      With deerskin coat and matted hair.

      Without a rival let my boy

      The empire of the land enjoy,

      And let mine eyes ere morning see

      Thy Ráma to the forest flee.”

1 Manmatha, Mind-disturber, a name of Káma or Love.

      Canto 12. Dasaratha’s Lament.

      The monarch, as Kaikeyí pressed

      With cruel words her dire request,

      Stood for a time absorbed in thought

      While anguish in his bosom wrought.

      “Does some wild dream my heart assail?

      Or do my troubled senses fail?

      Does some dire portent scare my view?

      Or frenzy’s stroke my soul subdue?”

      Thus as he thought, his troubled mind

      In doubt and dread no rest could find,

      Distressed and trembling like a deer

      Who sees the dreaded tigress near.

      On the bare ground his limbs he threw,

      And many a long deep sigh he drew,

      Like a wild snake, with fury blind,

      By charms within a ring confined.

      Once as the monarch’s fury woke,

      “Shame on thee!” from his bosom broke,

      And then in sense-bewildering pain

      He fainted on the ground

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