Then RÁma gazed, and scarcely knew

Bharat so worn and changed in hue.

He raised him, kissed him on the head,

Embraced him, and thus kindly said:

That thou art come to seek me here?

Unmeet, if he be living yet,

Thy feet within the wood to set.

I pray thee now the cause declare

Why thou hast left the kingdom there,

With matted locks and deerskin dress

Thus questioned by the prince, at length

KaikeyÍ's son regained his strength,

And hand to hand in reverence laid,

To RÁma thus his answer made:

Has dared to do a thing abhorred,

Left us, and grieving for his son,

A home among the Gods has won.

My mother Queen KaikeyÍ gave

The order to the king her slave,

And at the bidding of the dame

He wrought the sin which mars his fame.

Athirst for sway, her hopes are crossed,

She mourns her son, her husband lost,

And through her impious crime will go

For punishment to hell below.

Now O my lord, forgive me all;

Be gracious to thy lowly thrall:

Anointed king, accept to-day

Like Indra's self, the royal sway.

Be gracious, Prince, to lord and peer,

And widowed queens who seek thee here

Accept the kingdom thine by right,

And so thy faithful friends delight.

Let the broad land no longer be

All widowed and forlorn of thee:

Let the full moon of autumn reign

Triumphant o'er the night again.

These lords and I before thee bend:

O RÁma, to our prayer attend.

O do not thou this grace deny:

Thy brother, pupil, slave am I.

Look on this venerable ring,

Advisers of our sire the king,

From age to age so honoured: thou

As weeping thus the hero prayed,

His head at RÁma's feet he laid.

Like a mad elephant he sighed:

And RÁma gazed and thus replied:

True to his vows, of noble birth—

A man like me, commit a sin

The lordship of the land to win?

No slightest shade of fault I see,

O tamer of thy foes, in thee.

But ne'er shouldst thou in childish thought

The queen thy mother blame in aught.

O brother wise and sinless, know

The sacred laws would have it so,

That from good wife and son require

Obedience to their lord and sire.

And we are all the king's, for thus

The virtuous ever reckon us:

Yea brother, be it known to thee,

His wives, and sons, and pupils we.

His is the right, if he deem fit,

To bid me, throned as monarch, sit,

Or in a coat of bark expel,

And deerskin, in the wood to dwell.

And O remember, best of all

Who act as claims of duty call,

As to a virtuous sire is due,

Such honour claims a mother too.

So they whose lives have ever been

By duty led, the king and queen,

Said, “RÁma, seek the forest shade:”

And I (what could I else?) obeyed.

Thou must the royal power retain,