When I, by love of duty stirred, That touching lamentation heard, Pierced to the heart by sudden woe, I threw to earth my shafts and bow. My heart was full of grief and dread As swiftly to the place I sped, Where, by my arrow wounded sore, A hermit lay on Sarju's shore. His matted hair was all unbound, His pitcher empty on the ground, And by the fatal arrow pained, He lay with dust and gore distained. I stood confounded and amazed: His dying eyes to mine he raised, And spoke this speech in accents stern, As though his light my soul would burn: "How have I wronged thee, King, that I Struck by thy mortal arrow die? The wood my home, this jar I brought, And water for my parents sought. This one keen shaft that strikes me through Slays sire and aged mother too. Feeble and blind, in helpless pain, They wait for me and thirst in vain. They with parched lips their pangs must bear, And hope will end in blank despair. Ah me, there seems no fruit in store For holy zeal or Scripture lore, Or else ere now my sire would know That his dear son is lying low. Yet, if my mournful fate he knew, What could his arm so feeble do? The tree, firm-rooted, ne'er may be The guardian of a stricken tree. Haste to my father, and relate While time allows, my sudden fate, Lest he consume thee as the fire Burns up the forest, in his ire. This little path, O King, pursue: My father's cot thou soon wilt view. There sue for pardon to the sage, Lest he should curse thee in his rage. First from the wound extract the dart That kills me with its deadly smart, E'en as the flushed impetuous tide Eats through the river's yielding side."Ramayana 2.338 · Ramayana · 2
Ramayana 2.338
Ramayana · translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith
Themes in this passage
FamilyDeathAngerGriefLeadershipNatureChildrenDharma
Family in other traditions
The same theme, as Christianity, Islam, Hellenism and Taoism address it.
The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.Luke 12:53 · Bible · Luke
Unto the men (of a family) belongeth a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, and unto the women a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, whether it be little or much - a legal share.Quran 4:7 · Quran · Women
“O wretched husband of a wretched wife! Born with one fate, to one unhappy life! For sure one star its baneful beam display’d On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade. From different parents, different climes we came. At different periods, yet our fate the same! Why was my birth to great Aëtion owed, And why was all that tender care bestow’d? Would I had never been!—O thou, the ghost Of my dead husband! miserably lost! Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone! And I abandon’d, desolate, alone! An only child, once comfort of my pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains! No more to smile upon his sire; no friend To help him now! no father to defend! For should he ’scape the sword, the common doom, What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come! Even from his own paternal roof expell’d, Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. The day, that to the shades the father sends, Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends: He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears; Amongst the happy, unregarded, he Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee, While those his father’s former bounty fed Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread: The kindest but his present wants allay, To leave him wretched the succeeding day. Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, Shall cry, ‘Begone! thy father feasts not here:’ The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, To my sad soul Astyanax appears! Forced by repeated insults to return, And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn: He, who, with tender delicacy bred, With princes sported, and on dainties fed, And when still evening gave him up to rest, Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast, Must—ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,[279] Is now that name no more, unhappy boy! Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.Iliad 22.46a · Iliad · 22
When the mother is found, we know what her children should be. When one knows that he is his mother's child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother that belong to him, to the end of his life he will be free from all peril.Tao Te Ching 52.2 · Tao Te Ching
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