Ramayana 4.108c

she Finds no protection, lord, from thee, Neglected like some noble dame By a vile husband dead to shame. Mean-hearted coward, false and vile, Whose cruel soul delights in guile, Could Dasaratha, noblest king, Beget so mean and base a thing? Alas! an elephant, in form Of Rama, in a maddening storm Of passion casting to the ground The girth of law(592) that clipped him round, Too wildly passionate to feel The prick of duty's guiding steel,(593) Has charged me unawares, and dead I fall beneath his murderous tread. How, stained with this my base defeat, How wilt thou dare, where good men meet, To speak, when every tongue will blame With keen reproach this deed of shame? Such hero strength and valour, shown Upon the innocent alone, Thou hast not proved in manly strife On him who robbed thee of thy wife. Hadst thou but fought in open field And met me boldly unconcealed, This day had been thy fate to fall, Slain by this hand, to Yama's hall. In vain I strove, and struck by thee Fell by a hand I could not see. Thus bites a snake, for sins of yore, A sleeping man who wakes no more. Sugriva's foeman thou hast killed, And thus his heart's desire fulfilled; But, Rama, hadst thou sought me first, And told the hope thy soul has nursed, That very day had I restored The Maithil lady to her lord; And, binding Ravan with a chain, Had laid him at thy feet unslain. Yea, were she sunk in deepest hell, Or whelmed beneath the ocean's swell, I would have followed on her track And brought the rescued lady back, As Hayagriva(594) once set free From hell the white Asvatari.(595) That when my spirit wings its flight Sugriva reign, is just and right. But most unjust, O King, that I, Slain by thy treacherous hand, should lie. Be still, my heart: this earthly state Is darkly ruled by sovereign Fate. The realm is lost and won: defy Thy questioners with apt reply."(596)