The Ramayana · 358 of 493

Sundara Kānda (The Beautiful Book): Canto 22 — Rávan’s Threat

Then anger swelled in Rávaṇ’s breast, Who fiercely thus the dame addressed: “’Tis ever thus: in vain we sue To woman, and her favour woo. A lover’s humble words impel Her wayward spirit to rebel. The love of thee that fills my soul Still keeps my anger in control, As charioteers with bit and rein The swerving of the steed restrain. The love that rules me bids me spare Thy forfeit life, O thou most fair. For this, O Sítá, have I borne The keen reproach, the bitter scorn, And the fond love thou boastest yet For that poor wandering anchoret; Else had the words which thou hast said Brought death upon thy guilty head. Two months, fair dame, I grant thee still To bend thee to thy lover’s will. If when that respite time is fled Thou still refuse to share my bed, My cooks shall mince thy limbs with steel And serve thee for my morning meal.”(834)

Context

Rāvaṇ gives Sītā two months. Either she consents to his bed or her limbs will be carved for his breakfast. The threat is recorded straight in the Sanskrit, without softening, and tradition has not softened it either. Two months is a curiously specific deadline, and the rest of the epic will be paced against it. Hanumān has arrived with about a month to spare, and the rescue army Rāma will gather has to cross the ocean and lay siege before the second month runs out. The Rāmāyaṇa is one of the earliest literary works in any language to use a fixed deadline as a structural device for sustained narrative tension. Modern thriller technique still uses the same trick.On the two-month deadline as narrative architecture: Robert Goldman, intro to Princeton Sundarakāṇḍa; on deadline structure in epic, John Brockington, Epic Threads (Oxford 2000).

The minstrel daughters of the skies Looked on her woe with pitying eyes, And sun-bright children of the Gods(835) Consoled the queen with smiles and nods. She saw, and with her heart at ease, Addressed the fiend in words like these; “Hast thou no friend to love thee, none In all this isle to bid thee shun The ruin which thy crime will bring On thee and thine, O impious King? Who in all worlds save thee could woo Me, Ráma’s consort pure and true, As though he tempted with his love Queen Śachí(836) on her throne above? How canst thou hope, vile wretch, to fly The vengeance that e’en now is nigh, When thou hast dared, untouched by shame, To press thy suit on Ráma’s dame? Where woods are thick and grass is high A lion and a hare may lie; My Ráma is the lion, thou Art the poor hare beneath the bough. Thou railest at the lord of men, But wilt not stand within his ken. What! is that eye unstricken yet Whose impious glance on me was set? Still moves that tongue that would not spare The wife of Daśaratha’s heir?”

Then, hissing like a furious snake, The fiend again to Sítá spake: “Deaf to all prayers and threats art thou, Devoted to thy senseless vow. No longer respite will I give, And thou this day shalt cease to live; For I, as sunlight kills the morn, Will slay thee for thy scathe and scorn.”

The Rákshas guard was summoned: all The monstrous crew obeyed the call, And hastened to the king to take The orders which he fiercely spake: “See that ye guard her well, and tame, Like some wild thing, the stubborn dame, Until her haughty soul be bent By mingled threat and blandishment.”(837)

The monsters heard: away he strode, And passed within his queens’ abode.