सर्ग ३४

Sugríva started from his rest With doubt and terror in his breast. He heard the prince’s furious tread He saw his eyes glow fiercely red. Swift sprang the monarch to his feet Upstarting from his golden seat. Rose Rumá and her fellows, too, And closely round Sugríva drew, As round the moon’s full glory stand Attendant stars in glittering band. Sugríva glanced with reddened eyes, Raised his joined hands in suppliant guise Flew to the door, and rooted there Stood like the tree that grants each prayer.(638) And Lakshmaṇ saw, and, fiercely moved, With angry speech the king reproved:

“Famed is the prince who loves the truth, Whose soul is touched with tender ruth, Who, liberal, keeps each sense subdued, And pays the debt of gratitude. But all unmeet a king to be, The meanest of the mean is he Who basely breaks the promise made To trusting friends who lent him aid. He sins who for a steed has lied, As if a hundred steeds had died: Or if he lie, a cow to win, Tenfold as heavy is the sin. But if the lie a man betray, Both he and his shall all decay.(639) O Vánar King, the thankless man Is worthy of the general ban, Who takes assistance of his friends, And in his turn no service lends. This verse of old by Brahmá sung Is echoed now by every tongue. Hear what He cried in angry mood Bewailing man’s ingratitude: “For draughts of wine, for slaughtered cows, For treacherous theft, for broken vows A pardon is ordained: but none For thankless scorn of service done.” Ungrateful, Vánar King, art thou, And faithless to thy plighted vow. For Ráma brought thee help, and yet Thou shunnest to repay the debt: Or, grateful, thou hadst surely pressed To aid the hero in his quest. Thou art, in vulgar pleasures drowned, False to thy bond in honour bound. Nor yet has Ráma’s guileless heart Discerned thee for the thing thou art— A snake who holds the frogs that cries And lures fresh victims as it dies. Brave Ráma, born for glorious fate, Has set thee in thy high estate, And to the Vánars’ throne restored, Great-souled himself, their mean-souled lord. Now if thy pride disown what he, High thoughted prince, has done for thee, Struck by his arrows shalt thou fall, And Báli meet in Yáma’s hall. Still open, to the gloomy God, Lies the sad path thy brother trod. Then to thy plighted word be true, Nor let thy steps that path pursue. Methinks the shafts of Ráma, shot Like thunderbolts, thou heedest not, Who canst, absorbed in sensual bliss, Thy promise from thy mind dismiss.”