CHAPTER X. MELANCHOLY OF RÁMA. Válmíki related:—After Vasishtha had done saying in this manner, king Dasaratha was glad to send for Ráma with Lakshmana, and said: 2. Go you chamberlain, and bring here quickly the truly mighty and long armed Ráma with Lakshmana, for the meritorious purpose of removing the impediments (in the way of religious acts). 3. Thus sent by the king he went to the inner apartment, and coming back in a moment informed the king. 4. Oh sire! Ráma, whose arms have crushed all his foes, remains rapt in thoughts in his room like the bee closed in the lotus at night. 5. He said, he is coming in a moment, but is so abstracted in his lonely meditation that he likes no body to be near him. 6. Thus acquainted by the chamberlain, the king called one of the attendants of Ráma to him, and having given him every assurance, asked him to relate the particulars. 7. On being asked by the king how Ráma had come to that state, the attendant thus replied to him in a sorrowful mood. 8. Sir, we have also become as lean as sticks in our persons, in sorrow for the fading away of your son Ráma in his body. 9. The lotus-eyed Ráma appears dejected ever since he has come back from his pilgrimage in company with the Bráhmanas. 10. When besought by us with importunity to perform his daily rites, he sometimes discharges them with a placid countenance, and wholly dispenses with them at others. 11. He is averse, Oh Lord! to bathing, to worshipping the gods, to the distribution of alms, and to his meals also; and even when importuned by us he does not take his food with a good relish. 12. He no longer suffers himself to be rocked in the swinging cradles by the playful girls of the harem, nor does he divert himself under the showering fountains like the _chátaka_ (in rain water). 13. No ornaments beset with the bud-shaped rubies, no bracelets nor necklace, Oh king, can please him now, in the same manner as nothing in heaven can please its inhabitants who expect their fall from it (after the expiration of their terms). 14. He is sorrowful even while sitting in the arbours of creepers, regaled by flowery breezes, and amidst the looks of damsels playing around him. 15. Whatever thing Oh king! is good and sweet, elegant and pleasing, to the soul, he looks at them with sorrowful eyes, like one whose eyes are already satiate with viewing them heaped up in piles (before him). 16. He would speak ill of the girls that would dance merrily before him, and exclaim out saying, “why should these ladies of the harem flutter about in this way causing grief in me.” 17. His doings are like those of a madman, who takes no delight at his food or rest, his vehicles or seats, his baths and other pleasures, however excellent they be. 18. As regards prosperity or adversity, his habitation or any other desirable things, he says of them to be all unreal, and then holds his silence.