Page:Valmiki - Ramayana, Griffith, 1895.djvu/33

Canto II. 7

Valmiki, graceful speaker, heard, To highest admiration stirred. To him whose fame the tale rehearsed He paid his mental worship first; Then with his pupil humbly bent Before the saint most eloquent. Thus honoured and dismissed the seer Departed to his heavenly sphere. Then from his cot Valmiki hied To Tamasa's sequestered side. Not far remote from Ganga's tide. He stood and saw the ripples roll Pellucid o'er a pebbly shoal. To Bharadvaja by his side He turned in ecstasy, and cried: 'See, pupil dear, this lovely sight, The smooth- floored shallow, pure and bright With not a speck or shade to mar, And clear as good men's bosoms are. Here on the brink thy pitcher lay, And bring my zone of bark, I pray. Here will I bathe : the rill has not, To lave the limbs, a fairer spot. Do quickly as I bid, nor waste The precious time ; away, and haste.'


 * Obedient to his master's hest

Quick from the cot he brought the vest; The hermit took it from his hand, And tightened round his waist the band ; Then duly dipped and bathed him there, And muttered low his secret prayer. To spirits and to Gods he made Libation of the stream, and strayed Viewing the forest deep and wide That spread its shade on every side. Close by the bank he saw a pair Of curlews sporting fearless there. Hut suddenly with evil mind An outcast fowler stole behind, And, with an aim. too sure and true, The male bird near the hermit slew.

The wretched hen in wild despair With fluttering pinions beat the air, And shrieked a long and bitter cry When low on earth she saw him lie, Her loved companion, quivering, dead, His dear wings with his lifeblood red ; And for her golden crested mate She mourned, and was disconsolate.

The hermit saw the slaughtered bird, And all his heart with ruth was stirred. The fowler's impious deed distressed His gentle sympathetic breast, And while the curlew's sad cries rang Within his ears, the hermit sang :

Because, base outcast, of thy crime, Whose cruel hand was fain to slay One of this gentle pair at play ! ' E'en as he spoke his bosom wrought And laboured with the wondering thought What was the speech his ready tongue Had uttered when his heart was wrung. He pondered long upon the speech, Recalled the words and measured each, And thus exclaimed the saintly guide
 * No fame be thine for endless time,

To Bharadvaja by his side:


 * With equal lines of even feet,

With rhythm and time and tone complete, The measured form of words I spoke In shock of grief be termed a sloke.' 1 And Bharadvaja, nothing slow His faithful love and zeal to show, Answered those words of wisdom, ' Be The name, my lord, as pleases thee.' As rules prescribe the hermit took Some lustral water from the brook. But still on this his constant thought Kept brooding, as his home he sought ; While Bharadvaja paced behind, A pupil sage of lowly mind, And in his hand a pitcher bore With pure fresh water brimming o'er. Soon as they reached their calm retreat The holy hermit took his seat ; !iis mind from worldly cares recalled, And mused in deepest thought enthralled. Then glorious Brahma, 2 Lord Most High, Creator of the earth and sky,

1 The poet plays upon the similarity in sound of the two words : soha, means ^rief, sloka, the heroic measure in which he poem is composed. It need scarcely je said that the derivation is fanciful.

z Brahma, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first person of the divine triad of ndia. The four heads with which he is epresented are supposed to have allusion o the four corners of the earth which he s sometimes considered to personify. As an object of adoration Brahma has been