SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

Ramayana

A Mother’s Lament¹

“Hadst thou been never born, Rama, my son,

Born for my grief, I had not felt such pain,

A childless woman. For the barren one

Grief of the heart companions, only one,

Complaining, ‘I am barren’; this she mourns,

She has no cause for any deeper tears.

But I am inexperienced in delight

And never of my husband’s masculine love

Had pleasure,– still I lingered, still endured

Hoping to be acquainted yet with joy.

Therefore full many unlovely words that strove

To break the suffering heart had I to hear

From wives of my husband, I the Queen and highest,

From lesser women. Ah, what greater pain

Than this can women have who mourn on earth,

Than this my grief and infinite lament?

O Rama, even at thy side so much

I have endured, and if thou goest hence,

Death is my certain prospect, death alone.

Cruelly neglected, grievously oppressed

I have lived slighted in my husband’s house

As though Kaikayie’s² serving-woman,– nay,

A lesser thing than these. If any honours,

If any follows me, even that man

Hushes when he beholds Kaikayie’s son.

How shall I in my misery endure

That bitter mouth intolerable, bear

Her ceaseless petulance. Oh³, I have lived

Seventeen years since thou wast born, my son,

O Rama, seventeen long years have I lived⁴,

Wearily wishing for an end to grief;

And now this mighty anguish without end!

I have no strength to bear for ever pain;

Nor this worn heart with suffering fatigued

To satisfy the scorn of rivals yields

More tears. Ah how shall I without thy face

Miserably exist, without thy face,

My moon of beauty, miserable days?

Me wretched, who with fasts and weary toil⁵

And dedicated musings reared thee up,

Vainly. Alas, the river’s giant banks,

How great they are! and yet when violent rain

Has levelled their tops with water, they descend

In ruin, not like this heart which will not break.

But I perceive death was not made for me,

For me no room in those stupendous realms

Has been discovered; since not even today

As on a mourning hind the lion falls

Death seizes me or to his thicket bears

With his huge leap,– death ender of all pain.

How livest thou, O hard, O iron heart,

Unbroken, O body, tortured by such grief,

How sinkst thou not all shattered to the earth?

Therefore I know death comes not called – he waits

Inexorably his time. But this I mourn,

My useless vows, gifts, offerings, self-control.

And dire ascetic strenuousness perfected

In passion for a son,– yet all like seed

Fruitless and given to ungrateful soil.

But if death came before his season, if one

By anguish of unbearable heavy grief

Naturally might win him, then today

Would I have hurried to his distant worlds

Of thee deprived, O Rama, O my son.

Why should I vainly live without thine eyes,

Thou moonlight of my soul? No, let me toil

After thee to the savage woods where thou

Must harbour, I will trail these feeble limbs

Behind thy steps slow as⁶ the sick yearning dam

That follows still her ravished young.” Thus she

Yearning upon her own beloved son; –

As over her offspring chained a centauress

Impatient of her anguish deep, so wailed

Cowshalya; for her heart with grief was loud.

¹ Ayodhya Kanda, Sarga 20, 36-55.

Back

² 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5, sic passim: Kaicayie’s

Back

³ 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: O

Back

⁴ 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: have lived

Back

⁵ 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: toils

Back

⁶ 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: steps as

Back