The Wife1SRI AUROBINDO
Translations
from Sanskrit and Other Languages
Ramayana
The Wife1
But Sita all the while, unhappy child,
Worshipped propitious gods. Her mind in dreams
August and splendid coronations dwelt
And knew not of that woe. Royal she worshipped,
A princess in her mind and mood, and sat
With expectation thrilled. To whom there came
Rama, downcast and sad, his forehead moist
From inner anguish. Dark with thought and shaken
He entered his august and jubilant halls.
She started from her seat, transfixed, and trembled,
For all the beauty of his face was marred,
Who when he saw his young beloved wife
Endured no longer; all his inner passion
Of tortured pride was opened in his face.
And Sita, shaken, cried aloud, “What grief
Comes in these eyes? Was not today thine hour
When Jupiter, the imperial planet, joins
With Pushya, that high constellation? Why
Art thou then pale, disturbed? Where is thy pomp,
Thy crowning where? No foam-white softness silk
With hundred-shafted canopy o’erhues
Thy kingly head, no fans o’erwave thy face
Like birds that beat their bright wings near a flower;
Minstrel nor orator attends thy steps
To hymn thy greatness, nor are heralds heard
Voicing high stanzas. Who has then forbade
The honeyed curds that Brahmins Veda-wise
Should pour on thy anointed brow,– the throngs
That should behind thee in a glory surge,–
The ministers and leading citizens
And peers and commons of the provinces
And commons metropolitan? Where stays
Thy chariot by four gold-clad horses drawn,
Trampling, magnificent, wide-maned? thy huge
High-omened elephant, a thunder-cloud
Or moving mountain in thy front? thy seat 
Enriched with curious gold? Such are the high
Symbols men lead before anointed kings
Through streets flower-crowned. But thou com’st careless2, dumb,
Alone. Or if thy coronation still,
Hero, prepares and nations for thee wait,
Wherefore comes this grey face not seen before
In which there is no joy?” Trembling she hushed.
Then answered her the hope of Raghou’s line:
“Sita, my sire exiles me to the woods.
O high-born soul, O firm religious mind,
Be strong and hear me. Dussaruth my sire,
Whose royal word stands as the mountains pledged
To Bharath’s3 mother boons of old, her choice
In her selected time, who now prefers
Athwart the coronation’s sacred pomp
Her just demand; me to the Dundac woods
For fourteen years exiled and in my stead
Bharath, my brother, royally elect
To this wide empire. Therefore I come, to visit
And clasp thee once, ere to far woods I go.
But thou before King Bharath speak my name
Seldom; thou knowest great and wealthy men
Are jealous and endure not others’ praise.
Speak low and humbly of me when thou speakest,
Observing all his moods; for only thus
Shall man survive against a monarch’s brow.
He is a king, therefore to be observed;
Holy, since by a monarch’s sacred hands
Anointed to inviolable rule.
Be patient; thou art wise and good. For I
Today begin exile, Sita, today
Leave thee, O Sita. But when I am gone
Into the paths of the ascetics old
Do thou in vows and fasts spend blamelessly
Thy lonely seasons. With the dawn arise
And when thou hast adored the Gods, bow down
Before King Dussaruth, my father, then
Like a dear daughter tend religiously
Cowshalya, my afflicted mother old;
Nor her alone, but all my father’s queens
Gratify with sweet love, smiles, blandishments
And filial claspings; – they my mothers are,
Nor than the breasts that suckled me less dear.
But mostly I would have thee show, beloved,
To Shatrughna and Bharath, my dear brothers,
More than my life-blood dear, a sister’s love
And a maternal kindness. Cross not Bharath
Even slightly in his will. He is thy king,
Monarch of thee and monarch of our house
And all this nation. ’Tis by modest awe
And soft obedience and high toilsome service
That princes are appeased, but being crossed
Most dangerous grow the wrathful hearts of kings
And mischiefs4 mean. Monarchs incensed reject
The sons of their own loins who durst oppose
Their mighty policies, and raise, of birth
Though vile, the strong and serviceable man.
Here then obedient dwell unto the King,
Sita; but I into the woods depart.”
He ended, but Videha’s daughter, she
Whose words were ever soft like one whose life
Is lapped in sweets, now other answer made
In that exceeding anger born of love,
Fierce reprimand and high. “What words are these,
Rama, from thee? What frail unworthy spirit
Converses with me uttering thoughts depraved,
Inglorious, full of ignominy, unmeet
For armed heroical great sons of Kings?
With alien laughter and amazed today
I hear the noblest lips in all the world
Uttering baseness. For father, mother, son,
Brother or son’s wife, all their separate deeds
Enjoying their own separate fates pursue.
But the wife is the husband’s and she has
Her husband’s fate, not any private joy. 
Have they said to thee ‘Thou art exiled’? Me
That doom includes, me too exiles. For neither
Father nor the sweet son of her own womb
Nor self, nor mother, nor companion dear
Is woman’s sanctuary, only her husband
Whether in this world or beyond is hers.
If to the difficult dim forest then,
Rama, this day thou journeyest, I will walk
Before thee, treading down the thorns and sharp
Grasses, smoothing with my torn feet thy way;
And henceforth from my bosom as from a cup
Stale water, jealousy and wrath renounce.
Trust me, take me; for, Rama, in this breast
Sin cannot harbour. Heaven, spacious terraces
Of mansions, the aerial gait of Gods
With leave to walk among those distant stars,
Man’s wingèd aspiration or his earth
Of sensuous joys, tempt not a woman’s heart:
She chooses at her husband’s feet her home.
My father’s lap, my mother’s knees to me
Were school of morals, Rama; each human law
Of love and service there I learned, nor need
Thy lessons. All things else are wind; I choose
The inaccessible inhuman woods,
The deer’s green walk or where the tigers roam,
Life savage with the multitude of beasts,
Dense thickets; there will I dwell in desert ways,
Happier than in my father’s lordly house,
A pure-limbed hermitess. How I will tend thee
And watch thy needs, and thinking of no joy
But that warm wifely service and delight
Forget the unneeded world, alone with thee.
We two shall dalliance take in honied groves
And scented springtides. These heroic hands
Can in the forest dangerous protect
Even common men, and will they then not guard
A woman and the noble name of wife?
I go with thee this day, deny who will, 
Nor aught shall turn me. Fear not thou lest I
Should burden thee, since gladly I elect
Life upon fruits and roots, and still before thee
Shall walk, not faltering with fatigue, eat only
Thy remnants after hunger satisfied,
Nor greater bliss conceive. O I desire
That life, desire to see the large wide lakes,
The cliffs of the great mountains, the dim tarns,
Not frighted since thou art beside me, and visit
Fair waters swan-beset in lovely bloom.
In thy heroic guard my life shall be
A happy wandering among beautiful things,
For I shall bathe in those delightful pools,
And to thy bosom fast-devoted, wooed
By thy great beautiful eyes, yield and experience
On mountains and by rivers large delight.
Thus if a hundred years should pass or many
Millenniums, yet I should not tire or5 change,
For wandering so not heaven itself would seem
Desirable, but this were rather heaven.
O Rama, Paradise and thou not there
No Paradise were to my mind. I should
Grow miserable and reject the bliss.
I rather mid the gloomy entangled boughs
And sylvan haunts of elephant and ape,
Clasping my husband’s feet, intend to lie
Obedient, glad, and feel about me home.”
But Rama, though his heart approved her words
Yielded not to the entreaty6, for he feared
Her dolour in the desolate woods7; therefore
Once more he spoke and kissed her brimming eyes.
“Of a high blood thou comest and thy soul
Turns naturally to duties high. Now, too,
O Sita, let thy duty be thy guide;
Elect thy husband’s will. Thou shouldst obey,
Sita, my words, who art a woman weak.
The woods are full of hardship, full of peril, 
And ’tis thy ease that I command. Nay, nay,
But listen and this forestward resolve
Thou wilt abandon: Love! for I shall speak
Of fears and great discomforts. There is no pleasure
In the vast woodlands drear, but sorrows, toils,
Wretched privations. Thundering from the hills
The waterfalls leap down, and dreadfully
The mountain lions from their caverns roar
Hurting the ear with sound. This is one pain.
Then in vast solitudes the wild beasts sport
Untroubled, but when they behold men, rage
And savage onset move. Unfordable
Great rivers thick with ooze, the python’s haunt,
Or turbid with wild elephants, sharp thorns
Beset with pain and tangled creepers close
The thirsty tedious paths impracticable
That echo with the peacock’s startling call.
At night thou must with thine own hands break off
The sun-dried8 leaves, thy only bed, and lay
Thy worn-out limbs fatigued on the hard ground,
And day or night no kindlier food must ask
Than wild fruit shaken from the trees, and fast
Near to the limits of thy fragile life,
And wear the bark of trees for raiment, bind
Thy tresses piled in a neglected knot,
And daily worship with large ceremony
New-coming guests and the high ancient dead
And the great deities, and three times ’twixt dawn
And evening bathe with sacred accuracy,
And patiently in all things rule observe.
All these are other hardships of the woods.
Nor at thy ease shalt worship, but must offer
The flowers by thine own labour culled, and deck
The altar with observance difficult,
And be content with little and casual food.
Abstinent is their life who roam in woods,
O Mithilan, strenuous, a travail. Hunger
And violent winds and darkness and huge fears 
Are their companions. Reptiles of all shapes
Coil numerous where thou walkest, spirited,
Insurgent, and the river-dwelling snakes
That with the river’s winding motion go,
Beset thy path, waiting. Fierce scorpions, worms,
Gadflies and gnats continually distress,
And the sharp grasses pierce and thorny trees
With an entangled anarchy of boughs
Oppose. O many bodily pains and swift
Terrors the inhabitants9 in forests know.
They must expel desire and wrath expel,
Austere of mind, who such discomforts choose,
Nor any fear must feel of fearful things.
Dream not of it, O Sita; nothing good
The mind recalls in that disastrous life
For thee unmeet; only stern miseries
And toils ruthless and many dangers drear.”
Then Sita with the tears upon her face
Made answer very sad and low: “Many
Sorrows and perils of that forest life
Thou hast pronounced, discovered dreadful ills.
O Rama, they are joys if borne for thee,
For thy dear love, O Rama. Tiger or elk,
The savage lion and fierce forest-bull
Marsh-jaguars and the creatures of the woods
And desolate peaks, will from thy path remove
At unaccustomed beauty terrified.
Fearless shall I go with thee if my elders
Allow, nor they refuse, themselves who feel
That parting from thee, Rama, is a death.
There is no danger, Hero, at thy side
Who shall touch me? Not sovran Indra durst,
Though in his might he master all the Gods,
Assail me with his thunder-bearing hands.
O how can woman from her husband’s arms
Divorced exist? Thine own words have revealed,
Rama, its sad impossibility. 
Therefore my face is set towards going, for I
Preferring that sweet service of my lord,
Following my husband’s feet, surely shall grow
All purified by my exceeding love.
O thou great heart and pure, what joy is there
But thy nearness? To me my husband is
Heaven and God. O even when I am dead
A bliss to me will be my lord’s embrace.
Yea, thou who know’st, wilt thou, forgetful grown
Of common joys and sorrows sweetly shared,
The faithful heart reject, reject the love?
Thou carest nothing then for Sita’s tears?
Go! poison or the water or the fire
Shall yield me sanctuary, importuning death.”
Thus while she varied passionate appeal
And her sweet miserable eyes with tears
Swam over, he her wrath and terror and grief
Strove always to appease. But she alarmed,
Great Janac’s daughter, princess Mithilan,
Her woman’s pride of love all wounded, shook
From her the solace of his touch and weeping
Assailed indignantly her mighty lord.
“Surely my father erred, great Mithila
Who rules and the Videhas, that he chose
Thee with his line to mate, Rama unworthy,
No man but woman in a male disguise.
What casts thee down, wherefore art thou then sad,
That thou art bent thus basely to forsake
Thy single-hearted wife? Not Savitri10
So loved the hero Dyumathsena’s son
As I love thee and from my soul adore.
I would not, like another woman, shame
Of her great house, turn even in thought from thee
To watch a second face; for where thou goest
My heart follows. ’Tis thou, O shame! ’tis thou
Who thy young wife and pure, thy boyhood’s bride
And bosom’s sweet companion, like an actor, 
Resign’st11 to others. If thy heart so pant
To be his slave for whom thou art oppressed,
Obey him thou, court, flatter, for I will not.
Alas, my husband, leave me not behind,
Forbid me not from exile. Whether harsh
Asceticism in the forest drear
Or paradise my lot, either is bliss
From thee not parted, Rama. How can I,
Guiding in thy dear steps my feet, grow tired
Though journeying endlessly? as well might one
Weary, who on a bed of pleasure lies.
The bramble-bushes in our common path,
The bladed grasses and the pointed reeds
Shall be as pleasant to me as the touch
Of cotton or of velvet, being with thee.
And when the storm-blast rises scattering
The thick dust over me, I, feeling then
My dear one’s hand, shall think that I am smeared
With sandal-powder highly-priced. Or when
From grove to grove upon the grass I lie,
In couches how is there more soft delight
Or rugs of brilliant wool? The fruits of trees,
Roots of the earth or leaves, whate’er thou bring,
Be it much or little, being by thy hands
Gathered, I shall account ambrosial food,
I shall not once remember, being with thee,
Father or mother dear or my far home.
Nor shall thy pains by my companionship
Be greatened; doom me not to parting, Rama.
For only where thou art is Heaven; ’tis Hell
Where thou art not. O thou who know’st my love,
If thou canst leave me, poison still is left
To be my comforter. I will not bear
Their yoke who hate thee. And if today I shunned
Swift solace, grief at length would do its work
With torments slow. How should12 the broken heart
That once has beaten on thine, absence endure
Ten years and three to these and yet one more?” 
So writhing in the fire of grief, she wound
Her body about her husband, fiercely silent,
Or sometimes wailed aloud; as a wild beast
That maddens with the fire-tipped arrows, such
Her grief ungovernable and like the streams13
Of fire from its stony prison freed,
Her quick hot tears, or as when the whole river
From new-culled lilies weeps,– those crystal brooks
Of sorrow poured from her afflicted lids.
And all the moonlight14 glories of her face
Grew dimmed and her large eyes vacant of joy.
But he revived her with sweet words: “Weep not;
If I could buy all heaven with one tear
Of thine, Sita, I would not pay the price,
My Sita, my beloved. Nor have I grown,
I who have stood like God by nature planted
High above any cause of fear, so suddenly15
Familiar with alarm. Only I knew not
Thy sweet and resolute courage, and for thee
Dreaded the misery that sad exiles feel.
But since to share my exile and o’erthrow
God first created thee, O Mithilan,
Sooner shall high serenity divorce
From the self-conquering heart, than thou from me
Be parted. Fixed I stand in my resolve
Who follow ancient virtue and the paths
Of the old perfect dead; ever my face
Turns steadfast to that radiant goal, self-vowed
Its sunflower. To the drear wilderness I go.
My father’s stainless honour points me on,
His oath that must not fail. This is the old
Religion, brought from dateless ages down,
Parents to honour and obey; their will
Should I transgress, I would not wish to live.
For how shall man with homage or with prayer
Approach the distant Deity, yet scorn
A present godhead, father, mother, sage?
In these man’s triple objects live, in these
The triple world is bounded, nor than these
Has all wide earth one holier thing. Large eyes,
These therefore let us worship. Truth or gifts,
Or Honour or liberal proud sacrifice,
Nought equals the effectual force and pure
Of worship filial done. This all bliss brings,
Compels all gifts, compels harvests and wealth,
Knowledge compels and children. All these joys
And16 human boons great filial souls on earth
Recovering here enjoy, and in that world
Heaven naturally is theirs. But me whatever,
In the strict path of virtue while he stands,
My father bids, my heart bids that. I go,
But not alone, o’ercome by thy sweet soul’s
High courage. O intoxicating eyes,
O faultless limbs, go with me, justify
The wife’s proud name, partner in virtue, Love,
Warm from thy great high-blooded lineage old
Thy purpose springing mates with the pure strain
Of Raghou’s ancient house. O let thy large
And lovely motion forestward make speed
High ceremonies to absolve. Heaven’s joys
Without thee now were beggarly and rude.
Haste then, the Brahmin and the pauper feed
And to their blessings answer jewels. All
Our priceless diamonds and our splendid robes,
Our curious things, our couches and our cars,
The glory and the eye’s delight, do these17
Renounce, nor let our faithful servants lose
Their worthy portion.” Sita, of that consent
So hardly won sprang joyous, as on fire,
Disburdened of her wealth, lightly to wing
Into dim wood and wilderness unknown.
1 Ayodhya Kanda, Sarga, 26-30.
2 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: carless
3 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5, sic passim: Bharuth’s
4 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: mischief
5 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: nor
6 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: to entreaty
7 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: wood
8 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: soon-dried
9 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: habitants
10 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: Savitry
11 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: Resignst
12 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: shall
13 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: stream
14 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: moonbright
15 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: fear, suddenly
16 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: These
17 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: them