Then Queen Kaikeyi, full of joy and pride, When Rama banisht takes my fear away: With finest gold these hands thy hump shall deck, Bound on thy brow, shall make thy face more fair; Each woman's envy and each man's desire : Fair as a lovely Goddess shalt thou be, And challenge the sweet moon to rival thee.' Her lady's praise with joy the damsel heard, And thus again with wiles her spirit stirred, As the Queen lay upon her sumptuous bed Like sacred fire upon the altar fed : Mistress, arise, the glorious plot complete : There on the ground, obedient to the girl, By sparkling chain and golden ornament. Like a fair nymph upon the ground she fell; DASARATHA'S OATH. "Unfortunately Dasaratha had once given a promise to Bharat's mother that he would grant any two boons she pleased to ask. The promise had been made in years gone by, when he had been dangerously wounded in battle, and carefully attended by this wife, Kaikeyi; and amongst Hindus a promise was irrevocable, and therefore the wretched King felt compelled to yield, although the first boon required was to banish Rama for a period of fourteen years, and the second to declare Bharat the heir apparent." Life in Ancient India. Slow and majestic, as the Lord of Night,' The moon, with the Hindus, is masculine. 2 Rahu, the ascending node, is in mythology a demon with the tail of a dragon whose head was severed from his body by Vishnu, but being immortal the head and tail retained their separate existence, and being transferred to the stellar sphere became the authors of eclipses; the first especially by en、 deavouring to swallow the sun and moon. So to Kaikeyi's palace, rich and vast, King Dasaratha in his glory past. There stalked flamingoes mixt with swans and cr Here sat a dwarf, and there a crook-back maid Where glowed the Champac' and Asoca flower. Here cates and viands lured the dainty taste. Not e'en the Gods who dwell at ease, I ween, A tree that bears yellow flowers of delicious fragrance: In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold.”—Lalla Rookh. 2 The Jonesia Asoca one of the loveliest trees of India, and perhaps of the whole world, With longing eyes the Monarch looked around, But no Kaikeyi in her bower he found; Yet 'twas the time at which the royal dame Was ever there to greet him as he came. Then, moved by love and vext with anxious thought, News of his darling from her maids he sought. 'My lord,' a trembling damsel thus replied, 'The Queen in anger to the cell has hied.' As bends an elephant to heal the smart Of his mate wounded by a venomed dart, 1 Indra's Paradise. |