रामस्य विलापः लक्ष्मणाय सन्देशश्च

Unable to see Sītā, the righteous Rāma, lotus-eyed and mighty-armed, lamented with his mind struck down by grief. The poet describes his state finely: he seemed to see her even as he failed to see her, and tormented by love he spoke words wrung from him by lament, words hard even to utter. Grief twisted his sight, and he saw Sītā in the very trees and creepers. "You are hiding yourself behind the branches of the aśoka, my love, you who love flowers more than they do; but you only deepen my sorrow." The aśoka's name means "without sorrow," and yet here it only adds to his sorrow. "Your thighs, like the stems of the plantain, are screened by a plantain, but I can see them, lady; you cannot hide them. You are there in the karṇikāra grove, smiling." So three trees in turn became her garment, her thighs and the place where she laughed. And then at once he scolded her: "Enough of your joking; it brings me nothing but pain. Such laughter is not right, least of all in a hermitage. I know your nature well, my love; you are fond of teasing." That is the mark of this passage: remembering how playful she was, Rāma used that very memory to deceive himself, and two states stood side by side in his mind, the ache of separation and the hope that it was all a game.

The self-deception did not last. Even as he called, "Come out, wide-eyed one," he saw the truth: "Your hut stands empty. It is all too plain: Sītā has been devoured by rākṣasas, or carried off." With that his doubt became certainty. "She does not come to me, Lakṣmaṇa, though I cry for her." Then he took the world around him as witness: "These herds of deer, their eyes full of tears, seem to be telling me that my lady has been eaten by the night-rangers." The dumb animals became the bearers of the news. "Alas, my noble lady, where have you gone? Alas, my faithful one, so fair!" Then his memory went back to Ayodhyā. "Today Queen Kaikeyī will have her wish: I set out with Sītā and I have come back without her." Her "wish" recalls the boons she once demanded, and to Rāma even Sītā's loss seemed the last fruit of those boons, so the present sorrow was tied to its first cause. "How can I enter my empty inner rooms? People will say I am a coward and heartless." So his private grief met his shame before the world, and his lament turned homeward.

"The loss of Sītā will show everyone my weakness," Rāma said; the reproach he feared was not only of grief but of disgrace. Then he thought of Sītā's father. "When my exile is over, how shall I face Janaka, lord of Mithilā, when he comes to ask after our welfare? When the king of Videha sees me without her, he will be consumed by the loss of his daughter and will surely fall senseless." The poet shows that Rāma's grief was not for himself alone; he foresaw the sorrow of others too. So he made up his mind: "No, I will not go back to the city that Bharata rules. Without her even heaven would be empty to me." Even the end of his exile held no reward for him; where Sītā was not, a kingdom and heaven alike were empty. That refusal to go back is the turning point of the sarga, and from it comes the message that follows. "So leave me here in the forest," he told Lakṣmaṇa, "and go to the fair city of Ayodhyā."

"For I cannot live on in any way without Sītā. Embrace Bharata closely and give him this message from me: 'Rāma gives you leave; rule the earth.' And at my bidding greet my mothers, Kaikeyī, Sumitrā and Kausalyā, as is fitting; you, who always speak kindly, must take care to protect them. And tell my mother in full, slayer of foes, of Sītā's destruction and of what has become of me." Even the order of his messages has meaning: first the kingdom, through Bharata, then the queens, and last his own mother Kausalyā, who must be told everything. Rāma was not merely weeping here; he was setting his affairs in order, as a man facing death divides up his duties. While Rāghava lamented so in his misery, having come into the forest only to be without the lovely-haired Sītā, Lakṣmaṇa too, his face undone by fear and his mind in torment, was utterly distraught. His state is told in a single sentence: he said nothing, he only suffered. So the sarga ends with grief spreading wider still.