अन्तःपुरस्य नगरस्य च विलापः

In the previous sarga Rāma had set out in the chariot, and the king had stood with his wives gazing after him. In this sarga the poet turns our eyes from the city to the inner palace. As that tiger among men left the city with his hands folded, a great cry of distress rose among the women of the inner palace. The king's wives lamented: "He was the refuge and the shelter of all of us, helpless, weak and pitiable as we are; where can our protector be going?" With three words, refuge, shelter and protector, they name the three ways Rāma served them: support in daily life, rescue in trouble and the fulfilling of their wishes. His folded hands tell us that even as he went, Rāma went bowing to his father and his mothers.

"He never grows angry even when falsely accused," they went on, "he avoids whatever might give offence, he wins over everyone who is angry, and he shares in others' sorrow; where is he going? That mighty, great-souled man treats us just as he treats his own mother Kausalyā; where can he be going? Driven to the forest by a king tormented by Kaikeyī, he was the saviour of these people and of the whole world; where can he be going?" In all three verses the question "where is he going?" returns, and the repetition is the very form of grief: the question wants no answer, it only carries pain. "A king tormented by Kaikeyī" suggests that the king too was a sufferer, not the one to blame. And these queens do not condemn Kaikeyī; their words are simply a remembering of Rāma's virtues.

"Alas, the king has lost his senses," they said, "to send into the forest Rāma, who keeps to dharma and is true to his word, as though he were destroying the whole world of the living." With that all the queens wept in their pain like cows that have lost their calves, and cried aloud. The image of cows robbed of their calves comes again and again in this book, because the parting of mother and son is the chief cause of its grief. Hearing that terrible cry from the inner palace, King Daśaratha, already burning with grief for his son, was utterly wretched; his grief was doubled, his own loss and the lament of the others. Calling the king "senseless", harsh as it sounds, is said here not in blame but in bewilderment: what could have so clouded the king's mind?

That day no offerings were made into the sacred fires, the householders cooked no food, the people did no work, and the sun withdrew from sight. The elephants dropped the food from their mouths, the cows would not let their calves suckle, and a mother who had just borne her first son took no joy in him. With these lines the poet shows that the grief reached not only people but sacrifice, household, animals and nature itself. Then the star Triśaṅku, the red planet Mars, and Jupiter and Mercury as well, all harsh and threatening, drew near the moon and stood there. In the science of the stars an afflicted moon foretells harm to the king and his house, so this account of portents is a warning of Daśaratha's coming death. Cooking in the household, the people's work and a cow's care for her calf are three roots of household life, and with them overturned, the whole life of society stood still.

The stars lost their brightness and the planets their light, and the Viśākhā constellation shone in the sky as though wrapped in smoke; Viśākhā is the family star of the Ikṣvākus, and its smoky look spoke of danger to the family. A bank of dark cloud rose like the ocean heaved up by the wind, and when Rāma had been sent to the forest the city shook, as though an earthquake had struck Ayodhyā. Every quarter of the sky was in confusion, as if covered in darkness; no planet, no star, nothing shone. So the poet shows one and the same disorder on three levels, in the sky above, in the air between and on the earth. The comparison with the storm-tossed ocean conveys both the depth and the restlessness of the clouds, and "the city shook" speaks not only of the earth trembling but of the city losing its stability.

All at once the whole city fell into misery; no one could put their mind to food or pleasure. Burned by wave after wave of grief and sighing long and constantly, everyone in Ayodhyā cried out against the lord of the earth, Daśaratha; they blamed the king himself, feeling that the city was paying the price for his keeping of his word. People walking on the royal road had faces streaming with tears; not one cheerful person could be found, all were given over to grief. The royal road is a public place: grief at home is natural, but even on the royal road there was not a trace of joy. Giving up food and pleasure is the first sign of grief, which is why the poet describes it first, and the long sighing is the outward sign of a burdened mind.

No cool wind blew, the moon was not pleasant to look at, the sun did not warm the world; the whole world was in turmoil. Sons, husbands and brothers meant nothing to the women; they all put everything aside and thought only of Rāma. "Meant nothing" is a telling phrase: even the natural ties of home seemed empty then. Rāma's friends were all bewildered and weighed down with grief; they did not go to bed at all, and sleep did not come to them that night. The cool wind, the gentle moon and the warming sun are constants of the turning seasons, and by showing even them disordered, the poet suggests that an injury to dharma throws the whole world into confusion. The friends' sleeplessness shows how deep their love was.

At the end the poet closes the sarga in a longer verse. Bereft of the great-souled Rāma, Ayodhyā shook as the earth with its mountains would shake if it lost Indra, and blazing with fear and grief, with all its elephants, warriors and horses, the city cried out terribly. The image of the earth without Indra points to Rāma as its protector, and by saying that the city's cry came with its elephants, horses and warriors, the poet shows that the grief had reached even the army. In the next sarga Daśaratha's fall and his casting off of Kaikeyī are described.