दशरथस्य विलापः कैकेय्यास्त्यागश्च

In the previous sarga Ayodhyā had shaken with grief; in this one the poet returns to Daśaratha. As long as the dust raised by Rāma's departing chariot could be seen, the best of the Ikṣvākus did not take his eyes from it. As long as he could see his beloved, wholly righteous son, his body seemed to grow taller on the earth with the sight of him, as though rising up to see further. But when the lord of the earth could no longer see even Rāma's dust, he fell to the ground, stricken and despairing. The sight of that dust had been his last thread, and when it broke he fell. "He did not take his eyes from it" shows how his gaze clung to his son, and "seemed to grow taller" paints the old king's longing. In just three verses the poet moves from seeing to not seeing, and from not seeing to the fall.

As he lay fallen, Kausalyā came to his right arm, and the slender-waisted Kaikeyī to his other side. The king, a man of sound judgement, righteous and restrained, looked at Kaikeyī and, his senses in turmoil, said to her: "Kaikeyī, woman of wicked purpose, do not touch my body. I do not even want to see you. You are no wife of mine and no kin." The king who had kept silent when the boons were granted now forbade even her touch; grief had set his tongue free. Describing him as a man of judgement, dharma and restraint suggests that these words were not mere anger but a considered decision. Kausalyā on his right and Kaikeyī on the other side: by where they stand the poet marks the difference in their bonds with him.

"Those who depend on you are nothing to me, and I am nothing to them," the king went on. "You care only for gain and have thrown dharma away; I cast you off. That I took your hand, that I led you round the sacred fire, all of that I renounce, in this world and the next. And if Bharata is pleased to receive this undying kingdom, let nothing he offers for me as his father ever reach me." By renouncing the taking of her hand and the circling of the fire, he cut the bond of marriage itself, and by refusing Bharata's offerings for the dead he rejected even the tie of sonship; that was the old king's last weapon. The kingdom is called undying, yet in the king's words that very kingdom is what he condemns.

Then Queen Kausalyā, wasted with grief, lifted up the lord of men, covered in dust, and turned back with him. Thinking of his son Rāghava, that righteous king burned with remorse, like a man who has wilfully killed a brahmin or touched fire with his hand; the two images show that the fruit of his own deed could not be escaped. Turning back again and again, sinking down on the chariot's tracks, the king had no more splendour than the sun in eclipse. The repeated turning back pictures how often he looked behind him, and the tracks of the chariot were all he had left to cling to. Kausalyā neither reproached him nor lamented; she simply raised up her fallen husband, and that is her character. The image of the eclipsed sun had appeared in the previous sarga, and it returns here.

Tormented by grief, he lamented, remembering his dear son, and thinking that Rāma must by now have reached the edge of the city, he said: "The tracks of the fine horses that carried my son away can be seen on the road, but my great-souled son cannot be seen. He was the best of my sons; he used to lie at ease on cushions, anointed with sandal paste, while noble women fanned him. Surely today he will shelter somewhere at the foot of a tree and lie down with a log or a stone for a pillow." This contrast between the soft bed and the forest bed returns again and again in this sarga; in the father's imagining his son's hardship becomes almost visible. "The tracks can be seen, but he cannot" is the most piercing line of the sarga: the marks remain, but the one who made them is gone. First the poet recalls the old comforts, sandal paste, cushions and fans, then sets against them the tree root, the log and the stone, sharpening the contrast. That is the nature of a father's grief: he does not see the present, he only imagines it.

"He will get up from the ground, poor boy, covered in dust and sighing, like a bull elephant rising from a mountain spring among the cow-elephants. Surely the forest people will see long-armed Rāma, the lord of the world, get up and walk on as if he had no protector. And Janaka's beloved daughter Sītā, who has always been used to comfort, will go into the forest today, worn out by the thorns under her feet. Knowing nothing of forests, she will surely be terrified when she hears the deep, hair-raising roars of the wild beasts." "The lord of the world, as if he had no protector" sharpens the picture by contrast: the protector of all is wandering in the forest as though he had none. The image of the great elephant rising from a spring suggests Rāma's dignity and strength, while "poor, covered in dust" describes his present state. In speaking of Sītā, "always used to comfort" says everything: she who deserved comfort always would be walking on thorns, and her father-in-law imagines that even the sounds of the forest will frighten her. Notice that even while describing his son's hardship, the king does not forget Sītā's; his tenderness for his daughter-in-law is equal.

"Have your wish, Kaikeyī: be a widow and rule the kingdom. Without that tiger among men I have no will to live." Lamenting so, surrounded by crowds of people, the king entered his fine palace like a man coming back to bathe after a funeral. He saw the city: its squares and houses empty, the shop platforms closed, the people weary, weak and stricken, the great roads nearly deserted. Looking at the whole city and thinking only of Rāma, the king went lamenting into his house, like the sun going behind a cloud. The image of the man who has bathed after a funeral suggests that the king's grief had become like the rites for the dead. "Have your wish" sounds like a curse, and "be a widow and rule the kingdom" is the king speaking of his own death as certain. The empty squares, the closed shops and the deserted roads, three signs, establish the emptiness of the city, and the sun going behind a cloud shows his splendour covered over. His entry was no festive procession but a lament, surrounded by crowds.

Without Rāma, Vaidehī and Lakṣmaṇa, that house was like a great, still pool from which Garuḍa has carried off the serpent: the water is still there, but the life has gone. Then, lamenting, the lord of the earth spoke in a choking voice, softly, barely intelligibly, pitifully and without tone: "Take me quickly to the house of Kausalyā, Rāma's mother; my heart will find no comfort anywhere else." As he said this, the doorkeepers led the king there and respectfully laid him down on the bed in Kausalyā's house. The doorkeepers behaved with courtesy; seeing the king's state they said nothing and simply served him. He asked for Kausalyā's house because there the memory of Rāma was most alive, and so the ground is prepared for the next sarga.

But though he had entered Kausalyā's house and lain down on the bed, his mind stayed troubled; a change of place does not quiet grief. Without his two sons and his daughter-in-law, the house looked to the king like a sky whose moon had vanished; the stars are there, but the moon is gone. Seeing this, the great king, valiant as he was, lifted his arm and cried aloud: "Alas, Rāma, you are leaving us both! Happy indeed are those good men who will live until that time and see Rāma come back, and embrace him." Here the king hints at his own death: he had no hope of living for fourteen years. The raised arm is the bodily sign of his outcry, and "us both" counts himself and Kausalyā together. "Happy indeed are they" is not envy but an admission that his own life would be short.

Then, when night had come on like the night of his own death, at midnight Daśaratha said to Kausalyā: "Kausalyā, I cannot see you. Please touch me with your hand. My sight went after Rāma, and even now it has not come back." Seeing the king on his bed, thinking only of Rāma and sighing deeply, Queen Kausalyā, even more stricken, sat down close beside him and lamented bitterly. This blindness was born of grief, but it also recalls a brahmin's curse from long ago, which the king himself will tell in the coming sargas. "I cannot see you" shows the light fading from his eyes, and by saying his sight had gone after Rāma he names its cause. Kausalyā's sitting close beside him is itself a form of service; she does not reproach him but simply sits near. So the sarga ends with the two old people together in the night, and Kausalyā's lament, begun here, becomes the subject of the next sarga.