रावणस्य मासद्वयावधिः सीतायाः भर्त्सना च

When he heard Sītā's harsh words, the lord of the rākṣasas answered the lovely woman with words she did not want to hear. He turned his own experience into a general rule: "The more a man soothes a woman, the more he falls into her power; the more kindly he speaks, the more he is slighted." His pride was wounded; he took his own wooing as a humiliation. "The desire that has arisen in me for you holds back my anger, as a good charioteer reins in horses bolting from the road. Desire in men is perverse: wherever it is bound, tenderness and affection spring up. That is the only reason, lovely-faced one, that I do not have you killed, though you deserve death and contempt, devoted as you are to a sham renunciation." In Rāvaṇa's eyes her faithfulness to her husband was nothing but a pointless show of detachment. "For every harsh word you speak to me, Maithilī, a cruel death would be the fitting answer." Then, full of the vehemence of anger, the king of the rākṣasas went on: "I will keep the term I have set you, two months. After that, lovely lady, you will climb into my bed. When those two months are past, if you still do not want me for your husband, my cooks will cut you into pieces for my morning meal." Here for the first time the two-month limit is heard plainly, and it will set the clock for the rest of the story: Hanumān hears all of it and will report it to Rāma. In this passage the struggle between desire and anger in Rāvaṇa's mind is laid bare: one draws him towards Sītā, the other drives him to destroy her. The image of the charioteer shows a certain self-awareness, but his restraint comes from lust, not from dharma, and so even his restraint is rooted in wrong. The cruel words "for my morning meal" recall that rākṣasas eat human flesh, and bring the terror to its height. His reasoning that his own gentleness is his own humiliation shows the nature of a proud man: he imagines love not as asking but as owning. Sītā's harsh words were simply true, but to him they were crimes deserving death. And the grant of a respite was only a show of mercy; in truth it was a harsher punishment, a daily waiting for death.

Seeing Jānakī threatened like this by the lord of the rākṣasas, the maidens of the gods and gandharvas whom Rāvaṇa had carried off were dismayed, their own eyes distorted with grief. Some with movements of their lips, others with their eyes, others with looks of the face, they comforted Sītā in her fear of that rākṣasa. They were captives themselves, and yet they showed her their sympathy, not in words, for they feared Rāvaṇa, but only by signs. This small incident reveals what Rāvaṇa's women's quarters truly were: many women lived there against their will. Comforted by them, Sītā spoke to Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, words for her own good, proud with the pride of her own conduct as a faithful wife and of her husband's valour. With the poet's fine insight into the mind, those silent signs alone rekindled her courage, and their compassion eased her loneliness a little.

"Surely there is no one in this city who wishes you well," Sītā said, "no one who would hold you back from this shameful deed." What she had asked before, whether there were no good men in Laṅkā, she now said more firmly still. "Who in the three worlds but you would so much as think of seeking me, the wife of the righteous Rāma, any more than one would seek Śacī, the wife of Indra? Vilest of rākṣasas, where can you go to escape the sin you have spoken against the wife of Rāma, whose splendour has no bounds? If a proud elephant and a hare were to meet in the forest, Rāma would be the elephant and you, base one, the hare. You are not ashamed to abuse the lord of the Ikṣvākus, so long as you stay out of range of his eyes. Ignoble one, why have those cruel, misshapen, black and tawny eyes of yours not dropped to the ground as you look at me? I am the wife of that righteous man and the daughter-in-law of Daśaratha; how is it that your tongue does not rot as you speak to me?" Then she declared the power she held: "Ten-necked one, you deserve to be burnt to ashes, and I do not burn you with my own fiery power only because Rāma has given no such command and because I would keep my austerity." A faithful wife's power could be loosed as a curse, but she did not use it, to protect Rāma's glory and her own discipline. "You could never have carried me off from the wise Rāma. Fate ordained this for your destruction; of that there is no doubt. Brother of Kubera, the giver of wealth, brave as you are and furnished with armies, why did you first get Rāma out of the way and then steal his wife?" The question is its own answer: a brave man would have fought face to face. Her words here are sharper even than in the previous sarga; there she had counselled him for his own good, here she proclaimed his baseness to his face. The elephant and the hare show the gulf between their strength, and her questions about his eyes falling and his tongue rotting, like curses, show how grave his sin was. "I do not burn you to ashes" is proof of her self-control: the power was there, but held in check by dharma. The misery of her situation stood in utter contrast to the courage of her words. By likening herself to Śacī, wife of Indra, she placed herself beside the queen of the gods and cast Rāvaṇa as the demon who would abduct her. Calling herself Daśaratha's daughter-in-law recalled the glory of her family and answered Rāvaṇa's sneer that Rāma was a pauper. And by saying that fate had ordained this, she explained even her own abduction as the means of Rāvaṇa's death; in her sorrow she still saw the justice of destiny.

When he heard Sītā's words, Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, rolled his cruel eyes and glared at Jānakī. Now the poet describes him at length. He was like a dark rain-cloud, with mighty arms and a great neck, with the gait and strength of a lion, splendid, with a flaming tongue and fierce eyes. Tall, with the tip of his crown quivering, he wore bright garlands and unguents, red garlands and red garments, and armlets of refined gold. Girt about his hips with a great dark girdle, he looked like Mount Mandara bound by the serpent Vāsuki at the churning of the ocean for the nectar. With his two full arms he shone like a mountain, like Mandara with its two peaks. Adorned with earrings the colour of the rising sun, he was like a mountain with two aśoka trees in red leaf and flower. He was like the wishing tree, like spring in bodily form, and yet, for all his finery, he was terrible, like a shrine at a cremation ground. In ancient times the place of execution near the burning ground took the form of a shrine and was decorated before an execution; however well adorned, it was a place of dread. His eyes red with anger, glaring at Vaidehī and hissing like a snake, he said: "You who follow a man with neither sense nor wealth, I will destroy you today, as the sun with its power destroys the twilight." Having said this, King Rāvaṇa, who makes his enemies wail, gave his orders to all the fearsome rākṣasīs. In this portrait beauty and terror are blended: Mandara, the wishing tree and spring are lovely comparisons, the snake and the cremation shrine frightening ones, and so the poet shows that Rāvaṇa's splendour did not hide his cruelty. The twilight image fits too: at sunrise the dawn twilight simply fades away, and so to Rāvaṇa Sītā's destruction seemed a matter of course. The image of Mandara is used three times, the mountain bound by the serpent for the girdle, the mountain with two peaks for the arms, the mountain with two aśoka trees for the earrings, conveying the size and solidity of his body. Yet at the churning Mandara was only an instrument of the gods and demons, not its own master, and there is a quiet hint that Rāvaṇa too is only an instrument in the hands of fate. The dark cloud is an image also used for Rāma's colour, but there it is gentle and here it is menacing. His sneer that Rāma was without policy or wealth repeated his earlier argument that Rāma was a pauper. Why does the poet linger so long over his appearance here? To show the weight of Sītā's fearless words: even before so terrible a figure she did not waver.

Rāvaṇa named the rākṣasīs by their shapes as he gave his orders: the one-eyed, the one-eared, those whose ears wrapped them round, the cow-eared, the elephant-eared, the long-eared and the earless; those with the feet of elephants, horses and cows, those with hair on their feet, the one-footed, the broad-footed and the footless; those with monstrous heads and necks, monstrous breasts and bellies, monstrous mouths and eyes, long tongues and nails; the noseless, the lion-faced, the cow-faced and the sow-faced. The list of these deformed creatures forms a ring of fear around Sītā. "Rākṣasīs, all of you, together or one by one, act quickly so that Sītā, Janaka's daughter, soon comes under my control. With measures harsh and gentle, with conciliation, gifts and sowing dissension, and by raising the rod of punishment, win Vaidehī over." The four means of statecraft, conciliation, gifts, dissension and force, all of them turned against one helpless woman: that in itself proves Rāvaṇa's defeat. Having given these orders again and again, the lord of the rākṣasas, his mind overcome by desire and anger, roared at Jānakī. The catalogue of deformities is not only meant to terrify; it also shows how uncouth Rāvaṇa's servants were. These same rākṣasīs will menace Sītā in the next two sargas, and some of them, Ekajaṭā, Harijaṭā, Vikaṭā, Durmukhī and others, will be named. "Again and again" shows how he insisted, and "roared" how violent his anger was.

Then a rākṣasī named Dhānyamālinī quickly came up, embraced the Ten-necked One and said: "Great king, sport with me. What do you want with this pallid, pitiable human woman Sītā? Surely, great king, the best of the immortals have not written in her fate the choicest pleasures that the strength of your arms has won." Then she offered a piece of wisdom: "A man who desires a woman who does not want him only torments his own body, but a man who desires a woman who wants him finds lovely delight." She seemed to be protecting Rāvaṇa, but there was truth in her words too: love cannot be won by force. Drawn away by the rākṣasī as she spoke, the mighty rākṣasa, like a dark cloud, turned back laughing. As the Ten-necked One set out he seemed to make the earth tremble, and he entered his dwelling, which blazed like the sun. The maidens of the gods and gandharvas and the serpent maidens surrounded him and went with him into that splendid house. So, having threatened Maithilī, who trembled yet stood firm and intent on dharma, Rāvaṇa left Sītā and, infatuated by desire, went into his own house. The words "infatuated by desire" at the close of the sarga explain all his conduct: he is desire's slave, not its master. Sītā, by contrast, is "intent on dharma" and "standing firm": though she shook with fear, she stood in unshaken dharma. Dhānyamālinī's embrace cooled Rāvaṇa's anger and turned aside the danger of the moment, but the rākṣasīs' threats begin in the sargas that follow. Rāvaṇa went back laughing, his anger at being insulted turned to laughter, the mark of a fickle mind. The trembling earth as he left, the sun-bright house and the train of maidens recall his splendour once more, while Sītā stands alone at the foot of the śiṃśapā tree, surrounded by rākṣasīs. Dhānyamālinī's saying shows that even in Rāvaṇa's women's quarters there was a grain of good sense, though her own motive was only self-interest.