सीतायाः करुणविलापः प्राणत्यागनिश्चयश्च

Still speaking in this way, her face streaming with tears and turned towards the ground, Janaka's young daughter began to lament. Like one mad, like one distracted, like one whose mind was wandering, she grieved, rolling on the ground and writhing like a young filly. The four comparisons show how disordered her mind had become. "While Rāghava was off his guard," she said, "the rākṣasa Rāvaṇa, who can take any form he pleases, seized me by force and carried me off as I cried out." "Off his guard" recalls the chase after Mārīca in the form of a deer, when Rāma had gone far from the hermitage, and "by force" and "crying out" recall once more the violence of her abduction. "Now I have fallen into the power of the rākṣasīs and I am cruelly threatened; anxious and utterly wretched, I have no heart to live. Living among rākṣasīs without Rāma, the great chariot-warrior, I have no use for life, for wealth or for ornaments." She counted riches and jewels as straw; the splendours Rāvaṇa had held out to tempt her are here rejected. Already in the first verse the word "young" shows how helpless and tender she was. The poet shows her grief only through outward signs, the tears, the lowered face, the rolling on the ground, and lets the reader infer her inner state. "I have no heart to live" foreshadows the resolve with which the sarga ends; for her, living among the rākṣasīs was a sorrow worse than death.

"Surely this heart of mine is made of stone, or else it never ages and never dies, since it does not break even under this great sorrow. Shame on me, ignoble and unfaithful, that I keep my life even for a moment when I am parted from him; this life is a life of sin." She condemned herself, thinking it a sin to live without her husband; calling herself unfaithful does not point to any fault in her, only to her feeling that merely staying alive apart from him was an offence, and so the height of her devotion is revealed. Then she spoke of Rāvaṇa: "I would not touch that night-rover even with my left foot; how then could I love that despicable creature? He takes no notice of refusal, nor of who he is, nor of his own lineage; in his cruel nature he wants to win me." Touching with the left foot is the sign of utter contempt. That he knew no refusal condemns his shamelessness: he heard "no" and asked again and again. She reminded him of his lineage too, blaming a man born in Pulastya's line for such a deed. "Cut, split, hacked apart or set ablaze in a fire, I would not go to Rāvaṇa," she told the rākṣasīs. "What is the use of your prattling on so long?" The verbs mount from cutting to burning, and with them the firmness of her resolve.

"Rāghava is renowned as wise, grateful, compassionate and upright; I fear he has become pitiless only because my good fortune has run out. He who alone destroyed fourteen thousand rākṣasas in Janasthāna, why does he not come to me? I am held captive by Rāvaṇa, a rākṣasa of little strength, and my husband is surely able to kill Rāvaṇa in battle. Rāma, who slew Virādha, that bull among rākṣasas, in the Daṇḍaka forest, why does he not come to me?" Then she looked for the answer herself: "Granted, Laṅkā in the middle of the ocean is hard to assail, yet nothing can stop the flight of Rāghava's arrows. What can the reason be that Rāma, so firm in valour, does not come for his beloved wife, carried off by a rākṣasa? I suspect Lakṣmaṇa's elder brother does not know I am here, for if he knew, how could that spirited man endure such an outrage?" Her reasoning moves step by step: there is no doubt of his valour, and the ocean is no obstacle, so the cause must be that he does not know. Rāma's past deeds, the victory at Janasthāna and the killing of Virādha, were the ground of her trust, and she called Rāvaṇa weak only in comparison with Rāma's strength. Even her fear that he had become pitiless is softened by "because my fortune has run out": the fault was not Rāma's but her own fate's. The question "why does he not come to me?" is repeated twice, showing the anxiety of her waiting; finding no answer, she imagined reasons of her own. Virādha's name stayed in her memory especially, because he too had once seized her and Rāma had freed her; so her hope was grounded in experience, not mere fancy.

"Even the king of the vultures, who might have learned of my abduction and told Rāghava, was struck down by Rāvaṇa in battle. Old as he was, Jaṭāyu did a great deed when he came to my help and stood his ground to kill Rāvaṇa." Jaṭāyu's age and his courage are honoured here; she remembered with gratitude that even a bird gave his life for dharma. "If Rāghava knew that I was living here, in his fury he would this very day empty the world of rākṣasas with his arrows. He would burn down the city of Laṅkā, burn up the great ocean, and destroy both the fame and the name of the base Rāvaṇa. Then, without doubt, in house after house the rākṣasīs whose husbands have been slain will weep just as I am weeping now. Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa would seek out the city of the rākṣasas and do all this; no enemy those two set eyes on lives even a moment. Its streets thick with the smoke of funeral pyres, circled by flocks of vultures, Laṅkā would soon become like a cremation ground. Before long I shall have my wish," she told the rākṣasīs, "and this evil course of yours plainly spells the ruin of you all." Here her grief turned to anger, and her lament took on the form of prophecy. "As I weep now, so will they" carries the sense of just requital: the sorrow the rākṣasas had caused would come back upon them. The smoke of the pyres and the circling vultures picture Laṅkā after the war before it happens. Her words are less a curse than a declaration of the law of dharma, that wrong will surely bear its fruit, and her saying that no enemy the brothers see can live a moment shows her firm faith in their valour.

"From the ill omens now seen in Laṅkā, it will soon lose its splendour. When the wicked Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, is killed, Laṅkā, unconquerable as it is, will wither like a widowed woman. This city, now rich in holy festivals, will with all its rākṣasas become like a woman who has lost her husband. Surely, before long I shall hear here, in house after house, the cries of the rākṣasa women weeping in their grief. Plunged in darkness, its lights put out, its rākṣasa chiefs slain, Laṅkā will be burnt by Rāma's arrows." The image of the widow keeps returning: the city is a woman and the king her husband. Sītā, separated from her own husband, knew the pain of separation well, and she saw it as Laṅkā's future. But all of it hung on one condition: "if only that hero Rāma, the corners of whose eyes are red, knew that I am living in the rākṣasa's palace." So the prophecy ended again in the doubt of "if", and hope and despair are seen together. The darkness and the lights put out stand against the present city rich in festivals, and the red-cornered eyes are the mark of anger and valour. Through Sītā's mouth the poet foretells the events of the Yuddha Kāṇḍa, for the weeping of the rākṣasīs in house after house will indeed come true.

"The time fixed for me by this cruel and base Rāvaṇa has now arrived. That is the death this wicked one has ordained for me. These nairṛtas are evildoers who do not know what must not be done, and from this wrong a great calamity will now arise. These flesh-eating rākṣasas know nothing of dharma. Surely the rākṣasa will make me his morning meal. What shall I do without him who is so dear to look upon? Not seeing Rāma with his red-cornered eyes, utterly wretched, I shall soon look upon Vaivasvata, the god of death, without my husband." She was remembering the two months Rāvaṇa had granted her, at the end of which he had said she would be eaten. "Morning meal" marks the height of his cruelty: Sītā pictured as his food. By saying they did not know what must not be done, she named the chief fault of the rākṣasas, that they could not tell right from wrong. Vaivasvata is Yama, and to face Yama without her husband was the last extremity of her pain. With "from this wrong a great calamity will arise" she once more recalled that wrongdoing must bear its fruit, and that Rāvaṇa's wrong would be his own undoing. Even with death so near, her one thought was of seeing Rāma.

"Rāma, Bharata's elder brother, did not know I was alive; if the two of them knew, would they not search the whole earth? Surely that hero, Lakṣmaṇa's elder brother, has left his body here out of grief for me and gone to the world of the gods. Blessed are the gods, the gandharvas, the siddhas and the great sages who now look upon my heroic, lotus-eyed Rāma." Then another doubt came to her: "Or else that wise royal sage, that supreme soul whose only desire is dharma, has no need of me as his wife. Love lasts while one is seen, and for one out of sight there is no affection. Yet it is the ungrateful who destroy love like that; Rāma will not." Here she dispelled her own doubt. "Or are there some faults in me, or has my fortune run out, that I am parted from Rāma, who deserves the best? Better for me to die than to live without the great-souled Rāma, whose conduct is spotless, the hero who destroys his enemies. Or perhaps the two brothers, the best of men, have laid down their weapons and wander the forest living on roots and fruit, like sages. Or else the evil-minded Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, has had the two heroes killed by treachery." This chain of fears, death, forgetting, her own fault, renunciation, murder, lays bare the turmoil of her mind. Each fear she answered with Rāma's own virtues, so that her unshaken trust shines through, and "the ungrateful destroy love, not Rāma" is the heart of her faith. Even the fear that he had turned ascetic follows from his devotion to dharma. Imagining the gods looking on Rāma, as though he had gone to heaven, shows the depth of her despair; yet by calling them blessed she counted the sight of Rāma the highest good fortune, which reveals her love. The picture of the brothers without weapons, living on roots and fruit, recalls the ascetic garb of their forest life, where war has no place. But the last fear, of murder by treachery, was the most terrible, for she had felt Rāvaṇa's deceit herself.

"At a time like this I long to die by any means, yet even in this overwhelming sorrow death has not been ordained for me." Then she thought of the sages: "Blessed indeed are those great-souled sages, esteemed for their truthfulness, self-controlled and illustrious, for whom nothing is dear and nothing hateful. For them no sorrow springs from what is dear, nor worse from what is not dear, for they are free of both. Homage to those great souls!" Sītā praised the ideal of detachment: one who clings to nothing dear feels no pain of parting. But she herself was bound to her beloved with all her heart, and so that ideal was beyond her. At last she resolved: "Abandoned by my beloved Rāma, who knows himself, and fallen into the power of the wicked Rāvaṇa, I shall give up my life." "Abandoned" shows the extremity of her pain, though earlier she herself had said that Rāma would not destroy love. So the sarga ends with her resolve to die, which will take shape in the twenty-eighth sarga, after Trijaṭā's dream. This long lament lays open the whole of Sītā's inner struggle. Even longing for death, she would not give up her resolve never to yield to Rāvaṇa: even her giving up of life was meant to guard her faithfulness. "Fallen into the power" of Rāvaṇa recalls her dependence, echoing her curse on dependence in the previous sarga.