सीतायाः रणभूमिदर्शनं विलापश्च

When Rāvaṇa's son had gone back into Laṅkā, his purpose achieved, the foremost of the monkeys surrounded Rāghava and guarded him. Hanumān, Aṅgada, Nīla, Suṣeṇa, Kumuda, Nala, Gaja, Gavākṣa, Gavaya, Śarabha and Gandhamādana, Jāmbavān, Ṛṣabha, Skandha, Rambha, Śatabali and Pṛthu took up trees and stood on every side, their ranks drawn up and alert. They kept scanning every quarter, sideways and upwards, and whenever so much as the grass stirred, they thought, "Rākṣasas!" This is a subtle picture of fear: tormented by an unseen enemy, the monkeys now take every movement for his coming. Yet they did not flee; they stood firm around their master. In the previous sarga Vibhīṣaṇa had rallied the army, and here we see the result. The long list of names shows the loyalty of every leader — none left his troop — and "their ranks drawn up" shows they stood in battle order, not in disarray. Trees were the monkeys' weapons, so they took them up and stood ready, and it seems this guard was kept up through the night.

Rāvaṇa, meanwhile, delighted, dismissed his son Indrajit and summoned the rākṣasīs who guarded Sītā. Trijaṭā and the others came at his command, and the joyful lord of the rākṣasas said to them: "Tell Vaidehī that Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa have been killed by Indrajit. Put her in the Puṣpaka and show her the two of them lying dead on the battlefield. Her husband, on whom she relied when she stood so firm and would not come to me, has been killed with his brother in the forefront of battle. Now, with no more doubt or anxiety, with nothing left to wait for, Maithilī will come to me adorned with all her ornaments. When she has seen Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa fallen today into the power of Time on the battlefield, she will turn back, seeing no other way, and with nothing more to hope for, the large-eyed one will come to me of her own accord." The rākṣasīs heard the wicked Rāvaṇa's words and said, "So be it." His thinking is plain: he knows that Sītā's steadfastness is rooted in her faith in Rāma, and he hopes that if she sees Rāma dead her support will be gone and she will be forced to choose him. She had stood like a pillar, leaning on Rāma. But Rāvaṇa does not understand a woman's heart: the love of a devoted wife does not die even with her husband's death. His picture of her coming to him "adorned with all her ornaments" is especially cruel — he expects a woman whose husband he believes dead to put on her jewels and come to him — and it shows how little he knows of dharma. Trijaṭā is named first because she is the chief of the rākṣasīs and Sītā's friend, the one who dreamed of her deliverance. Rāvaṇa wants to deceive Sītā through women because words from them will seem more believable.

The rākṣasīs went to where the Puṣpaka stood, took it at Rāvaṇa's command and brought it to Maithilī in the Aśoka grove. They took Sītā, overwhelmed with grief for her husband, and set her in the aerial car Puṣpaka, and with Trijaṭā beside her they went to show her Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa. Meanwhile Rāvaṇa had Laṅkā hung with garlands of flags and banners, and the delighted lord of the rākṣasas proclaimed throughout the city: "Rāghava and Lakṣmaṇa have been killed in battle by Indrajit." The Puṣpaka is Kubera's aerial car, in which Rāvaṇa carried Sītā off from Janasthāna; now in that same car she is taken to see her husband apparently dead — an irony the poet shows without comment. Trijaṭā's going with her is especially meaningful, for she wishes Sītā well, and in the next sarga it is she who will comfort her. Decorating Laṅkā and proclaiming the news are Rāvaṇa's politics: he wants his people to believe in victory, and once the whole city believes it, every road of hope seems closed to Sītā. She was already crushed by grief for her husband in the Aśoka grove; today her grief will reach its height.

Travelling in the aerial car with Trijaṭā, Sītā saw the whole monkey army struck down. She saw the flesh-eaters exultant and the monkeys in deep distress beside Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa. Then she saw the two of them, Lakṣmaṇa and Rāma, lying on beds of arrows, senseless and tormented by the shafts, their armour shattered, their bows flung aside, every limb cut by arrows, lying on the ground like two clumps of reeds made of arrows. Seeing the two brothers there, eminent heroes, bulls among men, lotus-eyed, lying like the two sons of Fire, seeing those bulls among men on their beds of arrows in such a state, Sītā, stricken with grief, lamented bitterly and piteously. The daughter of Janaka, flawless in every limb and dark-eyed, wept as she saw her husband and Lakṣmaṇa writhing in the dust. Struck down by tears and grief as she gazed at the two brothers, whose might was like that of the sons of the gods, and believing them dead, she spoke in her sorrow. The comparison with the two sons of Fire, radiant youths, keeps their divine splendour before us even in their suffering. "Clumps of reeds made of arrows" is a terrible picture — their bodies seem built of arrows. What Sītā sees comes in order: first the state of the army, then the joy of the enemy, and last her husband's state, so that her grief grows step by step. Her silence is especially moving: at first she only looks and does not speak; then she weeps; only at the end does she find words. "Writhing in the dust" suggests they were not wholly still — there was some movement — yet in her fear Sītā does not notice it. The monkeys grieve while the rākṣasas exult, and the contrast deepens the pathos. Her epithets, flawless and dark-eyed, recall her beauty and make her fear of widowhood all the more piteous, and "might like the sons of the gods" suggests that the brothers, though human, had divine power. Her lament, in which she remembers the words of the soothsayers, follows in the next sarga.