SECTION LXVI.
Seeing the king had ascended heaven., like unto a fire that has cooled, or an ocean deprived of its waters, or the sun shorn of his splendour, Kauçalyā afflicted with woe, taking on her lap the head of the king, with tears in her eyes, said, "O Kaikeyi, attain thou thy wishes: do thou enjoy this kingdom rid of thy thorn. O cruel one, O thou of wicked ways, thou that forsaking the king had set thy heart (on having thy son crowned), Rāma had gone away, forsaking me; and now my lord has ascended heaven. I can too longer bear to live, like one left lone in a wilderness by her companions. What other woman except Kaikeyi lost to righteousness, having lost her deity, her lord, wishes to carry on existence in another's kingdom? As a covetuous person taking poison (through anger or some other passion), does not consider himself guilty, (so Kaikeyi) having done this evil through Mantharā's incitement, does not bring her guilt home to her mind. It is through the instrumentality of the hump-backed woman that this race of the Rāghavas has been destroyed by Kaikeyi. Hearing that the king being made to do an unrighteous action, has banished Rāma together with his wife, king Janaka will be filled with grief as I have been. That virtuous one does not know that to-day I have become helpless and been widowed. Rāma of eyes resembling lotus-petals has living been removed from my sight. The fair daughter of Videha's king unworthy of hardship, in ascetic guise is leading a life of trouble and terror in the woods. Hearing at night the dreadful roars of birds and beasts crying, she exceedingly frightened takes shelter with Rāghava. Old and having an only daughter, he revolving in his mind thoughts of Vaidehi, shall, smitten with grief, surely renounce his life. I ever faithful to my lord will die this very day, embracing this body; I will enter fire." As embracing the (dead) body, that unfortunate lady was bewailing, the courtiers had the distressed (queen) removed from there. Then placing the corpse of the king in a (capacious) pan with oil, the courtiers performed the mourning rites of the monarch. But well versed in every thing, the counsellors, in the absence of his son, did not perform the funeral obsequies of the king; and therefore they placed his body stretched in the pan of oil. Alas! at length concluding it for certain that the king was dead, the ladies burst out into lamentations. And raising their arms, with tears trickling down their faces, they in dire affliction and extremely exercised with grief, lamented, "O monarch, why do you forsake us, who have been already deprived of Rāma ever speaking fair and firm in promise? Renounced by Rāma, how shall ye, rendered widows, stay with the wicked Kaikeyi, co-wife with us? That one of free soul is our master, as he is the lord of yourself. Rāma has gone to the woods, forsaking regal dignity. Deprived of you as well as that hero, and overwhelmed with misfortune, how shall we live reprimanded by Kaikeyi? She that has renounced the king, Rāma, and Lakshmana along with Sitā— whom can such a one not renounce?" Thus with tears in their eyes, the wives of that descendant of Raghu, joyless and convulsed with a huge passion, displayed signs of sorrow. Like a night without stars, like a fair one forsaken by her husband, the city of Ayodhyā without the magnanimous monarch did not appear delightful as it had done before, with the populace filled with tears, the ladies uttering exclamations of distress, and the terraces and courts deserted. On the lord of men having ascended heaven from grief, and the wives of the king remaining on the earth, the sun, his journey done, set, and the night began her course. The idea of consuming the king's corpse in the absence of his son did not recommend itself to the assembled adherents (of the departed). Thinking this, they in that way laid the king endowed with an inconceivably dignified presence. And with her terraces overflowing with tears that flooded the throats of the mourners, the city appeared like the welkin without its splendour in the absence of the sun, or the night with the stars enveloped. And on the demise of that illustrious personage, in the city men and women in multitudes, censuring Bharata's mother, became extremely distressed, and did not attain peace of mind.