SECTION XLVII.
When the night had departed and day dawned, the citizens not finding Rāghava, were overwhelmed with grief and were deprived of their senses. With tears of grief and afflicted with distress, they looked hither and thither, but they could not discover even the dust raised by Rāma's car. And those intelligent ones, extremely distressed on being deprived of Rāma endowed with understanding, with countenances betokening sorrow, spoke these piteous words,— "Oh! fie on that sleep through which having been deprived of senses, we shall not to-day behold Rāma of broad chest and mighty arms. How could Rāma of mighty arms, resorting to this undesirable course, has gone into exile as an ascetic, leaving behind those that regard him dearly? Why has that foremost of Raghus, who has always cherished us even as a father cherishes his sons begot by his own loins, forsaking us, betaken himself to the forest? Here will we either renounce our lives, or direct our course to the north to meet death. Of what good are our lives, when we have been deprived of Rāma? There are huge trunks of dry wood to be got here in plenty. Lighting the pile of woods will we all enter the fire. What shall we say (when people ask us?) How can we say,—'We took hence the mighty-armed, sweet-speeched and unavenging Rāma'? Surely seeing us without Rāghava, the forlorn city with her women, children and grown up folks will be plunged in grid We had issued with that high-souled hero. Deprived of him, how shall we behold that city?" Thus raising up their arms, they stricken with grief, indulged in lamentations, like unto kine deprived of their calves.—Then following for a while the track of the car, they, missing the track, become overwhelmed with woe. And then those intelligent ones came back by the track of the car. "What is this? What shall we do? We have been foiled by some supernatural agency." Then they returned to the city of Ayodhyā with its good people oppressed with grief, by the self-same way by which they had come. Viewing the city, they with their eyes weighed down with grief, and minds oppressed with woe, shed plentiful tears. "This city deprived of Rāma does not look beautiful, like a lake bereft of its serpent by Garura, or the firmament deprived of the Moon, or the ocean without its waters." And they disturbed in mind beheld the city sunk in sorrow. And entering their wealthy mansions, they deprived of their senses by grief, could not recognize them for their own, nor could they with their hearts rendered absolutely cheerless, although looking at them minutely, distinguish their own from others.