SECTION LV.
Hearing Hanumān's speech, uttered meekly, fraught with morality, and reflecting honor upon Sugriva, Angada said,— "Firmness, and mental sanctity, mercy, candour, prowess, and patience, are not in Sugriva. He that, while her son is living, appropriateth the beloved queen of his elder brother, mother unto him by morality, is hated of all beings). How can he that could cover up the mouth of the cave, when he had been desired by his brother gone on martial mission, to guard the same,—(how can he) know morality? Whose good office rememhereth he who could forget the renowned Rāghava himself of mighty deeds, after having, in the name of truth, taken his hand? How can he reap religious merit, that directed us to search Sitā here, from fear of Lakshmana, and not from fear of unrighteousness? What noble person, in especial, sprung in his race, shall any longer repose confidence in that impious one of unstable soul who hath run amuck of morality? Meritorious or otherwise, how can Sugriva, having installed in the kingdom me, son (of his enemy) and the enemy sprung in his race,—suffer me to live? How can I, whose counsels have been revealed, who have transgressed, and who have been deprived of my power, repairing to Kishkindhā like one forlorn and feeble, live? For the sake of his kingdom, Sugriva, wily, cunning and cruel, shall put me in solitary confinement. For me fasting to death is better than being confined and suffering the consequent misery. Do ye grant me your permision; and go to your homes, ye monkeys. I vow before you, to the palace I will never repair. At this very spot will I fast for death; as death is good for me. Bowing unto the king as well as unto the powerful Rāghava, ye should communicate my well-being unto Sugriva—lord of apes—and my health and peace unto my mother Uma. And it behoves you also to console my mother, Tārā. Naturally fond of her son, and overflowing with tenderness, that lorn one, hearing of my death at this place, shall certainly renounce her life." Having said this, Angada, saluting the elders, with a woebegone face entered the earth covered with grass. When he had entered, those foremost monkeys, stricken with sorrow, weeping shed warm tears from their eyes. And censuring Sugriva and praising Vāli, they, surrounding Angada, determined to starve themselves to death. Taking to heart the speech of Vāli's son, those prime monkeys, sipping water, sat down facing the East. And sitting on the edge of the water on grass pointing to the south, the foremost monkeys, wishing for surcease, thought within themselves,—"Even this is fit for us." And as they spoke of the exile of Rāma and the demise of Daçaratha, the carnage in Janasthāna, the slaying of Jatāyu, the ravishment of Vaidehi, the slaughter of Vāli, and the ire of Rāma, the monkeys were seized with fear. When those monkeys resembling mountain-summits had entered in, they set up cries, which, like unto the rumbling of clouds, making the sky resound, made that mountain with its rills reverberate.