SECTION XIX.
And thereupon beholding Rāvana—the lord of Rākshasas, gifted with youth and beauty and adorned with an excellent dress, that excellent and blameless daughter of a king, Vaidehi, trembled like unto a plantain tree shaken by the wind. And having covered her belly with her legs and her breast with her hands, that one, having charming colour and expansive eyes, cried aloud. And arriving there the Ten-necked one beheld Vaidehi, guarded by the Rākshasees, poorly, racked with grief like unto a boat sunk in an ocean. Subject to hard penances, she, seated on the bare earth, appeared like a branch of a tree fallen on the ground. Her limbs, where she used to wear ornaments, were covered with dirt and albeit worthy of ornaments, appeared without any like unto a lotus covered with clay and therefore shining very indistinctly. And she was proceeding as it were unto that lion of a king—Rāma, knowing his own-self, in her mind's charriot drawn by the horses of resolution. And not beholding the end of her grief, that damsel, attached unto Rāma, was keeping alone and reduced to a skeleton and overwhelmned with anxious thoughts and grief. And she was troubled like unto the daughter-in-law of the lord of serpents, of impeded course by means of incantations, and stricken with grief like unto Rohini, possessed by Ketu. And although born in a pious family, well behaved and good-natured and married according to their rites, she appeared to have been sprung from a low race and wedded according to their base ceremonials. She seemed like mighty fame disappearing, like respect disregarded, like intellect waning and hope disappointed; like a sacred altar trampled, like royal mandate disobeyed, like the quarters burnt by a fire-brand; like offerings unto God soiled; like the disc of the full-moon stricken with darkness, a lotus distressed, an army without a leader; like the ravs of the moon enveloped with gloom, like a river of shallow water, like a sacrificial altar possessed by an outcast, like the flame of fire extinguished; like water fowls terrified and lotuses disturbed and petals crushed by the trunks of elephants. And her grace greatly famished by the absence of her husband she appeared like a river whose liquid contents were dried up. And not cleaning her limbs she appeared like a dark night. And that one of graceful limbs, tender and worthy of living in a jewelled abode, being stricken with grief, seemod like a dried lotus-stalk just extracted from its bed. And she like the daughter-in-law of the lord of elephants, caught, separated from her band and tied to a pillar, was overwhelmed with grief and was sighing again and again. A long lock of dark-blue hair, taken not the least care of, was on her back; and with this she appeared like unto the earth covered with dark-blue forests at the expiration of the rainy season. With fasts and grief, anxiety and fear, she was greatly weakened and reduced and gave up eating and took recourse to asceticism only. Stricken with grief, she seemed to have been offering prayers unto that foremost of Raghus for the destruction of the Ten-necked one, like those unto the deities with folded hands. And beholding blameless Maithilee, having expansive eyes with beautiful eye lashes, greatly attached unto Rāma, and weeping, Rāvana tempted her for his own destruction.