That bade me live a thing accursed:

“Thou, whose delight is others' pain,

This grisly form shalt still retain.”

Then when I prayed him to relent

And fix some term of punishment,—

Prayed that the curse at length might cease,

He bade me thus expect release:

“Let Ráma cleave thine arms away

And on the pyre thy body lay,

And then shalt thou, set free from doom,