nmeet a king to be,
The meanest of the mean is he
Who basely breaks the promise made
To trusting friends who lent him aid.
He sins who for a steed has lied,
As if a hundred steeds had died:
Or if he lie, a cow to win,
Tenfold as heavy is the sin.
But if the lie a man betray,
Both he and his shall all decay.(639)
O Vanar King, the thankless man
Is worthy of the general ban,
Who takes assistance of his friends,
And in his turn no service lends.
This verse of old by Brahma sung
Is echoed now by every tongue.
Hear what He cried in angry mood
Bewailing man's ingratitude:
"For draughts of wine, for slaughtered cows,
For treacherous theft, for broken vows
A pardon is ordained: but none
For thankless scorn of service done."
Ungrateful, Vanar King, art thou,
And faithless to thy plighted vow.
For Rama brought thee help, and yet
Thou shunnest to repay the debt:
Or, grateful, thou hadst surely pressed
To aid the hero in his quest.
Thou art, in vulgar pleasures drowned,
False to thy bond in honour bound.
Nor yet has Rama's guileless heart
Discerned thee for the thing thou art--
A snake who holds the frogs that cries
And lures fresh victims as it dies.
Brave Rama, born for glorious fate,
Has set thee in thy high estate,
And to the Vanars' throne restored,
Great-souled himself, their mean-souled lord.
Now if thy pride disown what he,
High thoughted prince, has done for thee,
Struck by his arrows shalt thou fall,
And Bali meet in Yama's hall.
Still open, to the gloomy God,
Lies the sad path thy brother trod.
Then to thy plighted word be true,
Nor let thy steps that path pursue.
Methinks the shafts of Rama, shot
Like thunderbolts, thou heedest not,
Who canst, absorbed in sensual bliss,
Thy promise from thy mind dismiss."

Canto XXXV. Tara's Speech.

He ceased: and Tara starry-eyed
Thus to the angry prince replied:
"Not to my lord shouldst thou address
A speech so fraught with bitterness:
Not thus reproached my lord should be,
And least of all, O Prince, by thee.
He is no thankless coward--no--
With spirit dead to valour's glow.
From paths of truth he never strays,
Nor wanders in forbidden ways.
Ne'er will Sugriva's heart forget,
By Rama saved, the lasting debt.
Still in his grateful breast will live
The succour none but he could give.
Restored to fame by Rama's grace,
To empire o'er the Vanar race,
From ceaseless dread and toil set free,
Restored to Ruma and to me:
By grief and care and exile t