Among the reeds; rode up; before his eyes
He saw the jar, the wounded hermit boy:
Remorse transfixed his heart and killed his joy.

He left his horse, this monarch famous far,
Asked him who drooped upon the water-jar
His name, and from the stumbling accents knew
A hermit youth, of lowly birth but true.

The arrow still undrawn, the monarch bore
Him to his parents who, afflicted sore
With blindness, could not see their only son
Dying, and told them what his hand had done.

The murderer then obeyed their sad behest
And drew the fixed arrow from his breast;
The boy lay dead; the father cursed the king,
With tear-stained hands, to equal suffering.

"In sorrow for your son you too shall die,
An old, old man," he said, "as sad as I."
Poor, trodden snake! He used his venomous sting,
Then heard the answer of the guilty king:

"Your curse is half a blessing if I see
The longed-for son who shall be born to me:
The scorching fire that sweeps the well-ploughed field,
May burn indeed, but stimulates the yield.

The deed is done; what kindly act can I
Perform who, pitiless, deserve to die?"
"Bring wood," he begged, "and build a funeral pyre,
That we may seek our son through death by fire."

The king fulfilled their wish; and while they burned,
In mute, sin-stricken sorrow he returned,
Hiding death's seed within him, as the sea
Hides magic fire that burns eternally.

Thus is foreshadowed in the birth of Rama, his banishment, and the
death of his father.

Cantos ten to fifteen form the kernel of the epic, for they tell the
story of Rama, the mighty hero of Raghu's line. In these cantos
Kalidasa attempts to present anew, with all the literary devices of a
more sophisticated age, the famous old epic story sung in masterly
fashion by the author of the _Ramayana_. As the poet is treading
ground familiar to all who hear him, the action of these cantos is
very compressed.

_Tenth canto. The incarnation of Rama_.--While Dasharatha, desiring a
son, is childless, the gods, oppressed by a giant adversary, betake
themselves to Vishnu, seeking aid. They sing a hymn of praise, a part
of which is given here.

O thou who didst create this All,
Who dost preserve it, lest it fall,
Who wilt destroy it and its ways--
To thee, O triune Lord, be praise.

As into heaven's water run
The tastes of earth--yet it is one,
So thou art all the things that range