And thereupon beholding Ravana--the lord of Rakshasas, 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 Rakshasees, 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--Rama, 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 Rama, 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
Rama, and weeping, Ravana tempted her for his own destruction.