When the night had departed and day dawned, the citizens not finding
Raghava, were overwhelmed with grief and were deprived of their senses.
With tears of grief and afflicted with distress, they looked hither and
thither, but they could not discover even the dust raised by Rama's car.
And those intelligent ones, extremely distressed on being deprived of
Rama endowed with understanding, with countenances betokening sorrow,
spoke these piteous words,-- "Oh! fie on that sleep through which having
been deprived of senses, we shall not to-day behold Rama of broad chest
and mighty arms. How could Rama of mighty arms, resorting to this
undesirable course, has gone into exile as an ascetic, leaving behind
those that regard him dearly? Why has that foremost of Raghus, who has
always cherished us even as a father cherishes his sons begot by his own
loins, forsaking us, betaken himself to the forest? Here will we either
renounce our lives, or direct our course to the north to meet death. Of
what good are our lives, when we have been deprived of Rama? There are
huge trunks of dry wood to be got here in plenty. Lighting the pile of
woods will we all enter the fire. What shall we say (when people ask
us?) How can we say,--'We took hence the mighty-armed, sweet-speeched
and unavenging Rama'? Surely seeing us without Raghava, the forlorn city
with her women, children and grown up folks will be plunged in grid We
had issued with that high-souled hero. Deprived of him, how shall we
behold that city?" Thus raising up their arms, they stricken with grief,
indulged in lamentations, like unto kine deprived of their calves.--Then
following for a while the track of the car, they, missing the track,
become overwhelmed with woe. And then those intelligent ones came back
by the track of the car. "What is this? What shall we do? We have been
foiled by some supernatural agency." Then they returned to the city of
Ayodhya with its good people oppressed with grief, by the self-same way
by which they had come. Viewing the city, they with their eyes weighed
down with grief, and minds oppressed with woe, shed plentiful tears.
"This city deprived of Rama does not look beautiful, like a lake bereft
of its serpent by Garura, or the firmament deprived of the Moon, or the
ocean without its waters." And they disturbed in mind beheld the city
sunk in sorrow. And entering their wealthy mansions, they deprived of
their senses by grief, could not recognize them for their own, nor could
they with their hearts rendered absolutely cheerless, although looking
at them minutely, distinguish their own from others.