Seeing the king had ascended heaven., like unto a fire that has cooled,
or an ocean deprived of its waters, or the sun shorn of his splendour,
Kaucalya afflicted with woe, taking on her lap the head of the king,
with tears in her eyes, said, "O Kaikeyi, attain thou thy wishes: do
thou enjoy this kingdom rid of thy thorn. O cruel one, O thou of wicked
ways, thou that forsaking the king had set thy heart (on having thy son
crowned), Rama had gone away, forsaking me; and now my lord has ascended
heaven. I can too longer bear to live, like one left lone in a
wilderness by her companions. What other woman except Kaikeyi lost to
righteousness, having lost her deity, her lord, wishes to carry on
existence in another's kingdom? As a covetuous person taking poison
(through anger or some other passion), does not consider himself guilty,
(so Kaikeyi) having done this evil through Manthara's incitement, does
not bring her guilt home to her mind. It is through the instrumentality
of the hump-backed woman that this race of the Raghavas has been
destroyed by Kaikeyi. Hearing that the king being made to do an
unrighteous action, has banished Rama together with his wife, king
Janaka will be filled with grief as I have been. That virtuous one does
not know that to-day I have become helpless and been widowed. Rama of
eyes resembling lotus-petals has living been removed from my sight. The
fair daughter of Videha's king unworthy of hardship, in ascetic guise is
leading a life of trouble and terror in the woods. Hearing at night the
dreadful roars of birds and beasts crying, she exceedingly frightened
takes shelter with Raghava. Old and having an only daughter, he
revolving in his mind thoughts of Vaidehi, shall, smitten with grief,
surely renounce his life. I ever faithful to my lord will die this very
day, embracing this body; I will enter fire." As embracing the (dead)
body, that unfortunate lady was bewailing, the courtiers had the
distressed (queen) removed from there. Then placing the corpse of the
king in a (capacious) pan with oil, the courtiers performed the mourning
rites of the monarch. But well versed in every thing, the counsellors,
in the absence of his son, did not perform the funeral obsequies of the
king; and therefore they placed his body stretched in the pan of oil.
Alas! at length concluding it for certain that the king was dead, the
ladies burst out into lamentations. And raising their arms, with tears
trickling down their faces, they in dire affliction and extremely
exercised with grief, lamented, "O monarch, why do you forsake us, who
have been already deprived of Rama ever speaking fair and firm in
promise? Renounced by Rama, how shall ye, rendered widows, stay with the
wicked Kaikeyi, co-wife with us? That one of free soul is our master, as
he is the lord of yourself. Rama has gone to the woods, forsaking regal
dignity. Deprived of you as well as that hero, and overwhelmed with
misfortune, how shall we live reprimanded by Kaikeyi? She that has
renounced the king, Rama, and Lakshmana along with Sita-- whom can such
a one not renounce?" Thus with tears in their eyes, the wives of that
descendant of Raghu, joyless and convulsed with a huge passion,
displayed signs of sorrow. Like a night without stars, like a fair one
forsaken by her husband, the city of Ayodhya without the magnanimous
monarch did not appear delightful as it had done before, with the
populace filled with tears, the ladies uttering exclamations of
distress, and the terraces and courts deserted. On the lord of men
having ascended heaven from grief, and the wives of the king remaining
on the earth, the sun, his journey done, set, and the night began her
course. The idea of consuming the king's corpse in the absence of his
son did not recommend itself to the assembled adherents (of the
departed). Thinking this, they in that way laid the king endowed with an
inconceivably dignified presence. And with her terraces overflowing with
tears that flooded the throats of the mourners, the city appeared like
the welkin without its splendour in the absence of the sun, or the night
with the stars enveloped. And on the demise of that illustrious
personage, in the city men and women in multitudes, censuring Bharata's
mother, became extremely distressed, and did not attain peace of mind.