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The Seventy-First Chapter
Having said this, he leaped forward like a lion, and seizing the queen, who was most dear to him, and who trembled with fear, her eyes rolling, and her hair dishevelled, he dragged her along, as the king Bharata drags the goddess of fortune.
Then he said to Ravana, "O hero! This is the great queen Mandodari, who is dearer to you than life itself, and who is the very embodiment of virtue, who is being carried away."
"She will be the excellent fly-whisk bearer of Sugriva, the king of the Vidyadharas, who dwells in the assembly hall."
Then she, whose bosom was trembling, and whose garment was slipping from her breast, kept adjusting it with her restless hands, and her lower lip was constantly wet with tears, and her whole body was resounding with the tinkling of her ornaments, she, who was overwhelmed with grief, fell at the feet of her lord, and then entered his embrace, and said, "O lord! Protect me! Do you not see my plight? Are you someone else? Are you not the same Dasamukha? Alas! You have adopted the indifference of the liberated ones, but what will this indifference avail you in the face of such sorrow?
"Fie upon your valor! What is the use of your meditation, if you do not cut off the head of this sinner with your sword?
"You, who could not bear defeat at the hands of men like the moon and the sun, why do you now tolerate this insult from a mere mortal?
"But Ravana, with his mind fixed in deep meditation, did not seem to notice anything. He was sitting in half-lotus posture, his envy had been banished, his radiance was like that of a mountain of jewels obtained from the vast caves of Mount Mandara, he was free from all sense-activity, he was devoted to the worship of knowledge, his body was steady, he was full of fortitude, and he seemed like a clay image.
"Like Rama, who was meditating on Sita, he was absorbed in contemplation, and he was as immovable as Mount Mandara."