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SETUBANDHA
219 even though severed, when affronted by the demons) by seizing it by the hair.
95. "Why art thou stupefied when there is cause for joy, seeing as thou dost the pleasance that is a witness to the humiliation of Rāvana's pride, with its trees prostrated by an ape that was but a servant of Rāma?29
96. "How will the world, supported by his arms, subsist without him even for a moment, overwhelmed by the proud hordes of demons, with the abode of the gods ravaged and destroyed?
97. 'Fainting and sinking to the ground, languid and drooping, thou art under such a delusion that even knowing it clearly to be a deception of the demons, I am likewise stricken with grief.
98. "Why hast thou no confidence in Rāma even now? He hath built a causeway between the Suvela and the Malaya before the eyes of the united demons, and stormed the peaks of the Suvela.'30
99. 31
100. Stupefied as she hovered between life and death, and paying no heed to the admonition, Sitā sank down upon Trijatā's bosom with a confidence worthy of the latter's affection for her.
101. As she reclined sideways on Trijatā's bosom, the mingled tears of their eyes32 issued in a stream from her tresses hard pressed by her cheek.
102. Sītā, then, suddenly recovered herself, and began to speak again, wiping away the dust on her breasts with her hair waving on her bosom.
103. Tell me if I am the same that first saw this head and sank to the ground, and, then, recovering from the swoon, see it again, and cling to life.
104. 'I have endured life among the demons, and seen, my lord, such an end of thee; but my heart, overwhelmed with disgrace, still smoulders, and doth not burst into flame.
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29. She refers to the devastation of Ravana's pleasure garden by Hanumat during his mission to Sitä.
30. The mountain on which Lankā stood. 31. A variation of the preceding verse. Found only in Ramadása.
32. Cf. Madhava in Extracts. Lit. tears accumulated owing to the contact of their eyes. Might mean also: tears accumulated on Trijatā's bosom owing to the contact of her eyes with it.
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