Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Ayodhyā · 13 of 50
13. Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa
Ayodhyā (अयोध्या)
Sītā has heard. Rāma's plan, which he explains gently and at length, is that she stay. The forest is thorn and hunger and fear, and a princess of Mithilā is not asked to live in it, and he will return in fourteen years. She refuses the plan. The speech she makes is one of the poem's great arguments. A wife's path is the husband's path. A comfort bought by abandoning him is not a comfort she recognizes. She would rather the hardship than the separation, and she says so with a sharpness that startles him. He yields.
Lakṣmaṇa does not wait to be invited. He has already decided. He will come, and he will not come as a second husband of the same glory. He will come as the one who keeps watch, who builds the hut, who does not ask for a share of the merit. The three of them are the exile. Bharata, who would have refused the throne if anyone had asked him in time, is still in Kekaya, ignorant.
The leaving is set for the same day. There is a terrible courtesy in the speed. Rāma will not make his father look at him for another night. Kaikeyī is given what she asked, at once, which is the only form in which a wicked wish can be seen clearly. Delay would have looked like negotiation. There is no negotiation.
नेपालीमा
सीताले सुनिन्। रामले उनलाई बस्न भन्नुभयो। उनले अस्वीकार गरिन्। पत्नीको बाटो पतिको बाटो हो। छाडेर किनेको सुखलाई उनले सुख ठान्दिनन्। राम मान्नुभयो। लक्ष्मणले निमन्त्रणा पर्खेनन्। उनी पहरा दिने, कुटी बनाउने, पुण्यको भाग नमाग्ने भएर जाने भए। तीन जना नै वनवास हुन्। भरत अझै केकयमै थिए, अनजान। जाने दिन त्यही दिन तोकियो। ढिलाइ गर्दा मोलतोलजस्तो देखिन्थ्यो; तर मोलतोल छैन।