A History of Sanskrit Literature c12.s2.10

c12.s2.10

‘Hast thou not known in thy happiness what Rāma hath done to the Rākṣasas? He hath crossed the ocean, and completely hemmed in our city. He hath warred brilliantly and his weapons have brought death to the Rākṣasas. Never in all my life have I spoken one word of flattery; thou hast been honoured by me from love of kin; do not fail to slay my foes. Fail not to show thy might, fail not to guard our smitten town; thy might have we beheld, thou didst aforetime conquer the gods.’ The flow of the narrative is, it will be seen, simple and limpid, but it lacks fire and colour, and the task of illustrating the figures of speech proves extremely wearisome to all but the commentators, whose joy the poet was. Some, no doubt, of the passages are happy enough; in one we find a proverb known from the *Vikramorvaçī*:²