A Mother's Lament
[Sri Aurobindo's translation from Sanskrit]
"Hadst thou been never born, Rama, my son,
Born for my grief, I had not felt such pain,
A childless woman. For the barren one
Grief of the heart companions, only one,
Complaining, 'I am barren'; this she mourns,
She has no cause for any deeper tears.
But I am inexperienced in delight
And never of my husband's masculine love
Had pleasure,—still I lingered, still endured
Hoping to be acquainted yet with joy.
Therefore full many unlovely words that strove
To break the suffering heart had I to hear
From wives of my husband, I the Queen and highest,
From lesser women. Ah what greater pain
Than this can women have who mourn on earth,
Than this my grief and infinite lament?
O Rama, even at thy side so much
I have endured, and if thou goest hence,
Death is my certain prospect, death alone.
Cruelly neglected, grievously oppressed
I have lived slighted in my husband's house
As though Kaicayie's serving-woman,—nay,
A lesser thing than these. If any honours,
If any follows me, even that man
Hushes when he beholds Kaicayie's son.
How shall I in my misery endure
That bitter mouth intolerable, bear
Her ceaseless petulance. O I have lived
Seventeen years since thou wast born, my son,
O Rama, seventeen long years have lived,
Wearily wishing for an end to grief;
And now this mighty anguish without end!
I have no strength to bear for ever pain;
Nor this worn heart with suffering fatigued
To satisfy the scorn of rivals yields
More tears. Ah how shall I without thy face
Miserably exist, without thy face,
My moon of beauty, miserable days?
Me wretched, who with fasts and weary toils
And dedicated musings reared thee up,
Vainly. Alas, the river's giant banks,
How great they are! and yet when violent rain
Has levelled their tops with water, they descend
In ruin, not like this heart which will not break.
But I perceive death was not made for me,
For me no room in those stupendous realms
Has been discovered; since not even today
As on a mourning hind the lion falls
Death seizes me or to his thicket bears
With his huge leap,—death, ender of all pain.
How livest thou, O hard, O iron heart,
Unbroken? O body, tortured by such grief,
How sinkst thou not all shattered to the earth?
Therefore I know death comes not called—he waits
Inexorably his time. But this I mourn,
My useless vows, gifts, offerings, self-control,
And dire ascetic strenuousness perfected
In passion for a son,—yet all like seed
Fruitless and given to ungrateful soil.
But if death came before his season, if one
By anguish of unbearable heavy grief
Naturally might win him, then today
Would I have hurried to his distant worlds
Of thee deprived, O Rama, O my son.
Why should I vainly live without thine eyes,
Thou moonlight of my soul? No, let me toil
After thee to the savage woods where thou
Must harbour; I will trail these feeble limbs
Behind thy steps as the sick yearning dam
That follows still her ravished young." Thus she
Yearning upon her own beloved son;—
As over her offspring chained a Centauress
Impatient of her anguish deep, so wailed
Cowshalya; for her heart with grief was loud.
Sri Aurobindo's Translations - Pieces from the Ramayana