महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

23] Act I, Picture-gallery — Translation [—i. 30²
its watches speeding unnoticed [in succession]—thus did the
night come to an end! 27
Lakshmaṇa—Here is Śūrpaṇakhā ¹ in the Pañchavaṭī.²
Sītā—Alas! my noble Lord! No sight of thee hereafter!
Rāma—O thou, frightened at [the mere thought of] separation, this is
only a picture!
Sītā—Be that as it may, a wicked person is [ever] the source of
unhappiness.
Rāma ³—Why, in sooth, this Janasthāna incident does seem as if [happening
in the] present.
Lakshmaṇa—Hereafter the demons, through the trick of the disguise
[in the form] of the golden deer ⁴—the wicked ones—did in this
wise [as represented in the picture] that which [even now] smarts
us, though it has been washed off [in the enemy's blood]. In the
void of Janasthāna these doings of my noble brother, in his
piteous helplessness, they cause even the stone to weep and the
heart of adamant to burst! 28
Sītā, with tears, to herself—Alas! Thus, O thou Joy of Raghu's race,
[thus] wast thou on my account afflicted!
Lakshmaṇa, looking at Rāma, significantly—What is this now, my noble
brother?
These thy welling (ogha) tears—like some broken threads of a
pearl-necklace—trickle down and roll on the ground in streams
of shattered drops. Restrained though it is, this emotion, which
in its excess swells and fills thy heart, doth [nevertheless], through
thy quivering lips and nostrils, become inferable by others. 29
Rāma—Dear brother,
Born of that [former] separation from my beloved [that fire of
grief]—tormenting as it was—it was, in the hope of vengeance,
then endured by me. Now once again that [same] fire of grief,
as it flares out in my mind, like a [festering] wound in the vitals
of the heart doth it smart me with pain. 30
Sītā—Alas! Alas! I too, in the intensity of my anguish, feel myself as if
sundered from my noble Lord!

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¹ Sister of the demon Rāvaṇa. Foiled in her
attempt to seduce Rāma and Lakshmaṇa,
and being punished by them, it was she
who incited Rāvaṇa to abduct Sītā.
² That part of Janasthāna where Rāma lived
with his wife and brother.
³ A slight interval during which they pass
in review a few more pictures (such as
Rāma's fight with the fourteen thousand,
cp. ii. 15) must here be presupposed.
This renders intelligible Rāma's change
of feeling between this speech and his
speech immediately preceding.
⁴ This was the trick used to draw Rāma
and Lakshmaṇa away from Sītā, whom
Rāvaṇa forthwith seized and carried off.