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

55] Act III, The Shadow — Translation [—iii. 41ᶜ
Sītā in excitement approaches [Rāma] and touches his heart
and forehead.
Vāsantī—Happily dear¹ Rāma has come to life again!
Rāma—[This touch,] as if anointing with ambrosial anointments,
both within and without, all the tissues of my body—this touch
that has [just] brought me to life—once again, it has, all of
a sudden, produced, through joy, an infatuation in me—[only]
of a different kind. 40
With eyes still closed in joy. Friend Vāsantī! Here is a matter for
rejoicing.
Vāsantī—And what may it be?
Rāma—What else, my friend? She has returned—the daughter of Janaka!
Vāsantī—Why, my dear Rāma, where is she?
Rāma, enjoying the felicitous touch—Look! Is not she just here in front?
Vāsantī—Wherefore, my dear (ayi), [wherefore,] with these frightful
excesses of thy ravings that pierce the very vitals, dost thou again [and
again] burn me [in anguish], ill-starred that I am, and already burnt up
with [the sorrow consequent upon] the sufferings of my dear friend [Sītā]?
Sītā—I do wish to withdraw: but this my noble Lord's touch, gentle and
cooling by reason of his enduring affection, has all of a sudden allayed
even my long and cruel grief, and has held fast, as if with adamantine
cement, [this] my moist and powerless hand, [causing it] to tremble in
helplessness.
Rāma—No: not ‘ravings’, my friend!
That [hand,] begirt with bracelet, which formerly, at the time
of marriage, I had held [in mine], and which, since then, through
all that long time, had been familiar to me by its cooling and
ambrosial touch—[touch] that was [once, alas!] mine for the
asking— 41 a, b
Sītā—Noble my Lord! Thou art [ever] the same—[then and] now!
Rāma—that same hand of hers, resembling a tender stalk of lavalī
but most happily compared [only] with her own other hand—
that hand here I have grasped. 41 c, d Seizes it.
Sītā—Oh, fie! Carried away by my noble Lord’s touch I have really
committed a blunder!
Rāma—Friend Vāsantī! With my eyes (indriya) closed in [the ecstasy
of my] joy and in my [present] excited state I am [no longer] master of
myself: Do you therefore hold her likewise.
Vāsantī—Why! This is sheer madness!
¹ This is the first time in this Act that Vāsantī uses this familiar mode of address.