‘Brother,’ he said, ‘never could you endure to see me in sorrow; your disposition was ever so affectionate. On my account you left father and mother and exposed yourself to the hardships of the forest, the cold, the heat and the wind.

Where, brother, is now that old love you bore me? Why do you not rise in response to my lament? Had I known that I should lose my brother in the forest, I should never have obeyed my father’s command (to dwell in the forest for fourteen years; having obeyed the other command, I should have gone back from Shringaverapura).

Sons and riches, wives, houses and kinsfolk come and go in the world time after time; not so a real brother. Reflect upon this, brother, and awake!

As a bird is utterly miserable without its winds, or a serpent without its head-jewel, or a noble elephant without its trunk, so will be my life without you, my brother, if wooden-headed fate preserves me alive.

With what face shall I return to Ayodhya, having lost a beloved brother for the sake of a woman? I would rather have endured the shame of her loss before the world (for my inability to recover her); for after all the loss of a wife is no great loss.

But now my pitiless and unfeeling heart will have to endure both that obloquy and the deep anguish of your loss, my son! You, dear one, were like my mother’s only son and the sole stay of her life.

Yet she took you by the hand and entrusted you to me, knowing that I, your greatest well-wisher, would make you happy in every way. When I go back, what answer shall I give her? Why do you not arise and give me counsel?’