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with Sité. Always calling on Sit& with what the great English poet would call “'Tarquin’s ravishing strides,” he is baffled in her presence by his own feeling that she reseinbles his mother, and he always returns to his post as did Lady Macbeth saying of King Duncan: “ Had he hot resembled my father as he slept, I had done it.”” Some orientalists have sat in criticism upon Valmiki and found fault with the high improbability of this part of human nature in Ravan. The Gujarati poet supplies as above no weak reply to the critics. Ravan moreover has his own wife whom he loves and respects, and, though he has kicked and driven away his brother for telling him that he has wronged Rama and must beg his pardon and restore Sita, Ravan cannot treat his wife in the same way, when it is she who advises him to the same effect and accompanies her advice with a virtuous sermon. “Mad woman,” replies the Lord of Lanka to her, “ Dost thou think Iam mad? I was the first to philosophize on this matter. See why I have done this. T have tasted the highest sweets of worldly blessings, triumphs in wars, and all that royalty and triumphs in shower on & king. Now I am tired of them, and my aspirations turn another way. I no longer like this pomp and glory. My heart is set upon a glorious end of my career—Glorious death in the battle-field at the hands of the divine Rama!” He longs; in fact, for a glorious death to crown @
