Valmiki's RamayanaCh. 3 · Rama, My Child
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That's nine misses.
Rama wouldn't miss.
Their mother watched him every morning. She never told him to stop.
One day the great sage Vishvamitra came to Ayodhya.
Whatever you wish, I grant it.
You need not even ask.
Two demons defile my sacrifice with blood.
Give me your eldest son.
He is a boy. Not yet sixteen.
Take my army. Take me.
Rama, my child, you must not take.
You promised, and now you break your word?
The earth shook. In heaven, the gods were afraid.
King, you are Justice in human form.
Let him go. He will be safe.
Come back to me.
And the boy went with the sage, his brother at his back.
That night, princes who had never slept on the ground
slept on the grass.
We sleep on grass every night.
I'd have gone with the sage. I wouldn't be afraid.
His father was afraid for him.
Would ours be?
...Any father would be.
Did he have a bow?
The best bow in the world.
...You knew him?
No word of the poem would be false.
I had not thought about what that would cost.