Sundara Kanda, Sarga 19

Meaning

Thereupon the irreproachable princess, Sītā (a princess of the Videha territory) of excellent limbs, began to shake like a plantain tree in a windy place as soon as she caught sight of, at that place and that very moment, Rāvaṇa, the suzerain ruler of ogres, richly endowed with comeliness and youth and decked with excellent ornaments. (1-2)

Meaning

Concealing her belly behind her thighs and her breasts with her arms, the large-eyed lady with an excellent complexion sat down weeping. (3)

Meaning

Rāvaṇa, the ten-headed monster for his part gazed on Sītā, a princess of the Videha territory, of austere vows, who was guarded in turns by batches of ogresses and looked miserable and stricken with agony like a bark lying motionless in the sea; who was seated on the bare ground like the bough of a tree severed from the trunk and fallen flat on the ground; whose limbs were coated with dirt by way of decoration and was undecorated though deserving of decoration and who, like a lotus fibre stained with mud, looked charming as well as did not look charming; who was constantly seeking the presence of Śrī Rāma, a well-known personality, a lion among sovereigns, in the chariot of her mind, drawn by the horses of thought; who was a lovely woman ever growing emaciated and, seeing no end to her grief, wept alone and remained absorbed in thought of her beloved spouse and grieving, and who was devoted to Śrī Rāma; who was writhing like the female of the king of serpents under the spell of an incantation and was undergoing suffering like the constellation Rohiṇī when tormented by the smoke coloured planet, Ketu; and who, though born in a family distinguished for right conduct and noble disposition and also married in a pious family of good conduct, wore a shabby appearance like a woman born in an ignoble family. (4—10)

Meaning

Rāvaṇa, to his own destruction, sought to cajole Sītā, the princess of Mithilā, who resembled a great renown which has grown dim, a faith which has been treated with contempt, an understanding which has grown feeble, a hope which has been frustrated, a prospect which has been blasted, an order which has been flouted, a quarter appearing in flame at the time of some portentous phenomenon, a worship which has been tampered with, a full-moon night on which the orb of the moon has been eclipsed by the demon Rāhu (darkness personified), a lotus plant blighted by frost, an army whose warriors have been killed, sunlight that has been obscured by darkness, a stream which has become thin due to drought, an altar desecrated by an undesirable person, a flame which has gone out, a lotus pond whose lotuses with their leaves have been pulled out, whose birds have been scared away, nay, which has been rendered turbid by the trunk of an elephant as well as stirred by it; who was stricken with grief caused by separation from her lord and had grown lean and thin like a river whose water has been diverted through canals etc., for irrigation purposes and who, having been deprived of excellent washing, resembled a night during a dark fortnight; who was tender and possessed of charming limbs and was worthy of living in an abode full of precious stones and looking like a lotus-root dug out not long before and being baked in heat; who resembled the female of a lordly elephant disunited from the leader of the herd, nay, captured and chained to a pillar and breathing hard, sore stricken with sorrow, who looked charming with a single long braid formed without effort, even as the earth covered with a dark row of trees at the end of a monsoon when the clouds have disappeared; who had been wasted, emaciated and depressed through fasting, grief, brooding and fear, lived on a meagre diet and was rich in austerity; who was constantly asking her deity mentally, as it were, with folded hands for the discomfiture of Rāvaṇa, the ten-headed monster, at the hands of Śrī Rāma, the foremost of Raghus; who was looking round weeping, irreproachable as she was, had large reddish and white eyes with beautiful lashes and was excessively devoted to Śrī Rāma. (11—22)