Dutt, Romesh Chunder: The literature of Bengal: being an attempt to trace the progress of the national mind in its various aspects, as reflected in the nation’s literature from the earliest times to the present day ; with copious extracts from the best writers (Calcutta, 1877)

180 LITERATURE OF, BENGAL.

course i" At her command, her maids and attendants,
all variant warriors,.coucekl or heighten their charms by
donning,armour and grasping the martial spear, and?mar-
tial music, proclaim the march of the proud heroines.
Female valour has always been a favorite theme of
poet, but nothing that we can remember,, not even
Byron's description of the Maid of Saragossa, can for a
moment compare with the third book of this work. ' The
whole' book is replete with the most gorgeous description
of the haughty grace, the pride of deportment, the splen-
dour of queenly charms which mark the female warriors,
whose eyes dart a keener lustre than the spears which,
they bear. Rama will not fight with women, he willingly
and even respectfully lends a passage, and the radiant
file of valour and beauty pass by, illumining the darkness
of the night. Rama, struck with the sight, can scarcely
believe that it was not a gorgeous dream.

In fine contrast to the martial and spirited descrip-
tions in the third book, the fourth is full of soft pathos
and true tenderness, and dwells on the woes of poor Sita
now af- captive of Ravana. One lady alone of Ravana's
family, Sarama, the wife of Bibhisan, sympathises with
her, and repairs to her, and listens to her tales of
former days. Sita narrates how after leaving Oude with
Rama and Lakshmana she dwelt in the forest of Pancha-
bati and enjoyed that rural life, how wild flowers bloomed
round her cottage, how the sweet and joyous chirping of
forest birds waked her every morning, how wild peacocks
danced before her and wild deer came in herds as her
guests, and how she h&spitably entertained these