महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

87] Act VI, Princes Recognized — Translation [—vi. 19ᵇ Lava—The missiles revealed themselves spontaneously to both of us. Rāma, reflecting—Nothing is impossible. It may be some peculiar greatness following as the result of the ripening of some pre-eminent merit. But, how ‘both of us’? Lava—We are two brothers—twins. Rāma—Where then is the other? [Voice,] behind the curtain—Bhāṇḍāyana, Bhāṇḍāyana! “That the long-lived Lava has had an affray with the army of the King”—is there any truth in this report? “Even so, dear friend,” didst thou say? To-day then, in all the worlds, let the title ‘supreme king’ come to an end, and let the fires of the Kshatriya weapons be all quenched this day! 16 Rāma—Who now may this be—he, of a complexion dark-blue like a sapphire, who even by the sound [of his voice] gives me a thrill of horripilation and makes me seem like a kadamba [tree] that, at the deep roar of an early and sable rain-cloud, instantly bursts forth into buds? 17 Lava—This is he, my elder [brother], the noble Kuśa by name, [just] returned from Bharata’s hermitage.¹ Rāma, in eagerness—Hither, my dear boy, hither call him, the long-lived one. Lava—Very well. Walks about. Then enters Kuśa. Kuśa, twanging his bow in joyful assurance and pride— If it is with the scions of the Solar race, with those kings who have given their tribute of protection even unto [God] Indra, and who ever since the times of Manu—that exalted Son of the Sun-god—have ever, for consuming the high and the mighty, set ablaze their fires of Kshatriya valour—if it is with these that to-day I am to have a fight, then blessed is this my bow, the string of which is radiant with the fierce-shooting flames that flash from the fiery arms. 18 Moves about in hauteur. Rāma—A rare abundance of manliness has this lovable (-ka) young Kshatriya! His eye, for even the mightiest of the mighty of the three worlds, shows a disdain as if for mere chaff; his stride, at once firm and proud, seems as though bending the earth low [in submission]; ¹ See iv. 22³³ ᶠᶠ· above, p. 69.