For many splendid kings of valorous name,
    Bearing the scars of many a hard-fought day,
  Have tried and failed; then, covered with their shame,
    Have shrugged their shoulders, cursed, and strode away.”

Yet when the bow is given to the youthful Rama, he not only bends, but breaks it.  He is immediately rewarded with the hand of the Princess Sita, while Lakshmana marries her sister.  On their journey home with their young brides, dreadful portents appear, followed by their cause, a strange being called Rama-with-the-axe, who is carefully to be distinguished from Prince Rama.  This Rama-with-the-axe is a Brahman who has sworn to exterminate the entire warrior caste, and who naturally attacks the valorous prince.  He makes light of Rama’s achievement in breaking Shiva’s bow, and challenges him to bend the mightier bow which he carries.  This the prince succeeds in doing, and Rama-with-the-axe disappears, shamed and defeated.  The marriage party then continues its journey to Ayodhya.

Twelfth canto.  The killing of Ravana.—­King Dasharatha prepares to anoint Rama crown prince, when Queen Kaikeyi interposes.  On an earlier occasion she had rendered the king a service and received his promise that he would grant her two boons, whatever she desired.  She now demands her two boons:  the banishment of Rama for fourteen years, and the anointing of her own son Bharata as crown prince.  Rama thereupon sets out for the Dandaka forest in Southern India, accompanied by his faithful wife Sita and his devoted brother Lakshmana.  The stricken father dies of grief, thus fulfilling the hermit’s curse.  Now Prince Bharata proves himself more generous than his mother; he refuses the kingdom, and is with great difficulty persuaded by Rama himself to act as regent during the fourteen years.  Even so, he refuses to enter the capital city, dwelling in a village outside the walls, and preserving Rama’s slippers as a symbol of the rightful king.  Meanwhile Rama’s little party penetrates the wild forests of the south, fighting as need arises with the giants there.  Unfortunately, a giantess falls in love with Rama, and

  In Sita’s very presence told
  Her birth—­love made her overbold: 
  For mighty passion, as a rule,
  Will change a woman to a fool.

Scorned by Rama, laughed at by Sita, she becomes furious and threatening.

  Laugh on!  Your laughter’s fruit shall be
  Commended to you.  Gaze on me! 
  I am a tigress, you shall know,
  Insulted by a feeble doe.

Lakshmana thereupon cuts off her nose and ears, rendering her redundantly hideous.  She departs, to return presently at the head of an army of giants, whom Rama defeats single-handed, while his brother guards Sita.  The giantess then betakes herself to her brother, the terrible ten-headed Ravana, king of Ceylon.  He succeeds in capturing Sita by a trick, and carries her off to his fortress in Ceylon.  It is plainly