He’ll tell you all about the kind of welfare that results from showing hostility to Rama! Listen, fool; the seeds of dissension can be sown in the mind of him alone whose heart is closed to Raghubira.

Indeed, ten-headed, I am the exterminator of my race, while you, Ravana, are the preserver of yours! Even the blind and the deaf would not say so, whereas you have twenty eyes and an equal number of ears!

Did I disgrace my family by acting as the envoy of one whose feet Shiva and Brahma and all the gods and sages long to serve? It’s strange that your heart doesn’t burst asunder for entertaining such an idea.’

When he heard the monkey’s fierce rejoinder, the Ten-headed glowered at him and said, ‘Wretch, I put up with your insolence because I know the laws of courtesy and righteousness.’

‘Yes,’ said the monkey, ‘I too have heard of the piety you showed in stealing away another man’s wife. And I have witnessed with my own eyes the protection you vouchsafed to an envoy. An upholder of piety, why do you not drown yourself and thus end your life?

When you saw your sister with her ears and nose cut off, it was from considerations of piety that you forgave the wrong! Your piety is famed throughout the world; thrice blest am I in being able to see you!’

‘Prate no more, you shallow-brained brute of a monkey! Look at my arms, O fool, that are like so many Raghus to swallow the great moon-like might of all guardians of the spheres.