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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 1.9.23
Bāla Kāṇḍa, sarga 9: Story of Ṛṣyaśṛṅga: Courtesans, rain and marriage. Courtesans lure Ṛṣyaśṛṅga from his father’s forest hermitage, rain ends Aṅga’s drought and Romapāda gives him Śāntā in marriage
In the sequence: they embrace Ṛṣyaśṛṅga and give him sweets and delicacies, which he mistakes for unusual fruits → claiming that their observances require them to leave, they hurry away. Distressed by their absence, Ṛṣyaśṛṅga returns to the meeting place the next day
1.9.23
gatāsu tāsu sarvāsu kāśyapasyātmajo dvijaḥ
asvasthahṛdayaś cāsīd duḥkhaṃ sma parivartate
When all of them had gone, the brahmin, the descendant of Kāśyapa, grew sick at heart and moved about in distress.
Words: gatāsu — having gone (loc. abs.); tāsu — those; sarvāsu — all; kāśyapasyātmajo — the descendant of Kāśyapa; dvijaḥ — the brahmin (twice-born); asvasthahṛdayaś — sick, uneasy at heart; cāsīd — and became; duḥkhaṃ — in distress, sorrowfully; sma — (marks past sense); parivartate — moved about, tossed to and fro
Composed by Maharṣi Vālmīki, the ādikavi of the ādikāvya: the first poet of the first poem. Sanskrit: The Vālmīki-Rāmāyaṇa: Critical Edition, Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1960–1975 (gen. eds. G. H. Bhatt, U. P. Shah); IAST from GRETIL (Göttingen). Translation and word glosses: Claude Opus 4.6–4.7; summaries and sequences: ChatGPT Astra (machine-made). Numbering follows the Critical Edition, not the vulgate (e.g. Gita Press, valmikiramayan.net), so sarga and verse numbers can differ from those editions.