स मातरं चैव विसंज्ञकल्पामार्तं च सौमित्रिमभिप्रतप्तम्।
धर्मे स्थितो धर्म्यमुवाच वाक्यं यथा स एवार्हति तत्र वक्तुम्॥
sa mātaraṁ caiva visaṁjña-kalpām
ārtaṁ ca saumitrim abhiprataptam
dharme sthito dharmyam uvāca vākyaṁ
yathā sa evārhati tatra vaktum
saḥ = He; mātaram ca eva = His mother; visaṁjña-kalpām = who was almost senseless; ārtam = who was distressed; ca = and; saumitrim = to Lakṣmaṇa; abhiprataptam = and intensely hot [in anger]; dharme = on dharma; sthitaḥ = fixed; dharmyam = of dharma; uvāca = spoke; vākyam = words; yathā = properly; saḥ eva = [these were words that] only He; arhati = was capable; tatra = in that circumstance; vaktum = of speaking.
Fixed on dharma, He spoke words of dharma to His mother who was almost senseless and to Lakṣmaṇa who was distressed and intensely hot [in anger]. [These were words that] only He was properly capable of speaking in that circumstance.
1 Rāma’s father ordered Him to go to the forest and His mother ordered Him to be with her in Ayodhyā. So Rāma had two duties as per the codes of Vedic dharma to follow – to obey His father and to obey His mother – and these two were in conflict. Such a situation is called a dharma-saṅkaṭa or “crisis of dharma.
Tatra (“in that circumstance”) indicates that Rāma was in a crisis of dharma.1 Because there is none except Him who is so absorbed in behaving according to dharma even in an extremely critical situation, Vālmīki glorifies Him by saying that He was the only one capable of speaking thus.