इत्येवं लक्ष्मणे वाक्यं स्नेहाद्ब्रुवति धार्मिके।
परिवादं जनन्यास्तमसहन्राघवोऽब्रवीत्॥
ity evaṁ lakṣmaṇe vākyaṁ snehād bruvati dhārmike
parivādaṁ jananyās tam asahan rāghavo ’bravīt
iti evam = these; lakṣmaṇe = when Lakṣmaṇa; vākyam = words; snehāt = out of affection for Rāma; bruvati = spoke; dhārmike = dhārmika; parivādam = criticism; jananyāḥ = of His mother; tam = the; asahan = unable to tolerate; rāghavaḥ = Rāghava; abravīt = spoke [as follows].
When Lakṣmaṇa spoke these dhārmika words out of affection for Rāma, Rāghava, unable to tolerate the criticism of His mother, spoke [as follows].
1 Just see how skillful Śrī Lakṣmaṇa is in carefully setting forth His thoughts to His master who, as we will notice now, is equally skillful in detecting Lakṣmaṇa’s train of thought. Indeed, Rāmacandra will restrain Lakṣmaṇa from speaking further in this regard.
From this verse, the following can be inferred. Early in the morning, Lakṣmaṇa noticed the difficulties faced by Rāma and Sītā in bathing in the lake and so on, and became very sad. If Lakṣmaṇa were to abruptly begin His criticism of Kaikeyī, Rāma would become angry. Therefore He began to talk about the features of winter and then incidentally brought in Bharata into the discussion and then [finally] criticized Kaikeyī.1