The secret counsel taken in the wood
By me is understood:
The village plot soft whispered in the ear
That too I hear.

Thought the prince, "My father knows that I am his enemy," and ran away and told his attendants. After the lapse of seven or eight days they said, "Prince, your father is ignorant of your feeling towards him. You only fancy this in your own mind. Put him to death." So one day he took his sword and stood at the top of the stairs in the royal closet. The king standing at the head of the staircase spoke the third stanza:

A monkey once did cruel measures take
His tender offspring impotent to make.

Thought the prince, "My father wants to seize me," and in his terror he fled away and told his attendants he had been threatened by his father. After the lapse of a fortnight they said, "Prince, if the king knew this, he would not have put up with it so long a time. Your imagination suggests this to you. [125] Put him to death." So one day he took his sword and entering the royal chamber on the upper floor of the palace he lay down beneath the couch, intending to slay the king, as soon as he came. At the close of the evening meal, the king sent his retinue away, wishing to lie down, and entering the royal chamber, as he stood on the threshold, he uttered the fourth stanza:

Thy cautious creeping ways
Like one-eyed goat in mustard field that strays,
And who thou art that lurkest here below,
This too I know.

Thought the prince, "My father has found me out. Now he will put me to death." And seized with fear he came out from beneath the couch, and throwing down his sword at the king's feet and saying, "Pardon me, my lord," he lay grovelling before him. The king said, "You thought, no

one knows what I am about." And after rebuking him he ordered him to be bound in chains and put into the prison house, and set a guard over him. Then the king meditated on the virtues of the Bodhisatta. And by and bye he died. When they had celebrated his funeral rites, they took the young prince out of prison and set him on the throne.

The Master here ended his lesson and said, "Thus, Sire, kings of old suspected in cases in which suspicion was justified," and related this incident, [126] but the king gave no heed to his words. The Master thus identified the Birth: "At that time the far-famed teacher at Takkasila was I myself."

Footnotes

^80:1 Compare Tibetan Tales vi. Prince Jivaka.