The Bodhisatta sat stitching his cloak. The king, almost alone, came up without sound of footfall, softly. Without one look at the king, the other went on with his sewing. "This fellow," thought the king, "will not speak to me because he is angry. This ascetic, humbug that he is, first roars out, "I will not let anger arise at all, but if it does, I will crush it while it is small," and then is so obstinate in wrath that he won't speak to me!" With this idea the king repeated the third stanza:

You that were loud in boasting only awhile ago,
Now dumb for very anger there you sit and sew!"

When the Great Being heard this, he perceived that the king thought him silent from anger; and desirous to show that he was not influenced by anger, repeated the fourth stanza:

"Once risen, it never had left me, it never would leave me at all:
As a storm of rain lays the dust again, I quenched it while it was small."

On hearing these words, the king thought, "Is it anger of which he

speaks, or some other thing? I will ask him." And he asked the question, repeating the fifth stanza:

"What is it that never has left you your life long, never at all?
As a storm of rain lays the dust again, what quenched you while it was small?"

[26] Said the other, "Great king, thus anger brings much wretchedness, and much ruin; it just began within me, but by cherishing kindly feelings I quenched it," and then he repeated the following stanzas to declare the misery of anger.

"That without which a man sees clearly, with which he goes blindly ahead,
Arose within me, but was not left free--anger, on foolishness fed.

"What causes our foes satisfaction, who wish to bring woes on our head,
Arose within me, but was not left free--anger, on foolishness fed.

"That which if it rises within us blinds all to our spiritual good,
Arose within me, but was not left free--anger, with folly for food.

"That which, supreme, destroys each great blessing,
Which makes its dupes forsake each worthy thing,
Mighty, destructive, with its swarm of fears,--
Anger--refused to leave me, O great king!

"The fire will rise the higher, if the fuel be stirred and turned;
And because the fire uprises, the fuel itself is burned.

"And thus in the mind of the foolish, the man who cannot discern,
From wrangling arises anger, and with it himself will burn.

"Whose anger grows like fire with fuel and grass that blaze,
As the moon in the dark fortnight, so his honour wanes and decays.

"He who quiets his anger, like a fire that fuel has none,
As the moon in the light fortnight, his honour waxes well grown."