"That wife of yours, that ill-conditioned dame,
My mother, she that brought me forth,--that same,--
Like a tamed elephant, in full control,
Let her return again, that sinful soul."

So said he to his father, and then went and summoned his mother. She, being reconciled to her husband and the husband's father, was thenceforward tamed, and endued with righteousness, and watched over her husband and his father and her son; and these two, stedfastly following their son's advice, gave alms and did good deeds, and became destined to join the hosts of heaven.

[50] The Master, having ended this discourse, declared the Truths: (at the conclusion of the Truths, the dutiful son was established in the fruit of the First Path:) then he identified the Birth:--"At that time, father and son and daughter-in-law were the same as they are now, and the wise boy was I myself."

Footnotes

^27:1 This is a variant of a famous story, known as the Housse Partie. See Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, "The ungrateful son" (ii. 372); Jacques de Vitry's Exempla (Folk Lore Society, 1890), No. 288, with bibliographical note on p. 260.