"A maid, your highness, fair to see, of dalliance infinite:
Wouldst thou enjoy the sweets of love, yield, yield to this delight."

"Ho, hither, nearer let her come, and let her sing yet more,
Here let her sing before my face within my closet door!'

"She who had sung without the wall stood in the chamber there:
She caught him, as an elephant is caught in woodland snare.

"He felt the joy of love, and lo! see jealousy full-grown:
"No other man shall love!" cries he, "but I will love alone!"

"No other man, but I alone!" he cries; and then away--
Seizes a sword, and runs amuck all other men to slay!

[471] "The people shouting in alarm all to the palace fly:
"Thy son is slaying every one all unprovoked!" they cry.

"Him did the warrior King arrest, and banish from his face:
"Within the boundaries of my realm thou shalt not find a place."

"He took his wife and travelled on till by the sea he stood
There built a hut of leaves, and lived on gleanings from the wood.

"A holy hermit flying came over the ocean high,
Entered the hut what time the meal was standing ready by.

"The woman tempted him:-- now see how vile a thing was done!
He fell from chastity, and all his magic power was gone!

"The evening came; the prince returns, and from his gleaning brings
Hung to his pole a plenteous store of roots and wild-wood things.

"The hermit sees the prince approach: down to the shore goes he,
Thinking to travel through the air, but sinks into the sea!

"But when the prince beheld the sage down-sinking in the sea,
Pity sprang up within him, and these verses then said he:--

"Hither not sailing on the sea, by magic power you came,
But now you sink; an evil wife has brought you to this shame .

"Seducing traitresses, they tempt the holiest to his fall:
Down--down they sink: who women know should flee afar from all .

"Soft-speaking, hard to satisfy, as rivers hard to fill;
Down--down they sink: who women know should flee far from them still .

"And whomsoever they may serve for gold or for desire,
They burn him up, as fuel burns cast in a blazing fire."

"The hermit heard the prince's word; he loathed the world so vain:
Turned to his former Path , and rose up in the air again.

"No sooner had the prince beheld how in the air he rose,
He grieved and with a purpose firm the holy life he chose;

"Then, turned religious, wholly quelled his lust and hot desire;
And passion quelled, to Brahma's world henceforth he did aspire."