The self-willed fool can never gain the approval of the wise,
But guileless souls, equipped with truth, are slow to utter lies.

Whoso would lie in wait to catch some wise and holy man,
Hurled down to hell will quickly learn to rue his wicked plan.

But who with treacherous cruelty shall aged saints assail,
Shall like a dying palm tree stump, childless and heirless, fail.

Whoso some mighty sage, a priest of life austere, shall slay,
In Kalasutta hell shall suffer torture many a day.

And if a wicked Maga king his realm should overthrow,
He shall when dead in Tapana like sufferings undergo.

A hundred thousand years, as gods count years, he's doomed to dwell,
Clad in a robe of living flame, midst agonies of hell.

[268] Bright jets of fire on every side shoot from his tortured frame,
His very limbs, hair, nails and all, serve but to feed the flame.

And as his body burns apace, racked through and through with pain,
Like a goad-stricken elephant, poor wretch, he roars amain.

Whoso from greed or hatred shall, vile creature, slay his sire,
In Kalasutta hell long time shall agonize in fire.

In iron cauldron boiled till he shall peel,
The parricide is pierced with shafts of steel,
Then blinded and on filth condemned to feed
He's plunged in brine, to expiate his deed.

Then goblins 'twixt his jaws, lest they should close,
Hot iron ball or ploughshare interpose,
These fixed with cords his mouth so firmly prop,
They into it a stream of filth can drop.

Vultures, both black and brown, and ravens too,
And birds with iron beaks, a motley crew,
Rending his tongue to many a fragment small,
Devour the quivering morsel, blood and all.

The goblins flitting to and fro
Assail the wretch with many a blow,

On his charred breast or broken limb
With cruel glee they buffet him.
The joy is theirs, but woes abide
With all that in such hell reside
For earthly crime of parricide.

The son that slays his mother straight to Yama's realm is sent,
In retribution for his deed to reap due punishment.

There powerful demons seize upon the guilty matricide,
And plough with iron shares his back in furrows deep and wide.

[269] The blood like molten copper from his wounds that flows they take,
And give it to the guilty wretch, his burning thirst to slake.

He stands plunged in a crimson lake as 'twere of clotted blood,
Breathing foul stench of carrion vile or evil smelling mud.

Enormous worms with iron mouths, piercing their victim's skin,
Devour his flesh right greedily and suck the blood within.

In hell one hundred fathoms deep behold the victim sinks,
While for a hundred leagues around dead carcase like he stinks.