Nor will I even come back again to your hermitage.
Like a lad with sand-washed sword in hand,
You frighten me, asking for the stone.
This I will not give you,—you ask too much;
Nor will I even come back again to your hermitage.
Thereupon Jewel-neck the dragon-king, reflecting, “The monk begs the jewel, the monk wants the jewel,” departed. When he departed, he departed indeed, and never came back again. And the younger ascetic, because he saw no more that dragon so fair to see, became more than ever lean, dried-up, pale, yellow as ever was yellow, his body strewn with veins.
When the older ascetic saw the younger ascetic altered in appearance, he inquired the reason. The younger ascetic told him. Then the older ascetic addressed the younger ascetic with a stanza:
One should not beg or seek to get what is dear to another.
Odious does one become by asking overmuch.
When the Brahman asked the dragon for the jewel,