"Oh, no! He is sick," answered the coachman. "Poor people are often sick." "What does that mean?" asked the prince. "Why are they sick?"
The coachman explained as well as he was able; and they rode onward.
Soon they saw a company of men toiling by the roadside. Their faces were browned by the sun; their hands were hard and gnarly; their backs were bent by much heavy lifting; their clothing was in tatters.
"Who are those men, and why do their faces look so joyless?" asked the prince. "What are they doing by the roadside?"
"They are poor men, and they are working to improve the king's highway," was the answer.
"Poor men? What does that mean?"
"Most of the people in the world are poor," said the coachman. "Their lives are spent in toiling for the rich. Their joys are few; their sorrows are many."
"And is this the great, beautiful, happy world that I have been told about?" cried the prince. "How weak and foolish I have been to live in idleness and ease while there is so much sadness and trouble around me. Turn the carriage quickly, coachman, and drive home. Henceforth, I will never again seek my own pleasure. I will spend all my life, and give all that I have, to lessen the distress and sorrow with which this world seems filled."
This the prince did. One night he left the beautiful palace which his father had given to him and went out into the world to do good and to help his fellow men. And to this day, millions of people remember and honor the name of Gautama, as that of the great lover of men.