“On such foundations was my happiness built, and others have bled and wept that I might laugh! O, evil Gods, shameful and disastrous to man, if this is all! How shall the heart of man forgive your crimes against us, and where is justice in all the wide Three Worlds?”
And as he spoke he lifted the chain of pearls from his shoulders and threw them upon the dancer’s and she, beholding his nobleness and grief with tears, went sobbing away.
The next day he sent a message to the Maharaja.
“Great father, since now I know all the secrets and there is nothing hidden from me of the world’s woe, what hinders that I should go free to see it? It may be that some joy shall meet my eyes and relieve the burning of the flame of pity that consumes me. Also, since I have a son it is now surely well that I should see and know the lives of the people whom he and I one day shall rule. And I say this for truth, I am weary, weary even to death of the music and dancing and the miserable diversions of my prison, and if there be any hope for me it is in the things of men, for I have done with those of women and children. Set your prisoner free. It is your son who beseeches.”
And when the Maharaja agreed, the Prince sent another message.
“And let the city be neither decorated nor feasting. I desire to see the life of the people as they live it, not as they would pretend it is lived to please us great ones.”
And this too was conceded, but the Maharaja commanded that the chief minister and a guard of the Sakya lords should accompany the Prince.
Therefore once more the chariot and well-paced horses were prepared, adorned with precious stones and gold glittering like splendid sunshine, and he passed through the city and out by the further gate into a new world hitherto unknown.
And as he went on the road was smooth and white, and gardens gay on either side and trees loaded, some with flowers and some with fruit, and seeing this and knowing it unprepared for his eyes, his heart stirred under the snow of grief and thawed a little from its ice, for it seemed that the people who lived therein must know some happiness and freedom from misery. But as he went further the heat of the day strengthened and became like a weight of lead, oppressive even beneath the silken canopy of the chariot and the sweat stood on his brow and his garments clung to the moisture of his skin and weariness weighed upon him.
But for all this the toil about him could not cease, for men must eat, and work be completed and the fields of the Maharaja ploughed, and he saw how the labourers struggled with painful exertion, their bodies bent, their wet hair falling about haggard faces, their bodies fouled with mud and dust. And some were old and some were weak, and yet all must greatly toil and very pitiful was it to see their strained muscles and starting eyes.