Why go away and risk thy precious life
While we enjoy our days like king and queen?
Why leave me here to pine away in grief
And loneliness? Without my lord it is
Half death to me, and I would rather die
Than see him part; hence banish from thy mind
All thoughts of going and stay here with me."
"My wife!" he said, "why cherish idle fears?
The holy Brahmin whom thou knowest well,
So deeply versed in all the starry lore,