“Where is it now?”
“Some man or other took it away.”
“Do you know where the man lives?”
“No, Sir!”
Then the Bodisat went and told the king, “There’s nothing the matter with the elephant, your majesty; but he was great friends with a dog, and I fancy it’s through missing it that he refuses his food.”
And so saying, he uttered the stanza:
No longer can he take a morsel even
Of rice or grass; the bath delights him not!
Because, methinks, through constant intercourse,
The elephant had come to love the dog.