YUDHISTTHIRA.
To abandon the faithful and devoted is an endless crime, like the murder of a Brahmin;
Never, therefore, come weal or woe, will I abandon yon faithful dog.
Yon poor creature, in fear and distress, hath trusted in my power to save it:
Not, therefore, for e'en life itself will I break my plighted word.
INDRA.
If a dog but beholds a sacrifice, men esteem it unholy and void;
Forsake, then, the dog, O hero, and heaven is thine own as a reward.
Already thou hast borne to forsake thy fondly loved brothers, and Draupadi;
Why, then, forsakest thou not the dog? Wherefore now fails thy heart?
YUDHISTTHIRA.
Mortals, when they are dead, are dead to love or hate,—so runs the world's belief;
I could not bring them back to life, but while they lived I never left them.
To oppress the suppliant, to kill a wife, to rob a Brahmin, and to betray one's friend,
These are the four great crimes; and to forsake a dependent I count equal to them.
Alger's Oriental Poetry.