26. To me, like one fallen into great difficulties, no riches, offspring, consorts or home afford any delight, but they seem to be (so many sources of) misery.
27. I, like a wild elephant in chains, find no rest in my mind, by reflecting on the various evils of the world, and by thinking on the causes of our frailties.
28. There are wicked passions prying at all times, under the dark mist of the night of our ignorance; and there are hundreds of objects, which like so many cunning rogues, are about all men in broad day-light, and lurking on all sides to rob us of our reason. What mighty champions can we delegate (now) to fight with these than our knowledge of truth?
CHAPTER XIII.
Vituperation of Riches.
Ráma said:—It is opulence, Oh sage! that is reckoned a blessing here; it is even she that is the cause of our troubles and errors.
2. She bears away as a river in the rainy season, all high-spirited simpletons overpowered by its current.
3. Her daughters are anxieties fostered by many a malpractice, like the waves of a stream raised by the winds.
4. She can never stand steady on her legs any where, but like a wretched woman who has burnt her feet, she limps from one place to another.
5. Fortune like a lamp both burns and blackens its possessor, until it is extinguished by its own inflammation.
6. She is unapproachable as princes and fools, and likewise as favourable as they to her adherents, without scanning their merits or faults.