35. He that has a wife, has an appetite for enjoyment on earth; but one without her has no object of desire. Abandonment of the wife amounts to the abandoning of the world, and forsaking the world is the path to true happiness.
36. I am not content, O Bráhman! with these unmanageable enjoyments which are as flickering as the wings of bees, and are as soon at an end as they are born (like the ephemerids of a day). I long only for the state of supreme bliss, from my fear of repeated-births (transmigration), decay and death.
CHAPTER XXII.
Obloquy of Old Age.
Boyhood has scarcely lost its boyishness when it is overtaken by youth, which is soon followed by a ruthless old age, devouring the other two.
2. Old age withers the body like a frost freezing the lake of lilies. It drives away the beauty of the person as a storm does the autumnal clouds; and it pulls down the body, as a current carries away a tree on the bank.
3. The old man with his limbs slackened and worn out by age, and his body weakened by infirmity, is treated by women as a useless beast.
4. Old age drives a man’s good sense, as a good wife is driven away by her step dame.
5. A man in his state of tottering old age, is scoffed at as a dotard by his own sons and servants, and even by his wife, and all his friends and relations.
6. Insatiable avarice like a greedy vulture alights on the heads of the aged, when their appearance grows uncouth, and their bodies become helpless, and devoid of all manly qualities and powers.
7. Appetite the constant companion of my youth, is thriving along with my age, accompanied with her evils of indigence, and heart-burning cares and restlessness.