45. I bore it on my back, as a bear bears the long bristles upon him even in the hot season; and suffered the heat of the wild fire, which burnt away many wild animals which perished in groups as in the last conflagration of the world.
46. My wife bore her young ones, both for our pleasure as well as pain: as the food of the glutton, is both for his satiety and sickness; and the influence of planets, is for our good and evil also.
47. Thus I the only son of a king, had to pass sixty painful years of my life, as so many kalpa ages of long duration.
48. I raved sometimes in my rage, and wept at others in my bitter grief; I fared on coarse meals, and dwelt, alas! in the abodes of vulgar Chandálas. Thus I passed so many years of my misery at that place, as one fastened to the fetters of his insatiable desires, is doomed to toil and moil for naught until his death. (Bound to our desires, we are dragged to the grave).
CHAPTER CVIII.
Description of a Drought and Dearth.
Argument. The distress of Chandálas caused by famine and want of Rain.
The king continued to say:—Time passed away, and old age overtook me, and turned my beard to blades of grass covered with hoar frost.
2. My days glided away in alternate joy and grief, brought on by my fate and acts; just as a river flows on with the green and dried leaves, which the winds scatter over it.
3. Quarrels and broils, misfortunes and mischances, befell on me every moment; and beset me as thickly and as fastly as the arrows of woe flying in a warfare.
4. My foolish mind kept fluttering like a bird, in the maze of my wishes and fancies; and my heart was perturbed by passions, like the sea by its raging waves.