80. As the rust of the lazy needle passes off in sewing, without being rubbed with dust; so must it take the rust, unless it is put in the action of piercing the patient and passive shreds. (The rolling stone gathers no moss).
81. The unseen and airy darts of fate, are as fatal as the acts of the cruel Vísúchi; though both of them have their respite at short intervals of their massacres.
82. The needle is at rest after its act of sewing is done; but the wicked are not satisfied, even after their acts of slaughter are over.
83. It dives in the dirt and rises in the air, it flies with the wind and lies down wherever it falls; it sleeps in the dust and hides itself at home and in the inside, and under the cloths and leaves. It dwells in the hand and ear-holes, in lotuses and heaps of woolen stuffs. It is lost in the holes of houses, in clefts of wood and underneath the ground. (Compare the adventures of a pin in Gay’s Fables).
84. Válmíki added:—As the sage was speaking in this manner, the sun went down in the west, and the day departed to its evening service. The assembly broke after mutual salutations, to perform their sacred ablution; and joined again on the next morning, with the rising beams of the sun to the royal palace.
CHAPTER LXXI.
Remorse of Súchí.
Argument. Remorse of Karkatí at her transformation to a Needle from her former gigantic form.
Vasishtha continued:—After the carnivorous fiend—Karkatí, had feasted for a long period on the flesh and blood of human kind; she found her insatiable voracity to know no bounds, and never to be satisfied with anything.
2. She used to be satisfied erewhile, with a drop of blood in her form of the needle; and she now became sorry, at the loss of the insatiable thirst and appetite of her former state.
3. She thought in herself, O pity it is! that I came to be a vile needle; with so weak and slender a body, that I can take nothing for my food.