24. You broke the bonds of your princedom, and decamped from the bounds of your realm thinking them as too painful to you; but say are you not constrained here to the faster and far more irksome toils of your asceticism, and the unbearable chains of its rigid incarceration.
25. I think you are involved in much more care to defend yourself from heat and cold in the defenceless forest, and have come to find yourself to be more fast bound to your rigours than you had any idea of this before.
26. You thought in vain to have obtained the philosopher's stone before, but must have come to find at last; that your gain is not worth even a grain of glassy bauble.
27. Now sir, I have given you a full interpretation of the avidity of a man to pocket the invaluable gem; you have no doubt comprehended its right meaning in your mind, and will now store its purport in the casket of your breast.
[CHAPTER LXXXXI.]
Interpretation of the Parable of the Elephant.
Argument:—Ignorance which is the cause of worldly desire, flies with loss of wishes.