turn the back on a benefactor;
the highly gifted virtuous mother of a child, is ever respected by the
most distinguished families; to inherit distinction and then to turn
round, is not the mark of a distinguished man. The illustrious child of
Yasodhara, who has inherited a kingdom, rightly governed, his years now
gradually ripening, should not thus go away from and forsake his home;
but though he has gone away from his royal father, and forsaken his
family and his kin, forbid it he should still drive me away, let me not
depart from the feet of my master; my heart is bound to thee, as the
heat is bound up in the boiling water. I cannot return without thee to
my country; to return and leave the prince thus, in the midst of the
solitude of the desert, then should I be like Sumanta, who left and
forsook Rama; and now if I return alone to the palace, what words can I
address to the king? How can I reply to the reproaches of all the
dwellers in the palace with suitable words? Therefore let the prince
rather tell me, how I may truly describe, and with what device, the
disfigured body, and the merit-seeking condition of the hermit! I am
full of fear and alarm, my tongue can utter no words; tell me then what
words to speak; but who is there in the empire will believe me? If I say
that the moon's rays are scorching, there are men, perhaps, who may
believe me; but they will not believe that the prince, in his conduct,
will act without piety; for the prince's heart is sincere and refined,
always actuated with pity and love to men. To be deeply affected with
love, and yet to forsake the object of love, this surely is opposed to a
constant mind. O then, for pity's sake! return to your home, and thus
appease my foolish longings."

The prince having listened to Kandaka, pitying his grief expressed in so
many words, with heart resolved and strong in its determination, spoke
thus to him once more, and said: "Why thus on my account do you feel the
pain of separation? you should overcome this sorrowful mood, it is for
you to comfort yourself; all creatures, each in its way, foolishly
arguing that all things are constant, would influence me to-day not to
forsake my kin and relatives; but when dead and come to be a ghost, how
then, let them say, can I be kept? My loving mother when she bore me,
with deep affection painfully carried me, and then when born she died,
not permitted to nourish me. One alive, the other dead, gone by
different road