r a
moment, again rudely divided, everywhere the fetters of kindred are
formed! Ever being bound, and ever being loosened! who can sufficiently
lament such constant separations; born into the world, and then
gradually changing, constantly separated by death and then born again.
All things which exist in time must perish; the forests and mountains,
all things that exist; in time are born all sensuous things, so is it
both with worldly substance and with time. Because, then, death pervades
all time, get rid of death, and time will disappear. You desire to make
me king, and it is difficult to resist the offices of love; but as a
disease is difficult to bear without medicine, so neither can I bear
this weight of dignity; in every condition, high or low, we find folly
and ignorance, and men carelessly following the dictates of lustful
passion; at last, we come to live in constant fear; thinking anxiously
of the outward form, the spirit droops; following the ways of men, the
mind resists the right; but, the conduct of the wise is not so. The
sumptuously ornamented and splendid palace I look upon as filled with
fire; the hundred dainty dishes of the divine kitchen, as mingled with
destructive poisons; the lily growing on the tranquil lake, in its midst
harbors countless noisome insects; and so the towering abode of the rich
is the house of calamity; the wise will not dwell therein. In former
times illustrious kings, seeing the many crimes of their home and
country, affecting as with poison the dwellers therein, in sorrowful
disgust sought comfort in seclusion; we know, therefore, that the
troubles of a royal estate are not to be compared with the repose of a
religious life; far better dwell in the wild mountains, and eat the
herbs like the beasts of the field; therefore I dare not dwell in the
wide palace, for the black snake has its dwelling there. I reject the
kingly estate and the five desires; to escape such sorrows I wander
through the mountain wilds. This, then, would be the consequence of
compliance: that I, who, delighting in religion, am gradually getting
wisdom, should now quit these quiet woods, and returning home, partake
of sensual pleasures, and thus by night and day increase my store of
misery. Surely this is not what should be done! that the great leader of
an illustrious tribe, having left his home from love of religion, and
forever turned his back upon tribal honor, desiring to confirm his
purpose as a leader-