Love and Life if these were to be snatched away as
soon as he had grown to realize their full value? The Prince could no
longer take delight in the pleasures that surrounded him, or even in
the love of his wife, who was about to bear him a child. And he was
sick at heart with the fear that he would lose the things that he
loved.

When the King heard that three of the four omens had been fulfilled, he
trembled with apprehension and stationed guards at all the city gates
to intercept the Prince should he fly from home; for now that the
prophecy had so far been fulfilled the King was sure it would soon be
completed. Nevertheless he sent his soldiers to scour the streets for
beggars and holy men and drive them away from the city.

Only a few days afterward, the Prince again went forth in his chariot
just as a beggar in yellow robes approached the walls. There was an
expression of great peace upon the beggar's countenance, and he seemed
far happier than the Prince himself. Siddartha asked the attendant who
the man might be and what he did, and he received the reply that the
stranger was a priest and sought happiness through giving up all the
joys of the earth and begging his bread from door to door--and it
seemed to the Prince as though a great light had suddenly burst through
the clouds of his unhappiness, and he knew that he too must give up his
palace and his pleasures, his wife and his future child and fare forth
as a priest. Surely, thought the Prince, all the things that he enjoyed
were no better than wraiths of mist that rose from the river in the
morning, since like the mist they were forever changing, and must
surely be terminated in sickness, old age or death itself; and he
resolved to search for things more lasting than the happiness and
pleasure of his youth.

He also resolved to leave his kingdom and become a beggar in a foreign
land, attempting to find through fasting and contemplation the truth
that must lie behind the changing forms of life, for he knew well that
there must be some deep cause for all the things that he had witnessed
and some impelling force behind the universe. Otherwise the whole earth
and all that was in it and all things that breathed upon its bosom
would be idle and wicked delusions. And the Prince knew too that in him
lay the power to discover the truth if he should search for it
diligently and give his whole heart and mind to this one purpose.

Just then a messenger came to him tell