d them in a blameless way? He doth not now see with his mind's eye
how he hath become so sightless, and on account of what act he hath grown
blind among the kings of this entire earth. Is it not because he hath
banished Kunit's son from his kingdom? I have no doubt that
Vichitravirya's son, when he with his sons perpetrated this inhuman act,
beheld on the spot where dead bodies are burnt, flowering trees of a
golden hue. Verily he must have asked them, when those stood before him
with their shoulders projected forward towards him, and with their large
red eyes staring at him, and he must have listened to their evil advice,
since he fearlessly sent away Yudhishthira to the forest, who had all his
weapons of war with him and was borne company by his younger brothers.
This Bhima here, whose voracious appetite is like that of a wolf, is able
to destroy with the sole strength of his powerful arms, and without the
help of any weapons of war, a formidable array of hostile troops. The
forces in the field of battle were utterly unmanned on hearing his
war-cry. And now the strong one is suffering from hunger and thirst, and
is emaciated with toilsome journeys. But when he will take up in his hand
arrows and diverse other weapons of war, and meet his foes in the field
of battle, he will then remember the sufferings of his exceedingly
miserable forest-life, and kill his enemies to a man: of a certainty do I
anticipate this. There is not throughout the whole world a single soul
who can boast of strength and prowess equal to his. And his body, alas!
is emaciated with cold, and heat and winds. But when he will stand up for
fight, he will not leave a single man out of his foes. This powerful
hero, who is a very great warrior when mounted on a car--this Bhima, of
appetite rivalling a wolf's conquered single-handed all the rulers of men
in the east, together with, those who followed them in battle; and he
returned from those wars safe and uninjured. And that same Bhima,
miserably dressed in the bark of trees, is now leading a wretched life in
the woods. This powerful Sahadeva vanquished all the kings in the south;
those lords of men who had gathered on the coast of the sea,--look at him
now in an anchorite's dress. Valiant in battle Nakula vanquished
single-handed the kings who ruled the regions towards the west,--and he
now walks about the wood, subsisting on fruit and roots, with a matted
mass of hair on the head, and his body besmeared a