Vessantara-Jataka in Pali and English - MyWebSpace

Translation 541 Vessantara-Jåtaka
[Fausbøll, Jåtaka, vol. VI, p. 541]
Then going to the hut of the Great Being, she knocked at the door. "Who's there?" "I, my
lord, Maddī." "Lady, why have you come here unseasonably, and broken our compact?"
"My lord, it is not from desire that I come; but I have had an evil dream." "Tell it to me
then, Maddī." She told it as it had appeared: the Great Being understood what the dream
meant. "The perfection of my giving," he thought, "is to be fulfilled: this day comes a
suitor to ask for my children. I will console Maddī and let her go." So he said, "Your
mind must have been disturbed by uneasy sleep or by indigestion; fear nothing." With
this deceit he consoled her, and let her go. And when the night grew light, she did all that
had to be done, embraced and kissed the children, and said, "Last night I had a bad
dream; be careful, my dears!" Then she gave them in charge of the Great Being, begging
him to take care of them, took her basket and tools, wiped her tears, and away to the
woods for fruits and roots.
But Jūjaka, thinking that she would now be gone, came down from the hill and went up
the footpath towards the hermitage. And the Great Being came out of his hut, and seated
himself upon a slab of stone like a golden image. "Now the suitor will come!" he thought,
like a drunkard, thirsting for a draught, and sat watching the road by which he would
come, his children playing about his feet. And as he looked down the road, he saw the
brahmin coming; taking up as it were the burden of his giving, for seven months laid
down, he cried in joy—"Brahmin, pray draw near!" and to the boy Jāli he addressed this
stanza:
"Jāli, arise and stand: behold a brahmin in my sight!
’Tis the old time come back again, and fills me with delight!"
Hearing this, the boy says: