Vessantara-Jataka in Pali and English - MyWebSpace

Translation 548 Vessantara-Jåtaka
[Fausbøll, Jåtaka, vol. VI, p. 548]
When the Great Being had made the gift, he was joyful, thinking how good a gift he had
made, as he stood looking upon the children. And Jūjaka went into the jungle, and bit off
a creeper, and with it he bound the boy's right hand to the girl's left, and drove them away
beating them with the ends of the creeper.
Explaining this, the Master said:
"The cruel brahmin bit a length of creeper off; which done,
He with the creeper bound their hands, and dragged the children on. 1
And then the brahmin, staff in hand, holding the creeper tight,
Beat them and drove them on and on before their father's sight."
Where he struck them, the skin was cut, the blood ran, when struck they staggered against
each other back to back. But in a rugged place the man stumbled and fell: with their
tender hands the children slipt off the light bond, and ran away weeping to the Great
Being.
Explaining this, the Master said:
"The children thus at liberty then from the brahmin fly;
The boy looks on his father's face, the tears are in his eye.
Then like a fig-leaf in the wind the little boy did quake,
Embracing threw his arms around his father's feet, and spake
"Father, will you dispose of us while mother is away?
O do not give us till she come! till she return, O stay!
And will you then dispose of us while mother is away?
O wait until she shall return, then give us if you will!
Then let the brahmin sell us both, then let the brahmin kill!
His foot is huge, his nails are torn, his flesh hangs sagging down,
Long underlip and broken nose, all trembling, tawny-brown,
Pot-bellied, broken-backed, with eyes that chew an ugly squint, 2
All spots and wrinkles, yellow-haired, with beard of bloody tint,
Yellow, loose-jointed, cruel, huge, in skins of goats bedight,
A crooked and inhuman thing, a most terrific sight;
1
anumajjatha?
2
visamacakkhulo: or "of different colors," as the Burmese version has it.