Vessantara-Jataka in Pali and English - MyWebSpace

Translation 575 Vessantara-Jåtaka
[Fausbøll, Jåtaka, vol. VI, p. 575]
The king said:
"By what soft speech or word of truth did you make him believe?
From whom these children, chiefest of all gifts, did you receive?"
Jūjaka said:
"It was the King Vessantara, in forest lands who lives,
Gave them as slaves, who like the earth to all suitors freely gives.
’Twas King Vessantara who gave his own as slaves to me,
To whom all suitors go, as go all rivers to the sea."
Hearing this, the courtiers spake in dispraise of Vessantara:
"Were he at home, it were ill done by any king that's good:
How could he give his children then, when banisht in the wood?
O listen to me, gentles all, that here assembled stand,
How could the king his children give to serve another's hand?
Slaves male or female he might give, a horse, a mule, a car,
Or elephants: but how give those who his own children are?"
But the boy hearing this, could not stomach his father's blame; but as though raising with
his arm Mount Sineru smitten by the windblast, 1 he recited this stanza:
"How, grandsire, can he give, when none in his possession are,
Slaves male or female, elephants, a horse, a mule, a car?"
The king said:
1 The world is destroyed sometimes by fire or water, sometimes by wind. The
construction is difficult; I take vātābhihatassa sineruno as genitive absolute, and the
object as understood.