Vessantara-Jataka in Pali and English - MyWebSpace

Translation 584 Vessantara-Jåtaka
[Fausbøll, Jåtaka, vol. VI, p. 584]
Vessantara and Maddī then their father went to greet,
As they beheld him drawing nigh, eager his son to see.
Then Maddī made obeisance, laid her head before his feet,
Then he embraced them; with his hand he stroked them pleasantly."
Then weeping and lamenting for sorrow, the king spoke kindly to them.
"I hope and trust, my son, that you are prosperous and well,
With grain to glean and fruits and roots abundant where you dwell.
Have you been much by flies and gnats and creeping things annoyed,
And have you from wild beasts of prey immunity enjoyed?"
The Great Being answered his father:
"My lord, the life we had to live a wretched life has been;
We had to live as best we could, to eat what we could glean.
Adversity breaks in a man, just as a charioteer
Breaks in a horse: adversity, O king, has tamed us here.
But ’tis our parents' absence which has made our bodies thin,
Banisht, O king, and with the woods and forests to live in."
After this he asked the fate of his children.
"But Jāli and Kaṇhājinā, your hapless heirs, whom now,
A brahmin cruel, merciless, drives on like any cow,