Alas! that I should utter such a word!"
And going with his wife into the town--
Eyes dimmed with tears, voice choked with grief--he cried:
"Come hither, townsmen! hearken unto me!
A wretch! inhuman! savage as a fiend!
I offer here my wife for sale, and yet
I live! Here is a female slave! Who buys?
Make haste and speak." "The female slave is mine!"
(So spake an ancient Br??hman to the king.)
"Money I have in heaps, and I will pay
You well for her. My wife is delicate;
Her household duties are beyond her strength;
I want a slave, and therefore I will give
A price proportioned to the woman's skill
And temper; nor will I o'erlook her youth
And beauty. What you think is fair and right,
That will I pay." Struck dumb with grief, the king
Stood mute, nor answered aught. And then the priest,
Tying the price in the king's garment-hem--
His bark-cloth garment--roughly grasped the queen,
And dragged her off. But when the loving child
Beheld his mother led away, he seized
Her by her garment. And the queen exclaimed:
"If only for a moment, noble sir!
Oh! let me go! that I may gaze once more
Upon my child, whom I shall never see,
And never touch again! My child, behold
Thy mother, now a slave! And thou--a prince!
Oh, touch me not! My lot of servitude
Forbids that thou should'st touch me.
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