"Enforce thy right," they said,
"And do this evil deed; yet know thou this:
Once upon earth there was a mighty king
Named Hari??chandra; though he but disturbed
A Br??hman's sleep, through that offence he lost
His merit, and by Vi??v??mitra's curse
Became a base Pukkasa." "Yet the king
Spared not the dead man's friends, but still required
His fee. Therefore they cursed him in their rage--
"Go!--go!--thou most degraded of mankind--
Go to the lowest hell!" Then in his dream
The king beheld the messengers of death.
Fearful to look at, armed with heavy chains,
They seized him, and they bound him hand and foot,
And bore him off. And then, in fear and pain,
Headlong he fell into the bath of oil
In N??raka. There, torn with instruments
Sharp-edged as razors, fed on putrid blood,
He saw himself. For seven years in hell--
Now burnt from day to day, now tossed and torn,
Now cut by knives, and now by icy winds
Frozen and numbed--a dead Pukkasa's fate
He underwent. Each day in N??raka,
A hundred years of mortal reckoning--
So count the demons who inhabit hell.
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