[2408] "What will you do, Sambulā, with an ailing prince
whom you tend here in the forest? I will be your husband."
"Wasted by sorrow, wretched as I am, what beauty is found in me?
Seek another, good sir, more beautiful than I."
"Come, climb this mountain: four hundred wives are mine;
of them you shall be the foremost, with every desire fulfilled.
O lady radiant as the stars, whatever you wish for in your heart —
surely all of that is mine in plenty; take your delight with me today.
But if, Sambulā, you will not take the place of my chief queen,
you will do for my breakfast: in the morning you shall be my food."
And he — savage, fang-toothed, a man-eater with sevenfold matted locks —
seized Sambulā by the arm as she saw no protector in the forest.
Overpowered by the goblin (pisāca), savage, his eye set upon flesh,
fallen into the power of the enemy, she grieved for her husband alone:
"That the demon (rakkhasa) should devour me — that is not such suffering (dukkha) to me
as that the mind of my noble lord should become otherwise toward me.
There are no gods — surely they have gone to dwell afar;
surely there are no guardians of the world here;
surely, of the unrestrained who do deeds of violence,
there are none at all to hold them back."
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.