[2488] And he, rushing out with speed, cutting off all sluggish effort,
overtook her and seized her by her lovely braids of hair.
The fair one, so beautiful, turning back, embraced him;
and he fell from that holy life (brahmacariya) — just so it came to pass. Then she, gratified,
went in mind to Inda, dwelling in the Nandana Grove.
Maghavā, the elephant among devas, knowing her thought,
swiftly sent a couch of gold together with its equipage,
furnished with its fifty breast-covers, spread over with a thousand coverlets.
There the radiant one held him, clasping him to her breast.
As though it were but a single hour, she held him for three years.
After three years the brahmin awoke, his intoxication gone;
he saw the green trees all around the fire-shrine,
a grove of fresh leaves, in blossom, resounding with flocks of cuckoos.
Gazing all around, weeping, he shed tears:
"No oblation have I offered, no mantras have I recited; the fire-offering (aggihutta) has been made to lapse!
Who was it, then, that formerly seduced my mind with her ministrations —
who, while I dwelt in the forest, seized that which had come to being together with my ascetic fervour (teja),
as one might seize a ship filled with manifold treasures upon the ocean?"
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.