[1173] Then the boys, having freed themselves from the brahmin, ran off;
with eyes brimming with tears, he gazed up at his father.
Trembling like a leaf of the sacred fig (assattha), he venerated his father's feet;
and having venerated his father's feet, he spoke these words:
"Mother, dear father, has gone out, and you, dear father, are giving us away;
wait until we have seen mother too — then, dear father, you may give us away.
Mother, dear father, has gone out, and you, dear father, are giving us away;
do not give us away, dear father, until mother too comes back to us.
Then let this brahmin, as he pleases, sell us or slay us —
crook-footed, rotten-nailed, and with sagging calves besides,
long in the upper lip, slobbering, jut-fanged, and broken-nosed;
pot-bellied, hunch-backed, and with eyes that do not match,
copper-bearded, yellow-haired, wrinkled and blotched with freckles,
tawny-eyed, bent, and misshapen, huge and coarse,
girt about in antelope hides — no human he, but a thing of terror.
Is he a man, or a yakkha whose food is flesh and blood,
who, come from the village into the forest, begs wealth of you, dear father?
While we are being led away by this demon (pisāca), how is it, dear father, that you merely look on?
Surely your heart is of stone, bound fast with iron,
you who take no heed of us in bonds to the wealth-seeking brahmin —
a violent, cruel man — who beats us like cattle.
Let Kaṇhā stay right here: she does not know anything at all;
like a milk-craving fawn strayed from the herd, she cries."
[Variant readings recorded in the Siam Raṭṭha edition (ม. = Maramma/Burmese edition): ¹ eti] ม. "et–" (so printed); ² addhanakho] ม. andhanakho; ³ obaddha(piṇḍiko)] ม. ovaddha-; ⁴ ajināni pi] ม. ajināni ca; ⁵ ayasā] ม. āyasaṃ.]
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.