[75] Men greedy for sensual pleasures, delighting in sensual pleasures, infatuated with sensual pleasures,
having done evil deeds, are reborn in a bad destination (duggati).
But those who, having abandoned sensual pleasures, have gone forth, with no peril from any quarter (akutobhaya),
who have attained unification of mind (ekodibhāva) — they do not go to a bad destination.
I shall make you a simile; listen to it, Arindama:
by a simile some wise men here come to know the meaning.
A carcass was being borne along by day upon the great flood of the Ganges,
and a crow, of little wisdom, thoughtless, pondered it:
"What a vehicle is this I have gained! And this food is no small store."
There by night, there by day — right there his mind took its delight.
Eating the flesh of the elephant, drinking the water of the Bhāgīrathī,
beholding the forest shrines, the bird did not fly away.
And the down-flowing Ganges swept him — heedless, delighting in the carcass —
down into the ocean, where birds have no resort.
And that bird, his food exhausted, flew up,
(but could go) neither backward nor forward, neither to the north nor to the south;
he reached no island — he had gone where birds have no resort —
and right there he fell, even as a weakling falls.
And him, struggling, bereft of his wings, the fish of the ocean —
crocodiles, makara sea-monsters, and sharks (susū) — devoured with violence.
Even so you, O king, and the others who enjoy sensual pleasures:
if in their greed they will not disgorge them, the wise know them as having but a crow's wisdom.
This simile, O king, has been made for you to elucidate the meaning;
and by it you will be revealed, whether you will act or not.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.