19. Behold how the variety of our trifling enjoyments hastens our decay, they are like hurricanes shattering the mountain trees. 20. Men continue in vain to breathe their vital breath as hollow-bamboo wind-pipes having no sense. 21. How is (human) misery to be alleviated, is the (only) thought that consumes me like wild fire in the hollow of a withered tree. 22. The weight of worldly miseries sits heavy on my heart as a rock, and obstructs my lungs to breathe out. I have a mind to weep, but am prevented from shedding my tears for fear of my people. 23. My tearless weeping and speechless mouth, give no indication of my inward sorrow to any body, except my consciousness the silent witness in my solitude. 24. I wait to think on the positive and negative states (of worldly bliss), as a ruined man bewails to reflect on his former state of affluence (and present indigence). 25. I take prosperity to be a seducing cheat, for its deluding the mind, impairing the good qualities (of men), and spreading the net of our miseries. 26. To me, like one fallen into great difficulties, no riches, offspring, consorts or home afford any delight, but they seem to be (so many sources of) misery. 27. I, like a wild elephant in chains, find no rest in my mind, by reflecting on the various evils of the world, and by thinking on the causes of our frailties. 28. There are wicked passions prying at all times, under the dark mist of the night of our ignorance; and there are hundreds of objects, which like so many cunning rogues, are about all men in broad day-light, and lurking on all sides to rob us of our reason. What mighty champions can we delegate (now) to fight with these than our knowledge of truth? CHAPTER XIII. VITUPERATION OF RICHES. Ráma said:—It is opulence, Oh sage! that is reckoned a blessing here; it is even she that is the cause of our troubles and errors. 2. She bears away as a river in the rainy season, all high-spirited simpletons overpowered by its current. 3. Her daughters are anxieties fostered by many a malpractice, like the waves of a stream raised by the winds. 4. She can never stand steady on her legs any where, but like a wretched woman who has burnt her feet, she limps from one place to another. 5. Fortune like a lamp both burns and blackens its possessor, until it is extinguished by its own inflammation. 6. She is unapproachable as princes and fools, and likewise as favourable as they to her adherents, without scanning their merits or faults. 7. She begets only evils in them by their various acts (of profligacy), as good milk given to serpents, serves but to increase the poignancy of their poison. 8. Men (by nature) are gentle and kind hearted to friends and strangers, until they are hardheartened by their riches, which like blasts of wind, serve to stiffen (the liquid) frost.