Nala said :-
1. `` Your father's kingdom is the same to me as my own, there is no doubt; but being in trouble, I shall never go.
2. Having gone there in my prosperous state whereby increasing your delight, how can I being deprived of it, go there so as to increase your sorrow?''
बृहदश्व said :-
3. Speaking thus often and often to the blessed दमयन्ती, Nala consold her, who was clothed in half of her garment.
4. They both, clothed with one garment wandering here and there, arrived at a shed, being exhausted with hunger and thirst.
5. Having approached that shed, the king of the Nishadhas sat on the ground along with the daughter of the king of Vidharbha.
6. He, having no garment, changed in appearance, soiled, convered with dust, fatigued, lay down with दमयन्ती on the ground to sleep.
7. That auspicious, delicate and innocent दमयन्ती being overcome by sorrow all of a sudden, was soon overpowered by sleep.
8. O lord of the subjects, when दमयन्ती fell asleep, the king Nala, whose heart and soul were torn with grief, could not sleep as before.
9. Having thought of the loss of his kingdom, the abandonment of this friends and the calamity hemet in the forest, he began to think.
10. ``If this be done, what will happen? If not done, what will be the result? what is beneficial, death or the abandanment of this person )i.e.my wife?
11. She is devoted to me and for my sake suffers this pain; but being separated from me, she might go to her relatives.
12. She, being devoted to me, shall suffer misery; if I forsake her, it is doubtful (whether she would suffer pain or not); perhaps she may get happiness.''
13. Having thought thus in various ways again and again, the king thought it better to forsake her.
14. No one dares to violate her on the road on account of her, lustre; she is noble, chaste and devoted to me.
15. And thus by (the insinuation of ) the wicked Kali, his mind was withdrawn from दमयन्ती and was fixed upon abandoning her.
16. Having thought of himself as having no garment and of दमयन्ती wearing only one piece of cloth the king desired
to cut half of it.
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Page No. 118
17. ``How can I cut off her cloth without swakening my beloved?'' Thinking thus, the king Nala wandered all over that place.
18. O Bharata, while running here and there, in that palce he obtained an excellent sword unsheathed.
19. The subber of the enemies, having cut with that sword, one half of her cloth, wore it himself; and being deprived of his senses, th king went away leaving the daughter of the king of Vidharbha asleep,
20. With relenting heart, the king came back again to that shed and seeing दमयन्ती began to weep.
21. ``My beloved whom the wind or the sun could not see before, is sleeping on the ground in this shed like one having no lord (i.e. helpless)
22. Having awakened from sleep, how will this lady of sweet smile and of beautiful hips, wearing only one piece of cloth like a mad person, live?
23. How will this blessed and virtuous daughter of Bhima, wander all alone without me in this dreary forest inhabited by beasts and serpents?
24. O noble one, the Suns, Vasus, the Rudras, the two Ashwins togehter with gods, may protect you! You are protected by your own virtue.''
25. Thus speaking to his dear wife, unequalled on the earth in beauty, Nala, with his senses deprived of by Kali, tried to go away.
26. The king went away again and again but returned to that place again, once dragged away by Kali but brought back again by love.
27. The heart of that sad monarch was, as it were, torn into two, he, like a swing, goes away from and comes back to the shed often and aften.
28. Being deprived of his reason Kali, Nala, ran away, forsaking his wife who was asleep and lamenting piteously.
29. With his senses lost, being possessed by Kali, the king, thinking of those various matters, went away with a sad heart, having forsaken his wife alone in that solitary forest.