Page:Panchatantra.djvu/437

428 To the wisdom of the wise
 * Constant household worries bring

Daily diminution, like
 * Winter breathed upon by spring.

After money disappears,
 * Keenest wisdom is at fault,

Choked by daily fuel and clothes,
 * Oil and butter, rice and salt.

Poor and paltry neighbors scarce
 * Waken sentiments of scorn,

Like the bubbles on a stream,
 * Ever dying, ever born.

Yet the rich have license for
 * All things vulgar and debased:

When the ocean bellows, none
 * Reprobate his faulty taste.

Having thus set his mind in order, he concluded: "Under these circumstances, I will abandon life by self-starvation. What can be made of this calamity—life without money?" With his resolve taken, he went to sleep.

Now as he slept, a trillion dollars appeared in the form of a Jain monk, and said: "Good merchant, do not lose interest. I am a trillion, earned by your ancestors. Tomorrow morning I will come to your house in this same form. Then you must club me on the head, so that I may turn to gold and prove inexhaustible."

On awaking in the morning, he spent some time pondering on his dream: "Let me think. Will this