Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/354

 rejoicings with untroubled minds, though every way around them is obstructed by death!

9. ‘Disease, old age and death, three enemies of irresistible strength, stand near ready to strike, and there is no escape from the dreadful world hereafter. How then may there be opportunity for merriment to an intelligent being ?

10. 'The clouds, that poured out streams of water with tremendous noise, almost in anger, imitating, as it were, the uproar of great seas, the clouds with their golden garlands of flashing lightnings, being born of agglomeration come again to dissolution.

11. 'The rivers, that flowing with increased rapidity carried away trees together with the river-banks, upon which they had their roots, afterwards and in course of time assume again a mean appearance, as if they were burnt away by sorrow.

12. 'The violence of the wind, too, blowing down peaks of mountains, dispersing masses of clouds, rolling and stirring up the waves of the ocean, becomes extinguished.

13. 'With high and blazing flame sparkling about, the fire destroys the grass, then it abates and ceases. By turns the different beauties of the groves and forests appear and disappear, as time goes on.

14. 'What union does there exist which has not its end in separation ? what felicity which is not liable to mishap ? Since inconstancy, then, is proper to the course of worldly things, that mirth of the multitude is a very thoughtless one.'

In this manner the High-minded One reasoned within himself. Utterly touched with emotion, his heart became averse to that rejoicing and festival mirth; he paid no longer attention to the groups of people, however picturesque, flocking to embellish