"Aho!" she weeps, "pitiless grows the wrath
Of Fate against me. Not one gleam of good
Arriveth. Of what fault is this the fruit?
I cannot call to mind a wrong I wrought
To any--even a little thing--in act
Or thought or word; whence then hath come this curse?
Belike from ill deeds done in by-gone lives
It hath befall'n, and what I suffer now
Is payment of old evils undischarged.
Grievous the doom--my palace lost, my lord,
My children, kindred; I am torn away
From home and love and all, to roam accurst
In this plague-haunted waste!"
When broke the day,
Those which escaped alive, with grievous cries
Departed, mourning for their fellows slain.
Each one a kinsman or a friend laments--
Father or brother, son, or comrade dear.
And Damayanti, hearing, weeps anew,
Saying: "What dreadful sin was that I wrought
Long, long ago, which, when I chance to meet
These wayfarers in the unpeopled wood,
Dooms them to perish by the elephants,
In my dark destiny enwrapped? No doubt
More and more sorrow I shall bear, or bring,
For none dies ere his time; this is the lore
Of ancient sages; this is why--being glad
If I could die--I was not trampled down
Under the elephants.
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