Buddhist shelf · Pali Canon · Jātaka 297 · Tikanipāta · Kumbhavagga
KāmavilāpajātakaJātaka 297 · Volume 2, translated by W. H. D. Rouse (1895)
Public domain. W. H. D. Rouse’s translation was published in 1895. The Pali is the Mahāsaṅgīti edition published by SuttaCentral under CC0. The canonical Pali Jātaka consists of the verses only (3 verses here); the prose story around them comes from the later commentary, which the English translates in full. So the verses are shown beside the whole English story, not verse by verse.
Pali verses
“Ucce sakuṇa ḍemāna,
pattayāna vihaṅgama;
Vajjāsi kho tvaṁ vāmūruṁ,
ciraṁ kho sā karissati.
Idaṁ kho sā na jānāti,
asiṁ sattiñca oḍḍitaṁ;
Sā caṇḍī kāhati kodhaṁ,
taṁ me tapati no idaṁ.
Esa uppalasannāho,
nikkhañcussīsakohitaṁ;
Kāsikañca muduṁ vatthaṁ,
tappetu dhanikā piyā”ti.
English Rouse 1895
"O bird, that fliest," etc.--This story the Master told at Jetavana, about a man who pined for his former wife. The circumstances which called it forth are 2 explained in the Puppharatta Birth-tale 3, and the tale of the past in the Indriya Birth-tale 4.
So the man was impaled alive. As he hung there, he looked up and saw a crow flying through the air; and, nought reeking of the hitter pain, he hailed the crow, to send a message to his dear wife, repeating these verses following:
"O bird, that fliest in the sky!
O winged bird, that fliest high!
Tell my wife, with thighs so fair:
Long will seem the time to her. "She knows not sword and spear are set:
Full wroth and angry she will fret.
That is my torment and my fear,
And not that I am hanging here.
"My lotus-mail I have put by,
And jewels in my pillow lie,
And soft Benares cloth beside.
With wealth let her be satisfied."
[444] With these lamentations, he died.
When the Mister had ended this discourse, he declared the Truths, and identified the Birth (now at the conclusion of the Truths, the lovesick brother attained the fruition of the First Path): "The wife then was the wife now; but the spirit who saw this, was I myself."
Translator’s notes (3)
p. 302, n. 2 Reading kathitaṁ.
p. 302, n. 3 No. 147 above, vol. i. page 312.
p. 302, n. 4 No. 423.