Verse 20

¹⁴Even in the middle of a rite he would get up again and again to look at it, and then that lord of the land, his mind steady again, would call down good wishes on it: May it be well with you on every side, my child. ¹⁵Another time his mind was badly shaken, like a poor man who has lost his money. In pity and great longing, his heart undone and burning at the fawn's absence, grieving over that alone, he was taken by a great confusion, and said: ¹⁶Will he come back, the poor young deer, son of the dead doe, trusting me on his own reckoning, taking no account of what I am, as though I were a good man, when I am no noble man at all but a cheat with the mind of a hunter, who has done nothing good?

¹⁷Will I see him safe in the grove by this hermitage, grazing the young grass, kept by the gods? ¹⁸Or is some wolf, or wild dog, or another such, running in a pack or running alone, eating him now? ¹⁹The revered sun is going down, whose rising is the good of the whole world, whose body is the threefold Veda, and still that pledge the doe left me does not come to me. ²⁰Will he come, that prince of deer, and make me happy, who have done nothing to deserve it, driving off the grief of his own people with the many pretty games a fawn plays that are good to watch?