大唐西域記 3.3.6

3.3.6

The prince then asked them what moved them so. They said, "The Maharaja has sent a dispatch accusing the prince, and ordering both his eyes to be put out, and that he be taken with his wife to the mountains, and there left to die. Although this order has come, we dare not obey it ; but we will ask afresh for directions, and keep you bound till the reply comes." The prince said, "My father, if he has ordered my death, must be obeyed ; and the seal of his teeth is a sure sign of the truth of the order. There can be no error." Then he ordered a Chandala to pluck out his eyes ; and having thus lost his sight, he wandered forth to beg for his daily support. As he travelled on far away, he came to his father's capital town. His wife said to him, "There is the royal city." "Alas!" he said, "what pain I endure from hunger and cold. I was a prince; I am a beggar. Oh, that I could make myself known and get redress for the false charge formerly brought against me!" On this he contrived to enter the king's inner bureau, and in the after part of the night he began to weep, and with a plaintive voice, accompanied with the sound of a lute, he sang a mournful song. The king, who was in an upper chamber, hearing these wonderful strains full of sadness and suffering, was surprised, and inquired, "From the notes of the lute and the sound of the voice I take this to be my son; but why has he come here?" He immediately said to his court attendant, "Who is that singing so?"