incomparable prowess could not overpower in fight, even as the waters of
the mighty ocean cannot overleap the continents, is now the
dancing-master of king Virata's daughters and waits upon them in
disguise. O Bhima, that Arjuna the clatter of whose car-wheels caused
the entire earth with her mountains and forests, her mobile and immobile
things to tremble, and whose birth dispelled all the sorrows of Kunti,
that exalted hero, that younger brother of thine, O Bhimasena, now
maketh me weep for him. Beholding him coming towards me, decked in
golden ear-rings and other ornaments, and wearing on the wrists
bracelets of conchs, my heart is afflicted with despondency. And
Dhananjaya who hath not a bowman equal unto him on earth in prowess, now
passeth his days in singing, surrounded by women. Beholding that son of
Pritha who in virtue, heroism and truth, was the most admired in the
world, now living in the guise of a woman, my heart is afflicted with
sorrow. When I behold, the godlike Partha in the music-hall like an
elephant with rent temples surrounded by she-elephants in the midst of
females, waiting before Virata the king of the Matsyas, then I lose all
sense of directions. Surely, my mother-in-law doth not know Dhananjaya
to be afflicted with such extreme distress. Nor doth she know that
descendant of the Kuru race, Ajatasatru, addicted to disastrous dice, to
be sunk in misery. O Bharata, beholding the youngest of you all,
Sahadeva, superintending the kine, in the guise of a cowherd, I grow
pale. Always thinking of Sahadeva's plight, I cannot, O Bhimasena,
obtain sleep,--what to speak you of the rest? I do not know, O
mighty-armed one, what sin Sahadeva may have committed for which that
hero of unbaffled prowess suffereth such misery. O foremost of the
Bharatas, beholding that beloved brother of thine, that bull among men,
employed by Matsya in looking after his kine, I am filled with woe.
Seeing that hero of proud disposition gratifying Virata, by living at
the head of his cowherds, attired in robes dyed in red, I am attacked