Go to the lowest hell!" Then in his dream
The king beheld the messengers of death.
Fearful to look at, armed with heavy chains,
They seized him, and they bound him hand and foot,
And bore him off. And then, in fear and pain,
Headlong he fell into the bath of oil
In Naraka. There, torn with instruments
Sharp-edged as razors, fed on putrid blood,
He saw himself. For seven years in hell--
Now burnt from day to day, now tossed and torn,
Now cut by knives, and now by icy winds
Frozen and numbed--a dead Pukkasa's fate
He underwent. Each day in Naraka,
A hundred years of mortal reckoning--
So count the demons who inhabit hell.
Then he beheld himself cast up to earth,
His spirit entering a filthy dog;
Feeding on things all foul and horrible--
Consumed by cold. A month thus passed away.
His spirit changed its dwelling, and he saw
Himself an ass; and after that an ox,
A cow, a goat, a sheep, a bird, a worm.
So day by day he saw his spirit change
Its outward shape. A multitude of forms--
Some moving, others rooted to the ground--
Received his soul. And when the hundred years
Were passed and gone, he saw himself again
Re-occupy his pristine human form--
Once more a king. And then he seemed to lose
His kingdom, casting it away in games