Men scorched by mental grief, or suffering under
bodily pain, feel as much refreshed in the companionship of their wives
as a perspiring person in a cool bath. No man, even in anger, should
ever do anything that is disagreeable to his wife, seeing that
happiness, joy, and virtue,--everything dependeth on the wife. A wife is
the sacred field in which the husband is born himself. Even Rishis
cannot create creatures without women. What happiness is greater than
what the father feeleth when the son running towards him, even though
his body be covered with dust, claspeth his limbs? Why then dost thou
treat with indifference such a son, who hath approached thee himself and
who casteth wistful glances towards thee for climbing thy knees? Even
ants support their own eggs without destroying them; then why shouldst
not thou, a virtuous man that thou art, support thy own child? The touch
of soft sandal paste, of women, of (cool) water is not so agreeable as
the touch of one's own infant son locked in one's embrace. As a Brahmana
is the foremost of all bipeds, a cow, the foremost of all quadrupeds, a
protector, the foremost of all superiors, so is the son the foremost of
all objects, agreeable to the touch. Let, therefore, this handsome child
touch thee in embrace. There is nothing in the world more agreeable to
the touch than the embrace of one's son. O chastiser of foes, I have
brought forth this child, O monarch, capable of dispelling all thy
sorrows after bearing him in my womb for full three years.
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