This is from The Little Clay Cart, a Sanskrit play probably composed around the 2nd century BC, and commonly attributed to a possibly mythical king and playwright called S(h)udraka. I liked the rambling explanation of the simple word ‘lost’ through half a dozen similes.
SAKARA:Â What do you mean, lost?
VITA:Â Lost –
                like the sight of a blind man,
                 like a sick man’s former health,
                 an idiot’s understanding,
                 an idle man’s hopes of success,
                 or like true knowledge in an absent-minded rogue.
                 As soon as she met you, she disappeared,
                                   as pleasure does in the presence of a foe. Â
Source: Sudraka, Mrcchakatika I, after verse 42, quoted in Source: Shulman, David, The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 170
Photo credit: Hans at pixabay
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