विक्रम चरित (उज्जैन सम्राट् विक्रमादित्य - पराक्रम, न्याय एवं ३२ पुतलियों की कथा सटीक)

71 loss you now deplore cannot be remedied, and could not possibly have been averted by any human agency, let me entreat you to call your powerful reason to your aid, and console yourself with the blessings that are still left to you.' 'I am fully sensible,' replied the king, 'and thoroughly aware of the truth of what you adduce, and the sincerity with which you put it to me. Your deep sympathy in my sad bereavement is also not unknown to me; but, alas! how can I have offended God to such a degree as to merit so severe a mark of his displeasure? You know not the intensity of my feelings; you cannot in any manner conceive the keenness of my sufferings. They are great—very great! I do not know that I have ever deprived the labourer of his wages, or injured any one by injustice. I have always sought to relieve the distresses of my fellow-creatures, to comfort the afflicted, and to succour the helpless and needy. All this have I done, and more; and yet, oh, my God! I am visited with this greatest of all afflictions—the loss of him I had reckoned upon as the prop of my declining years! It is more than man can bear. I know I must sink under it, for my heart is broken!' His feelings here found vent in a flow of bitter scalding tears. Shortly after, deeming it useless to proceed any further in search of the prince, as they had but too many proofs, as they thought, of his untimely death, they mounted their horses, the king, from sheer weakness, having to be supported on his, and returned to the city. When the queen and the prince's wife were made acquainted with the melancholy news, they were so affected by it that for a while they found a temporary refuge from grief in insensibility. Returning animation only made them feel the more acutely. They in turn set up a most woeful lamentation, beating their breasts and smiting their faces, with every other demonstration of uncontrollable grief, and their cries resounded throughout the palace. The king, after spending some time in sad reflection, called to him an aged slave or nurse, an attendant in the apartments of the queen, and desired her