Bhishma said Hearing these piteous cries of the pigeon on the tree, the she-pigeon caught by the fowler began to say aside thus.

Whether I have any inerit or not, indeed, there is no limit to my good fortune when my dear husband thus speaks of me.

She is no wife with whom her husband is not pleased. If their husbands are pleased with women all the gods also become pleased with them. Since the marriage union takes place in the presence of fire, the husband is the wife's greatest god.

That wife with whom her husband is not pleased is reduced to ashes, like a creeper adorned with flowers in a forest fire.

Having thought thus, the she-pigeon, stricken with woe, and encaged by the fowler, thus spoke to her woe-stricken husband.

I shall say what is now good for you. Hearing me follow my advice, O dear husband, be you the rescuer of a suppliant.

This fowler lies here by your house stricken with cold and hunger. Treat him hospitably.

The sin that a person commits by killing a Brahmana or that mother of the world, viz., a cow, is equal to what one commits by allowing suppliant to die.

You are endued with the knowledge of self. You should, therefore, follow that course which has been ordained for us as pigeons on account of our birth.

We have heard that the house-holder who practises virtue according to his abilities, acquires hereafter endless regions of bliss.

You have sons. You have progeny. O bird, casting off all love for your own body, therefore, and for acquiring virtue and profit, adore this fowler so that he may be pleased.

Do not, O bird, grieve for me. You may live, marrying other wives.

The amiable she-pigeon, laden with sorrow, and casting her eyes upon her husband from the fowler's cage within which she had been put, said these words to him.