1 First the boundless sea, and the wind, fierce-glowing fire, the strong, the bliss-bestowing,

And heavenly floods, first-born by holy Order, cried out against the outrage on a good man.

2 The king first of all, without reluctance, made restitution of the man's wife.

The just and the wise were the intercessors; the guardian took her hand and led her back.

3 The husband must take her by the hand when he hath cried, She is my wife.

She stayed not for a herald to conduct her: thus is the kingdom of a ruler guarded.

6 Thus spake of her the seven sages of old, who sat them down to their austere devotion:

Dire is the wrong of leading home another man's wife: it plants confusion.

10 So then the righteous restored her, so men gave the woman back again.

Princes who kept their promises restored the husband's wedded wife.

11 Having restored the man's wife, and freed them, with God's aid, from sin,

They shared the fulness of the earth and won themselves extended sway.

12 No lovely wife who brings her dower in hundreds rests upon his bed,

Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, another man's wife.

13 No broad-browed calf with wide-set ears is ever in his homestead born,

Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, another man's wife.

14 No steward, golden-necklaced, goes before the meat-trays of the man

Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, another man's wife.

15 No black-eared courser, white of hue, moves proudly, harnessed to his car,

In whose dominion is detained, through want of sense, another man's wife.

16 No lily grows with oval bulbs, no lotus-pool is in his field,

In whose dominion is detained, through senseless love, another man's wife.

17 The men whose task it is to milk drain not the brindled cow for him

In whose dominion is detained, through senseless love, another man's wife.

18 His milch-cow doth not profit one, his draught-ox masters not the yoke

Wherever, severed from his wife, a husband spends the mournful night.