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

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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