Nala Recites a Shloka About Damayanti

While living in Rituparna's city, Nala continued to think about Damayanti. Every evening, he recited a shloka: "O ascetic! Hungry, thirsty, fatigued and miserable, where are you? Do you keep thinking about that unfortunate one? Whom are you attached to now?" Jivala heard him. One night, he asked: "O Bahuka! I wish to hear about the one over whom you always sorrow." Nala was still in disguise. He could not say her name. He could not say his own. So he spoke in riddles — a story about a man who was not quite himself and a woman who was unmistakably Damayanti. "There was one who lost his senses. There was a lady he thought much of and she was firmer towards him. Because of a certain reason, that unfortunate one was separated from her. Separated from her, that evil-minded one roams around, oppressed by unhappiness. Day and night, he is tormented by sorrow and cannot sleep. Remembering her at night, he recites this shloka. Having wandered around the entire earth and having obtained some things somewhere, he has now settled down, though he doesn't deserve to. Remembering her, he always sorrows. That woman even followed the man into the difficulties of the forest. But the one with limited virtue abandoned her and it is difficult for her to be still alive. She is alone, young, inexperienced about the roads and unaccustomed to difficulties. She is hungry and thirsty and it is difficult for her to be still alive. Predators always roam in that great and terrible forest. O respected one! She was abandoned by the one with limited virtue, the evil-minded one." He called himself evil-minded. He called himself a man of limited virtue. He described Damayanti as she must have been — alone, young, inexperienced, hungry, thirsty, surrounded by predators — and said it was difficult for her to be still alive. Jivala heard the words but did not press further. Nala had said enough to reveal his grief, and not enough to reveal himself.