Reading guide
A seduction narrated in specific, sensory detail
The opening two verses linger on physical detail unusual for this collection: jewelry, garland, makeup, brightly-rouged feet, slippers removed, palms joined in greeting, a soft and sweet voice. The courtesan's offer itself is equally concrete — riches now, and a promised joint retirement into renunciation later, ‘holding a winning hand on both counts’ — a proposal that tries to have it both ways.
A death-snare simile, now three times over
The fifth verse's closing image, ‘alaṅkataṁ suvasanaṁ, maccupāsaṁva oḍḍitaṁ’, ‘adorned with jewelry and all dressed up, set up like a snare of death’, is the identical phrase already found twice in this collection's Book of the Fours — once describing a professional dancer (Thag 4.1, Nāgasamāla) and once describing the speaker's own wife (Thag 4.9, Candana). This is now a third distinct woman, in a third distinct book, described with the exact same words.
A closing abbreviated in the source itself, not just repeated
The sixth and seventh verses' Pali text does not spell out its own words: the manuscript reads only ‘… pe … nibbidā samatiṭṭhatha’ and ‘… pe … kataṁ buddhassa sāsanan’ti’, using peyyāla (‘etc.’) notation to signal a stock formula the reader is expected to supply. This differs from every prior case of shared material in this collection, where each poem's own manuscript spells out its full text even when it duplicates another poem's wording — here, the Pali source itself declines to repeat it. Sujato's English translation reconstructs the implied words; the identical formula, written out in full, closes this site's own Thag 6.6 (Sappadāsa).
Opening a new book, a structure to confirm fresh
The Book of the Sevens holds five poems in a single chapter, per bilara-data — continuing the single-chapter pattern of the Threes, Fours, Fives, and Sixes, though this needed independent confirmation rather than assumption. Its baseline verse form is seven four-line verses; this poem's third verse, extending to six lines, is the book's first departure from that baseline.
A recurring shape: temptation followed by disillusionment
This poem's arc — an offer of pleasure and security, then a sudden collapse into nibbidā (disillusionment) — echoes the structural shape of several other poems across this collection without sharing their specific wording, joining a recognizable family of ‘near-miss’ narratives where a monk almost, but does not, turn back.
Key terms
The text
§1Adorned with jewelry and all dressed up, with her garland and her makeup on, and her feet so brightly rouged: the courtesan was wearing slippers.
§2Taking off her slippers in front of me, her palms joined in greeting, smiling, she spoke to me so softly and so sweet:
§3“You’re too young to go forth—come, stay in my teaching! Enjoy human sensual pleasures, I’ll give you riches. I promise this is the truth—I swear it by the Sacred Flame.
§4And when we’ve grown old together, both of us leaning on staffs, we shall both go forth, and hold a winning hand on both counts.”
§5I saw the courtesan seducing me, her palms joined in greeting, adorned with jewelry and all dressed up, set up like a snare of death.
§6Then the realization came upon me—the danger became clear and I grew firmly disillusioned.
§7Then my mind was freed—see the excellence of the Dhamma! I’ve attained the three knowledges, and fulfilled the Buddha’s instructions.
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