The Ocean of Light — Page 92
92 rages through the country, causing the people to grow thin from hunger, the fodder to all but disappear and the food to grow scarce, they will continue to demand tribute from their subjects on pain of punishment. They do not care in the least as to whether their subjects live or die, or are even forced to migrate from one country to another due to the harsh conditions or whether, despite their debilitation, they wander about with their children asking for alms and do not even own a speck and have no means to acquire anything, not even having such provisions as to last them through harsh times. Famine, hunger that assails them like a ferocious tiger, lack of arable land, and the total ban on the purchase of property by the authorities has annihilated them. The calamity has become so severe that women suffer miscarriages, children cry and bawl but get no food. But, despite all this, the king’s soldiers are always on the lookout to collect tribute from them, and treat them severely. They shackle them and ask: