MANICHAEAN LITERATURE 623
Song 20 Cry of Pamoun the Ox
Hear an ox. The cry of Pamoun, an ox. Mercy.
I make the worlds weep.
What have the children of the earth given me?
They grabbed two-edged axes
and stuck me in marshes. They felled fat trees
and even thin ones.
They didn't leave alone. With the fat tree
they cut out a plow.
From the thin one they made a sharp goad.
Then took it to an artist
who in his own hand fashioned a yoke,
stuck it on my neck,
and hooked the plow hanging behind me.
They used the goad
to pierce my ribs. Then they carried me
to the butcher's son,
the fattener of oxen; it was the butcher's
son who chopped me up,
scattered me to foreign tents, hung me
in far markets, and
before anybody tossed my bones to stray
beasts.^6 Release me
from the owners. They don't buy me. They burn
what is inside me,- This song has many lacunae.
- Stray beasts or dogs, a conjecture.