Durājānajātaka
“Think’st thou.”—This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about a lay-brother. Tradition says that there dwelt at Savatthi a lay-brother, who was stablished in the Three Gems and the Five Commandments, a devout lover of the Buddha, the Doctrine and the Brotherhood. But his wife was a sinful and wicked woman. On days when she did wrong, she was as meek as a slave-girl bought for a hundred pieces; whilst on days when she did not do wrong, she played my lady, passionate and tyrannical. The husband could not make her out. She worried him so much that he did not go to wait on the Buddha.
Translated by Bhikkhu Sujato · Pāli: Mahāsaṅgīti Tipiṭaka · Public domain (CC0) via SuttaCentral
1.1PTS 1.300Mā su nandi icchati maṁ,Do not rejoice, “She loves me,”11.2mā su soci na micchati;nor lament, “She loves me not.”1.3Thīnaṁ bhāvo durājāno,The mood of women is hard to understand,21.4macchassevodake gatan”ti.like the track of fish in water.
2.1Durājānajātakaṁ catutthaṁ.
When a wife has been good, she expects her husband to be nice to her; but when she has been bad, she is nice to him. The complexity of these behaviors is evidently too much for her husband, who seeks counsel for his confusion. Rather than make an effort to understand his wife, he is advised to simply ignore her feelings.
Thīnaṁ is genitive plural, glossed itthīnaṁ.
The Dhamma is also “hard to understand” (Snp 3.12:59.1).
