HV 78.1
उग्रसेनस् तु कृष्णस्य समीपं दुःखितो ययौ । पुत्रशोकाभिसंतप्तो विषपीत इव स्खलन् ॥
ugrasenas tu kṛṣṇasya samīpaṃ duḥkhito yayau | putraśokābhisaṃtapto viṣapīta iva skhalan
Ugrasena, grieving, went near Kṛṣṇa — tormented by son-grief, stumbling as one who had drunk poison.
The Living Words
*Duḥkhitaḥ*, grieving. *Yayau*, went. *Putra-śoka-abhisaṃtaptaḥ*, 'tormented by son-grief'. *Viṣa-pīta iva skhalan*, 'stumbling as one who has drunk poison.' The simile is gentle and devastating. Ugrasena's body moves under the weight of grief as if he had been poisoned.
The Heart of It
The verse is the Harivaṃśa's moral refusal of any easy triumph. The tyrant has been killed; the tyrant's father is dying of grief. The scripture does not pretend the second is not also real. The verb *abhi-saṃ-tapta*, 'burned-all-over-deeply', is the specific verb for the grief-fire that cooks a parent after a child's death. Kaṃsa was an evil-souled king and also someone's son. The Varkari tradition's insistence that no one who grieves is beneath pastoral care has HV 78.1 as a Sanskrit root.