Yajnavalkya Kanda. Adhyaya 4, Brahmana 3. The self-luminous Self: waking, dream, and the light of man
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Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.
Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.
Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.
The boon to ask freely
Yajnavalkya went to Janaka, emperor of Videha. He had resolved that he would not speak. But once, when Janaka of Videha and Yajnavalkya had been talking together over the agnihotra, Yajnavalkya had granted him a boon, and Janaka had chosen the freedom to ask whatever he wished, and Yajnavalkya had granted him that. So now it was the emperor who first put the question.
Yajnavalkya came to King Janaka of Videha intending to keep silent and not teach. But earlier, during a discussion about the daily fire-offering (agnihotra), Yajnavalkya had promised Janaka a boon, and Janaka had asked for the right to question him freely (kama-prasna). Holding him to that promise, Janaka, the emperor, is the one who opens the conversation.