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The Sanskrit Epics

Page 71

by Delphi Classics


  Held converse of the coming fray,

  The army of the fiends drew near

  With sight and sound that counselled fear.

  Long, loud and deep their war-cry pealed,

  As on they rushed with flag and shield,

  Each, of his proper valour proud,

  Urging to fight the demon crowd.

  His ponderous bow each warrior tried,

  And swelled his bulk with martial pride.

  ‘Mid shout and roar and trampling feet,

  And thunder of the drums they beat,

  Loud and more loud the tumult went

  Throughout the forest’s vast extent,

  And all the life that moved within

  The woodland trembled at the din.

  In eager haste all fled to find

  Some tranquil spot, nor looked behind.

  With every arm of war supplied,

  On-rushing wildly like the tide

  Of some deep sea, the giant host

  Approached where Ráma kept his post.

  Then he, in battle skilled and tried,

  Bent his keen eye on every side,

  And viewed the host of Khara face

  To face before his dwelling-place.

  He drew his arrows forth, and reared

  And strained that bow which foemen feared,

  And yielded to the vengeful sway

  Of fierce desire that host to slay.

  Terrific as the ruinous fire

  That ends the worlds, he glowed in ire,

  And his tremendous form dismayed

  The Gods who roam the forest shade.

  For in the furious wrath that glowed

  Within his soul the hero showed

  Like Śiva when his angry might

  Stayed Daksha’s sacrificial rite.466

  Like some great cloud at dawn of day

  When first the sun upsprings,

  And o’er the gloomy mass each ray

  A golden radiance flings:

  Thus showed the children of the night,

  Whose mail and chariots threw,

  With gleam of bows and armlets bright,

  Flashes of flamy hue.

  Canto XXV. The Battle.

  WHEN KHARA WITH the hosts he led

  Drew near to Ráma’s leafy shed,

  He saw that queller of the foe

  Stand ready with his ordered bow.

  He saw, and burning at the view

  His clanging bow he raised and drew,

  And bade his driver urge apace

  His car to meet him face to face.

  Obedient to his master’s hest

  His eager steeds the driver pressed

  On to the spot where, none to aid,

  The strong-armed chief his weapon swayed.

  Soon as the children of the night

  Saw Khara rushing to the fight,

  His lords with loud unearthly cry

  Followed their chief and gathered nigh.

  As in his car the leader rode

  With all his lords around, he showed

  Like the red planet fiery Mars

  Surrounded by the lesser stars.

  Then with a horrid yell that rent

  The air, the giant chieftain sent

  A thousand darts in rapid shower

  On Ráma matchless in his power.

  The rovers of the night, impelled

  By fiery rage which naught withheld,

  Upon the unconquered prince, who strained

  His fearful bow, their arrows rained.

  With sword and club, with mace and pike,

  With spear and axe to pierce and strike,

  Those furious fiends on every side

  The unconquerable hero plied.

  The giant legions huge and strong,

  Like clouds the tempest drives along,

  Rushed upon Ráma with the speed

  Of whirling car, and mounted steed,

  And hill-like elephant, to slay

  The matchless prince in battle fray.

  Then upon Ráma thick and fast

  The rain of mortal steel they cast,

  As labouring clouds their torrents shed

  Upon the mountain-monarch’s467 head.

  As near and nearer round him drew

  The warriors of the giant crew,

  He showed like Śiva girt by all

  His spirits when night’s shadows fall.

  As the great deep receives each rill

  And river rushing from the hill,

  He bore that flood of darts, and broke

  With well-aimed shaft each murderous stroke.

  By stress of arrowy storm assailed,

  And wounded sore, he never failed,

  Like some high mountain which defies

  The red bolts flashing from the skies.

  With ruddy streams each limb was dyed

  From gaping wounds in breast and side,

  Showing the hero like the sun

  ‘Mid crimson clouds ere day is done.

  Then, at that sight of terror, faint

  Grew God, Gandharva, sage, and saint,

  Trembling to see the prince oppose

  His single might to myriad foes.

  But waxing wroth, with force unspent,

  He strained his bow to utmost bent,

  And forth his arrows keen and true

  In hundreds, yea in thousands flew, —

  Shafts none could ward, and none endure:

  Death’s fatal noose was scarce so sure.

  As ‘twere in playful ease he shot

  His gilded shafts, and rested not.

  With swiftest flight and truest aim

  Upon the giant hosts they came.

  Each smote, each stayed a foeman’s breath

  As fatal as the coil of Death.

  Each arrow through a giant tore

  A passage, and besmeared with gore,

  Pursued its onward way and through

  The air with flamy brilliance flew.

  Unnumbered were the arrows sent

  From the great bow which Ráma bent,

  And every shaft with iron head

  The lifeblood of a giant shed.

  Their pennoned bows were cleft, nor mail

  Nor shield of hide could aught avail.

  For Ráma’s myriad arrows tore

  Through arms, and bracelets which they wore,

  And severed mighty warriors’ thighs

  Like trunks of elephants in size,

  And cut resistless passage sheer

  Through gold-decked horse and charioteer,

  Slew elephant and rider, slew

  The horseman and the charger too,

  And infantry unnumbered sent

  To dwell ‘neath Yáma’s government.

  Then rose on high a fearful yell

  Of rovers of the night, who fell

  Beneath that iron torrent, sore

  Wounded by shafts that rent and tore.

  So mangled by the ceaseless storm

  Of shafts of every kind and form,

  Such joy they found, as forests feel

  When scorched by flame, from Ráma’s steel.

  The mightiest still the fight maintained,

  And furious upon Ráma rained

  Dart, arrow, spear, with wild attacks

  Of mace, and club, and battle-axe.

  But the great chief, unconquered yet,

  Their weapons with his arrows met,

  Which severed many a giant’s head,

  And all the plain with corpses spread.

  With sundered bow and shattered shield

  Headless they sank upon the field,

  As the tall trees, that felt the blast

  Of Garuḍ’s wing, to earth were cast.

  The giants left unslaughtered there

  Where filled with terror and despair,

  And to their leader Khara fled

  Faint, wounded, and discomfited.

  These fiery Dúshaṇ
strove to cheer,

  And poised his bow to calm their fear;

  Then fierce as He who rules the dead,

  When wroth, on angered Ráma sped.

  By Dúshaṇ cheered, the demons cast

  Their dread aside and rallied fast

  With Sáls, rocks, palm-trees in their hands

  With nooses, maces, pikes, and brands,

  Again upon the godlike man

  The mighty fiends infuriate ran,

  These casting rocks like hail, and these

  A whelming shower of leafy trees.

  Wild, wondrous fight, the eye to scare,

  And raise on end each shuddering hair,

  As with the fiends who loved to rove

  By night heroic Ráma strove!

  The giants in their fury plied

  Ráma with darts on every side.

  Then, by the gathering demons pressed

  From north and south and east and west,

  By showers of deadly darts assailed

  From every quarter fiercely hailed,

  Girt by the foes who swarmed around,

  He raised a mighty shout whose sound

  Struck terror. On the giant crew

  His great Gandharva468 arrow flew.

  A thousand mortal shafts were rained

  From the orbed bow the hero strained,

  Till east and west and south and north

  Were filled with arrows volleyed forth.

  They heard the fearful shout: they saw

  His mighty hand the bowstring draw,

  Yet could no wounded giant’s eye

  See the swift storm of arrows fly.

  Still firm the warrior stood and cast

  His deadly missiles thick and fast.

  Dark grew the air with arrowy hail

  Which hid the sun as with a veil.

  Fiends wounded, falling, fallen, slain,

  All in a moment, spread the plain,

  And thousands scarce alive were left

  Mangled, and gashed, and torn, and cleft.

  Dire was the sight, the plain o’erspread

  With trophies of the mangled dead.

  There lay, by Ráma’s missiles rent,

  Full many a priceless ornament,

  With severed limb and broken gem,

  Hauberk and helm and diadem.

  There lay the shattered car, the steed,

  The elephant of noblest breed,

  The splintered spear, the shivered mace,

  Chouris and screens to shade the face.

  The giants saw with bitterest pain

  Their warriors weltering on the plain,

  Nor dared again his might oppose

  Who scourged the cities of his foes.

  Canto XXVI. Dúshan’s Death.

  WHEN DÚSHAṆ SAW his giant band

  Slaughtered by Ráma’s conquering hand,

  He called five thousand fiends, and gave

  His orders. Bravest of the brave,

  Invincible, of furious might,

  Ne’er had they turned their backs in flight.

  They, as their leader bade them seize

  Spears, swords, and clubs, and rocks, and trees,

  Poured on the dauntless prince again

  A ceaseless shower of deadly rain.

  The virtuous Ráma, undismayed,

  Their missiles with his arrows stayed,

  And weakened, ere it fell, the shock

  Of that dire hail of tree and rock,

  And like a bull with eyelids closed,

  The pelting of the storm opposed.

  Then blazed his ire: he longed to smite

  To earth the rovers of the night.

  The wrath that o’er his spirit came

  Clothed him with splendour as of flame,

  While showers of mortal darts he poured

  Fierce on the giants and their lord.

  Dúshaṇ, the foeman’s dusky dread,

  By frenzied rage inspirited,

  On Raghu’s son his missiles cast

  Like Indra’s bolts which rend and blast.

  But Ráma with a trenchant dart

  Cleft Dúshaṇ’s ponderous bow apart.

  And then the gold-decked steeds who drew

  The chariot, with four shafts he slew.

  One crescent dart he aimed which shred

  Clean from his neck the driver’s head;

  Three more with deadly skill addressed

  Stood quivering in the giant’s breast.

  Hurled from his car, steeds, driver slain,

  The bow he trusted cleft in twain,

  He seized his mace, strong, heavy, dread,

  High as a mountain’s towering head.

  With plates of gold adorned and bound,

  Embattled Gods it crushed and ground.

  Its iron spikes yet bore the stains

  Of mangled foemen’s blood and brains.

  Its heavy mass of jagged steel

  Was like a thunderbolt to feel.

  It shattered, as on foes it fell,

  The city where the senses dwell.469

  Fierce Dúshaṇ seized that ponderous mace

  Like monstrous form of serpent race,

  And all his savage soul aglow

  With fury, rushed upon the foe.

  But Raghu’s son took steady aim,

  And as the rushing giant came,

  Shore with two shafts the arms whereon

  The demon’s glittering bracelets shone.

  His arm at each huge shoulder lopped,

  The mighty body reeled and dropped,

  And the great mace to earth was thrown

  Like Indra’s staff when storms have blown.

  As some vast elephant who lies

  Shorn of his tusks, and bleeding dies,

  So, when his arms were rent away,

  Low on the ground the giant lay.

  The spirits saw the monster die,

  And loudly rang their joyful cry,

  “Honour to Ráma! nobly done!

  Well hast thou fought, Kakutstha’s son!”

  But the great three, the host who led,

  Enraged to see their chieftain dead,

  As though Death’s toils were round them cast,

  Rushed upon Ráma fierce and fast,

  Mahákapála seized, to strike

  His foeman down, a ponderous pike:

  Sthúláksha charged with spear to fling,

  Pramáthi with his axe to swing.

  When Ráma saw, with keen darts he

  Received the onset of the three,

  As calm as though he hailed a guest

  In each, who came for shade and rest.

  Mahákapála’s monstrous head

  Fell with the trenchant dart he sped.

  His good right hand in battle skilled

  Sthúláksha’s eyes with arrows filled,

  And trusting still his ready bow

  He laid the fierce Pramáthi low,

  Who sank as some tall tree falls down

  With bough and branch and leafy crown.

  Then with five thousand shafts he slew

  The rest of Dúshaṇ’s giant crew:

  Five thousand demons, torn and rent,

  To Yáma’s gloomy realm he sent.

  When Khara knew the fate of all

  The giant band and Dúshaṇ’s fall,

  He called the mighty chiefs who led

  His army, and in fury said:

  “Now Dúshaṇ and his armèd train

  Lie prostrate on the battle plain.

  Lead forth an army mightier still,

  Ráma this wretched man, to kill.

  Fight ye with darts of every shape,

  Nor let him from your wrath escape.”

  Thus spoke the fiend, by rage impelled,

  And straight his course toward Ráma held.

  With Śyenagámí and the rest

  Of his twelve chiefs he onward pressed,

  And every giant as he went
>
  A storm of well-wrought arrows sent.

  Then with his pointed shafts that came

  With gold and diamond bright as flame,

  Dead to the earth the hero threw

  The remnant of the demon crew.

  Those shafts with feathers bright as gold,

  Like flames which wreaths of smoke enfold,

  Smote down the fiends like tall trees rent

  By red bolts from the firmament.

  A hundred shafts he pointed well:

  By their keen barbs a hundred fell:

  A thousand, — and a thousand more

  In battle’s front lay drenched in gore.

  Of all defence and guard bereft,

  With sundered bows and harness cleft.

  Their bodies red with bloody stain

  Fell the night-rovers on the plain,

  Which, covered with the loosened hair

  Of bleeding giants prostrate there,

  Like some great altar showed, arrayed

  For holy rites with grass o’erlaid.

  The darksome wood, each glade and dell

  Where the wild demons fought and fell

  Was like an awful hell whose floor

  Is thick with mire and flesh and gore.

  Thus twice seven thousand fiends, a band

  With impious heart and bloody hand,

  By Raghu’s son were overthrown,

  A man, on foot, and all alone.

  Of all who met on that fierce day,

  Khara, great chief, survived the fray,

  The monster of the triple head,470

  And Raghu’s son, the foeman’s dread.

  The other demon warriors, all

  Skilful and brave and strong and tall,

  In front of battle, side by side,

  Struck down by Lakshmaṇ’s brother died.

  When Khara saw the host he led

  Triumphant forth to fight

  Stretched on the earth, all smitten dead,

  By Ráma’s nobler might,

  Upon his foe he fiercely glared,

  And drove against him fast,

  Like Indra when his arm is bared

  His thundering bolt to cast.

  Canto XXVII. The Death Of Trisirás.

  But Triśirás,471 a chieftain dread,

  Marked Khara as he onward sped.

  And met his car and cried, to stay

  The giant from the purposed fray:

  “Mine be the charge: let me attack,

  And turn thee from the contest back.

  Let me go forth, and thou shalt see

  The strong-armed Ráma slain by me.

  True are the words I speak, my lord:

  I swear it as I touch my sword:

  That I this Ráma’s blood will spill,

  Whom every giant’s hand should kill.

  This Ráma will I slay, or he

  In battle fray shall conquer me.

  Restrain thy spirit: check thy car,

 

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