{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry290.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry290.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry290.htm","text":"Thus T\u00e1r\u00e1 with the starry eyes \u00a01b\n Her counsel gave with burning sighs.\n But B\u00e1li, by her prayers unmoved,\n Spurned her advice, and thus reproved:\n 'How may this insult, scathe, aud scorn\n By me, dear love, be tamely born?\n My brother, yea my foe, comes nigh\n Aud dares me forth with shout and cry.\n Learn, trembler! that the valiant, they\n Who yield no step in battle fray,\n Will die a thousand deaths but ne'er\n An unavenged dishonour bear.\n Nor, O my love, be thou dismayed\n Though R\u00e1ma lend Sugr\u00edva aid,\n For one so pure and duteous, one\n Who loves the right, all sin will shun,\n Release me from thy soft embrace,\n And with thy dames thy steps retrace:\n Enough already, O mine own,\n Of love and sweet devotion shown.\n Drive all thy fear and doubt away;\n I seek Sugr\u00edva in the fray\n His boisterous rage and pride to still,\n And tame the foe I would not kill.\n My fury, armed with brandished trees,\n Shall strike Sugr\u00edva to his knees:\n \n \n Nor shall the humbled foe withstand\n The blows of my avenging hand,\n When, nerved by rage and pride, I beat\n The traitor down beneath my feet.\n Thou, love, hast lent thine own sweet aid,\n And all thy tender care displayed;\n Now by my life, by these who yearn\n To serve thee well, I pray thee turn.\n But for a while, dear dame, I go\n To come triumphant o'er the foe.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus B\u00e1h spake in gentlest tone:\n Soft arms about his neck were thrown;\n Then round her lord the lady went\n With sad steps slow and reverent.\n She stood in solemn guise to bless\n With prayers for safety and success,\n Then with her train her chamber sought\n By grief and racking fear distraught.\n \u00a0\u00a0 With serpent's pantings fierce and fast\n King B\u00e1li from the city passed.\n His glance, as each quick breath he drew,\n Around to find the foe he threw,\n And saw where fierce Sugr\u00edva showed\n His form with golden hues that glowed,\n And, as a fire resplendent, stayed\n To meet his foe in arms arrayed.\n When B\u00e1li, long-armed chieftain, found\n Sugr\u00edva stationed on the ground,\n Impelled by warlike rage he braced\n His warrior garb about his waist,\n And with his mighty arm raised high\n Rushed at Sugr\u00edva with a cry.\n But when Sugr\u00edva, fierce and bold,\n Saw B\u00e1li with his chain of gold.\n His arm he heaved, his hand he closed,\n And face to face his foe opposed.\n To him whose eyes with fury shone,\n In charge imtpetuous rushing on,\n Skilled in each warlike art and plan,\n B\u00e1li with hasty words began:\n 'My ponderous hood, to fight addressed.\n With fingers clenched and arm compressed.\n Shall on thy death doomed brow descend\n And, crashing down, thy life shall end.'\n He spoke; and wild with rage and pride,\n The fierce Sagr\u00edva thus replied:\n 'Thus let my arm begin the strife\n And from thy body crush the life.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then B\u00e1li, wounded aud enraged,\n With furious blows the battle waged.\n Sugr\u00edva seemed, with blood-streams dyed,\n A hill with fountains in his side.\n But with his native force unspent\n A S\u00e1l tree from the earth he rent,\n And like the bolt of Indra smote\n On B\u00e1li's head and chest and throat.\n Bruised by the blows he could not shield,\n Half vanquished B\u00e1li sank and reeled,\n As sinks a vessel with her freight\n Borne down by overwhelming weight.\n \n \n Swift as Suparna's \u00a01 swiftest flight\n In awful strength they rushed to fight:\n So might the sun and moon on high\n Encountering battle in the sky.\n Fierce and more fierce, as fought the foes,\n The furious rage of combat rose.\n They warred with feet and arms and knees,\n With nails and stones and boughs and trees,\n And blows descending fast as rain\n Dyed each dark form with crimson stain,\n While like two thunder-clouds they met\n With battle-cry and shout and threat.\n Then R\u00e1ma saw Sugr\u00edva quail,\n Marked his worn strength grow weak and fail.\n Saw how he turned his wistful eye\n To every quarter of the sky.\n His friend's defeat he could not brook.\n Bent on his shaft an eager look,\n Then burned to slay the conquering foe,\n And laid his arrow on the bow.\n As to an orb the bow he drew\n Forth from the string the arrow flew\n Like Fate's tremendous discus hurled\n By Yama \u00a02 forth to end the world.\n So loud the din that every bird\n The bow-string's clans with terror heard,\n And wildly fled the affrighted deer\n As though the day of doom were near,\n So, deadly as the serpent's fang,\n Forth from the string the arrow sprang.\n Like the red lightning's flash and flame\n It flew unerring to its aim,\n And, hissing murder through the air,\n Pierced B\u00e1li's breast, and quivered there.\n Struck by the shaft that flew so well\n The mighty V\u00e1nar reeled and fell,\n As earthward Indra's flag they pull\n When As'v\u00edn\u00ed's fair moon is full \u00a03\n \n \n \n \n342:1b T\u00e1r\u00e1 means 'star'. The poet plays upon the name by comparing her beauty to that of the Lord of stars, the Moon.","title":"BOOK IV: Canto XVI.: The Fall of B\u00e1li.","type":"page"}