{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry403.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry403.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry403.htm","text":"He ceased; and spurred by warlike pride\n The impetuous son of Raghu cried:\n 'Soon shall mine arm with wrathful joy\n That city of the foe destroy.\n Now, chieftain, now collect the host,\n And onward to the southern coast!\n The sun in his meridian tower\n Gives glory to the V\u00e1nar power.\n The demon lord who stole my queen\n By timely flight his life may screen.\n She, when she knows her lord is near,\n Will cling to hope and banish fear,\n Saved like a dying wretch who sips\n The drink of Gods with fevered lips.\n Arise, thy troops to battle lead:\n All happy omens counsel speed.\n The Lord of Stars in favouring skies\n Bodes glory to our enterprise.\n This arm shall slay the fiend; and she.\n My consort, shall again be free.\n \n \n Mine upward-throbbing eye foreshows\n The longed-for triumph o'er my foes.\n Far in the van be N\u00edla's post,\n To scan the pathway for the host,\n And let thy bravest and thy best,\n A hundred thousand, wait his hest.\n Go forth, O warrior N\u00edla, lead\n The legions on through wood and mead\n Where pleasant waters cool the ground,\n And honey, flowers, and fruit abound,\n Go, and with timely care prevent\n The R\u00e1kshas foeman's dark intent.\n With watchful troops each valley guard\n Ere brooks and fruits and roots be marred\n And search each glen and leafy shade\n For hostile troops in ambuscade.\n But let the weaklings stay behind:\n For heroes is our task designed.\n Let thousands of the V\u00e1nar breed\n The vanguard of the armies lead:\n Fierce and terrific must it be\n As billows of the stormy sea.\n There be the hill-huge Gaja's place,\n And Gavaya's, strongest of his race,\n And, like the bull that leads the herd,\n Gav\u00e1ksha's, by no fears deterred\n Let Rishabh, matchless in the might\n Of warlike arms, protect our right,\n And Gandham\u00e1dan next in rank\n Defend and guide the other flank.\n I, like the God who rules the sky\n Borne on Air\u00e1vat\u00a01 mounted high\n On stout Han\u00fam\u00e1n's back will ride,\n The central host to cheer and guide.\n Fierce as the God who rules below,\n On Angad's back let Lakshman show\n Like him who wealth to mortals shares,\u00a02\n The lord whom S\u00e1rvabhauma\u00a03 bears.\n The bold Sushen's impetuous might,\n And Vegadars'\u00ed's piercing sight,\n And J\u00e1mbav\u00e1n whom bears revere,\n Illustrious three, shall guard the rear.'\n \n \n He ceased, the royal V\u00e1nar heard,\n And swift, obedient to his word,\n Sprang forth in numbers none might tell\n From mountain, care, and bosky dell,\n From rocky ledge and breezy height,\n Fierce V\u00e1nars burning for the fight.\n And R\u00e1ma's course was southward bent\n Amid the mighty armament.\n On, joyous, pressed in close array\n The hosts who owned Sugr\u00edva's sway,\n With nimble feet, with rapid bound\n Exploring, ere they passed, the ground,\n While from ten myriad throats rang out\n The challenge and the battle shout.\n \n \n On roots and honeycomb they fed,\n And clusters from the boughs o'erhead,\n Or from the ground the tall trees tore\n Rich with the flowery load they bore.\n Some carried comrades, wild with mirth,\n Then cast their riders to the earth,\n Who swiftly to their feet arose\n And overthrew their laughing foes.\n While still rang out the general cry,\n 'King R\u00e1van and his fiends shall die,'\n Still on, exulting in the pride\n Of conscious strength, the V\u00e1nars hied,\n And gazed where noble Sahya, best\n of mountains, raised each towering crest.\n They looked on lake and streamlet, where\n The lotus bloom was bright and fair,\n Nor marched--for R\u00e1ma's hest they feared\n Where town or haunt of men appeared.\n Still onward, fearful as the waves\n Of Ocean when he roars and raves,\n Led by their eager chieftains, went\n The V\u00e1nars' countless armament.\n Each captain, like a noble steed\n Urged by the lash to double speed.\n Pressed onward, filled with zeal and pride,\n By R\u00e1ma's and his brother's side,\n Who high above the V\u00e1nar throng\n On mighty backs were borne along,\n Like the great Lords of Day and Night\n Seized by eclipsing planets might.\n Then Lakshman radiant as the morn,\n On Angad's shoulders high upborne.\n With sweet consoling words that woke\n New ardour, to his brother spoke:\n 'Soon shalt thou turn, thy queen regained\n And impious R\u00e1van's life-blood drained,\n In happiness and high renown\n To dear Ayodhy\u00e1's happy town.\n I see around exceeding fair\n All omens of the earth and air.\n Auspicious breezes sweet and low\n To greet the V\u00e1nar army blow,\n And softly to my listening ear\n Come the glad cries of bird and deer.\n Bright is the sky around us, bright\n Without a cloud the Lord of Light,\n And S'ukra\u00a01b with propitious love\n Looks on thee from his throne above.\n The pole-star and the Sainted Seven\u00a02b\n Shine brightly in the northern heaven,\n And great Tris'anku,\u00a03b glorious king,\n \n \n Ikshv\u00e1ku's son from whom we spring,\n Beams in unclouded glory near\n His holy priest\u00a01 whom all revere.\n Undimmed the two Vis'\u00e1kh\u00e1s\u00a02 shine,\n The strength and glory of our line,\n And Nairrit's\u00a03 influence that aids\n Our R\u00e1kshas foemen faints and fades.\n The running brooks are fresh and fair,\n The boughs their ripening clusters bear,\n And scented breezes gently sway\n The leaflet of the tender spray.\n See, with a glory half divine\n The V\u00e1nars' ordered legions shine,\n Bright as the Gods' exultant train\n Who saw the demon T\u00e1rak slain.\n O let thine eyes these signs behold,\n And bid thy heart be glad and bold.'\n \n \n The V\u00e1nar squadrons densely spread\n O'er all the country onward sped,\n While rising from the rapid beat\n Of bears' and monkeys' hastening feet\n Dust hid the earth with thickest veil,\n And made the struggling sunbeams pale.\n Now where Mahendra's peaks arise\n Came R\u00e1ma of the lotus eyes\n And the long arm's resistless might,\n And clomb the mountain's wood-crowned height.\n Thence Das'aratha's son beheld\n Where billowy Ocean rose and swelled.\n Past Malaya's peaks and Sahya's chain\n The V\u00e1nar legions reached the main,\n And stood in many a marshalled band\n On loud-resounding Ocean's strand.\n To the fair wood that fringed the tide\n Came Das'aratha's son, and cried:\n 'At length, my lord Sugr\u00edva, we\n Have reached King V\u00e1run's realm the sea,\n And one great thought, still-vexing, how\n To cross the flood, awaits us now.\n The broad deep ocean, that denies\n A passage, stretched before us lies.\n Then let us halt and plan the while\n How best to storm the giant's isle.'\n \n \n He ceased: Sugr\u00edva on the coast\n By trees o'ershadowed stayed the host,\n That seemed in glittering lines to be\n The bright waves of a second sea.\n Then from the shore the captains gazed\n On billows which the breezes raised\n \n \n To fury, as they dashed in foam\n O'er V\u00e1run's realm, the Asurs' home:\u00a01b\n The sea that laughed with foam, and danced\n With waves whereon the sunbeams glanced:\n Where, when the light began to fade,\n Huge crocodiles and monsters played;\n And, when the moon went up the sky,\n The troubled billows rose on high\n From the wild watery world whereon\n A thousand moons reflected shone:\n Where awful serpents swam and showed\n Their fiery crests which flashed and glowed,\n Illumining the depths of hell,\n The prison where the demons dwell.\n The eye, bewildered, sought in vain\n The bounding line of sky and main:\n Alike in shade, alike in glow\n Were sky above and sea below.\n There wave-like clouds by clouds were chased,\n Here cloud-like billows roared and raced:\n Then shone the stars, and many a gem\n That lit the waters answered them.\n They saw the great-souled Ocean stirred\n To frenzy by the winds, and heard,\n Loud as ten thousand drums, the roar\n Of wild waves dashing on the shore.\n They saw him mounting to defy\n With deafening voice the troubled sky.\n And the deep bed beneath him swell\n In fury as the billows fell.\n \n \n \n \n428:1 The God of the sea.\n429:1 Indra's elephant.\n429:2 Kuvera, God of wealth.\n429:3 Kuvera's elephant.\n429:1b The planet Venus, or its regent who is regarded as the son of Bhrigu and preceptor of the Daitvas.\n429:2b The seven rishis or saints who form the constellation of the Great Bear.\n429:3b Tris'anku was raised to the skies to form a constellation in the southern hemisphere. The story in told in Book I. Canto LX.\n430:1 The sage Vis'v\u00e1mitra, who performed for Tris'anku the great sacrifice which raised him to the heavens.\n430:2 One of the lunar asterisms containing four or originally two stars under the regency of a dual divinity Indr\u00e1gni, Indra and Agni.\n430:3 The lunar asterism M\u00fala, belonging to the R\u00e1kshases.","title":"BOOK VI: Canto IV.: The March.","type":"page"}