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and five again.

      Then Viśvámitra woke to shame,

      And, fraught with anguish, memory came

      For quick he knew, with anger fired,

      That all the Immortals had conspired

      To lap his careless soul in ease,

      And mar his long austerities.

      “Ten years have past, each day and night

      Unheeded in delusive flight.

      So long my fervent rites were stayed,

      While thus I lay by love betrayed.”

      As thus long sighs the hermit heaved,

      And, touched with deep repentance, grieved,

      He saw the fair one standing nigh

      With suppliant hands and trembling eye.

      With gentle words he bade her go,

      Then sought the northern hills of snow.

      With firm resolve he vowed to beat

      The might of love beneath his feet.

      Still northward to the distant side

Of Kauśikí2, the hermit hide,

      And gave his life to penance there

      With rites austere most hard to bear.

      A thousand years went by, and still

      He laboured on the northern hill

      With pains so terrible and drear

      That all the Gods were chilled with fear,

      And Gods and saints, for swift advice,

      Met in the halls of Paradise.

      “Let Kuśik’s son,” they counselled, “be

      A Mighty saint by just decree.”

      His ear to hear their counsel lent

      The Sire of worlds, omnipotent.

      To him enriched by rites severe

      He spoke in accents sweet to hear:

      “Hail, Mighty Saint! dear son, all hail!

      Thy fervour wins, thy toils prevail.

      Won by thy vows and zeal intense

      I give this high preëminence.”

      He to the General Sire replied,

      Not sad, nor wholly satisfied:

      “When thou, O Brahmá, shalt declare

      The title, great beyond compare,

      Of Bráhman saint my worthy meed,

      Hard earned by many a holy deed,

      Then may I deem in sooth I hold

      Each sense of body well controlled.”

      Then Brahmá cried, “Not yet, not yet:

      Toil on awhile O Anchoret!”

      Thus having said to heaven he went,

      The saint, upon his task intent,

      Began his labours to renew,

      Which sterner yet and fiercer grew.

      His arms upraised, without a rest,

      With but one foot the earth he pressed;

      The air his food, the hermit stood

      Still as a pillar hewn from wood.

      Around him in the summer days

      Five mighty fires combined to blaze.

      In floods of rain no veil was spread

      Save clouds, to canopy his head.

      In the dank dews both night and day

      Couched in the stream the hermit lay.

      Thus, till a thousand years had fled,

      He plied his task of penance dread.

      Then Vishṇu and the Gods with awe

      The labours of the hermit saw,

      And Śakra, in his troubled breast,

      Lord of the skies, his fear confessed.

      And brooded on a plan to spoil

      The merits of the hermit’s toil.

      Encompassed by his Gods of Storm

      He summoned Rambhá, fair of form,

      And spoke a speech for woe and weal,

      The saint to mar, the God to heal.

1 The Indian Cupid.

2 “The same as she whose praises Viśvámitra has already sung in Canto XXXV, and whom the poet brings yet alive upon the scene in Canto LXI. Her proper name was Satyavatí (Truthful); the patronymic, Kauśikí was preserved by the river into which she is said to have been changed, and is still recognized in the corrupted forms Kuśa and Kuśí. The river flows from the heights of the Himálaya towards the Ganges, bounding on the east the country of Videha (Behar). The name is no doubt half hidden in the Cosoagus of Pliny and the Kossounos of Arrian. But each author has fallen into the same error in his enumeration of these rivers (Condochatem, Erannoboam, Cosoagum, Sonum). The Erannoboas, (Hiraṇyaváha) and the Sone are not different streams, but well-known names of the same river. Moreover the order is disturbed, in which on the right and left they fall into the Ganges. To be consistent with geography it should be written: Erannoboam sive Sonum, Condochatem (Gandakí), Cosoagum.” Schlegel.

      Canto 64. Rambhá.

      “A great emprise, O lovely maid,

      To save the Gods, awaits thine aid:

      To bind the son of Kuśik sure,

      And take his soul with love’s sweet lure.”

      Thus order’d by the Thousand-eyed

      The suppliant nymph in fear replied:

      “O Lord of Gods, this mighty sage

      Is very fierce and swift to rage.

      I doubt not, he so dread and stern

      On me his scorching wrath will turn.

      Of this, my lord, am I afraid:

      Have mercy on a timid maid.”

      Her suppliant hands began to shake,

      When thus again Lord Indra spake:

      “O Rambhá, drive thy fears away,

      And as I bid do thou obey.

      In Koïl’s form, who takes the heart

      When trees in spring to blossom start,

      I, with Kandarpa for my friend,

      Close to thy side mine aid will lend.

      Do thou thy beauteous splendour arm

      With every grace and winsome charm,

      And from his awful rites seduce

      This Kuśik’s son, the stern recluse.”

      Lord Indra ceased. The nymph obeyed:

      In all her loveliest charms arrayed,

      With winning ways and witching smile

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