IV

Sing forth, O Kanvas, to the sportive host of your Maruts, brilliant on their chariots, and unscathed,—­they who were born together, self-luminous, with the spotted deer, the spears, the daggers, the glittering ornaments.  I hear their whips, almost close by, when they crack them in their hands; they gain splendor on their way.  Sing forth the god-given prayer to the wild host of your Maruts, endowed with terrible vigor and strength.  Celebrate the bull among the cows, for it is the sportive host of the Maruts; he grew as he tasted the rain.  Who, O ye men, is the strongest among you here, ye shakers of heaven and earth, when you shake them like the hem of a garment?  At your approach the son of man holds himself down; the gnarled cloud fled at your fierce anger.  They at whose racings the earth, like a hoary king, trembles for fear on their ways, their birth is strong indeed:  there is strength to come forth from their mother, nay, there is vigor twice enough for it.  And these sons, the singers, stretched out the fences in their racings; the cows had to walk knee-deep.  They cause this long and broad unceasing rain to fall on their ways.  O Maruts, with such strength as yours, you have caused men to tremble, you have caused the mountains to tremble.  As the Maruts pass along, they talk together on the way:  does anyone hear them?  Come fast on your quick steeds! there are worshippers for you among the Kanvas:  may you well rejoice among them.  Truly there is enough for your rejoicing.  We always are their servants, that we may live even the whole of life.

V

To every sacrifice you hasten together, you accept prayer after prayer, O quick Maruts!  Let me therefore bring you hither by my prayers from heaven and earth, for our welfare, and for our great protection; the shakers who were born to bring food and light, self-born and self-supported, like springs, like thousandfold waves of water, aye, visibly like unto excellent bulls, those Maruts, like Soma-drops, which squeezed from ripe stems dwell, when drunk, in the hearts of the worshipper—­see how on their shoulders there clings as if a clinging wife; in their hands the quoit is held and the sword.  Lightly they have come down from heaven of their own accord:  Immortals, stir yourselves with the whip!  The mighty Maruts on dustless paths, armed with brilliant spears, have shaken down even the strong places.  O ye Maruts, who are armed with lightning-spears, who stirs you from within by himself, as the jaws are stirred by the tongue?  You shake the sky, as if on the search for food; you are invoked by many, like the solar horse of the day.  Where, O Maruts, is the top, where the bottom of the mighty sky where you came?  When you throw down with the thunderbolt what is strong, like brittle things, you fly across the terrible sea!  As your conquest is violent, splendid, terrible, full