The Birth of the War-God

EDITORS' NOTE

In the first and third versions of this translation, Sri Aurobindo left some lines or parts of lines blank, apparently with the intention of returning to them later. Such incomplete portions are indicated by square brackets enclosing a blank of appropriate size.

The Birth of the War-God

STANZAIC RENDERING OF THE OPENING OF CANTO I

1

A god mid hills northern Himaloy rears

His snow-piled summits' dizzy majesties,

And in the eastern and the western seas

He bathes his giant sides; lain down appears

Measuring the dreaming earth in an enormous ease.

2

Him, it is told, the living mountains made

A mighty calf of earth, the mother large,

When Meru of that milking had the charge

By Prithu bid; and jewels brilliant-rayed

Were brightly born and herbs on every mountain marge.

3

So is he in his infinite riches dressed

Not all his snows can slay that opulence.

As drowned in luminous floods the mark though dense

On the moon's argent disc, so faints oppressed

One fault mid crowding virtues fading from our sense.

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4

Brightness of minerals on his peaks outspread

In their love-sports and in their dances gives

To heavenly nymphs adornment, which when drive

Split clouds across, those broken hues displayed

Like an untimely sunset's magic glories live.

5

Far down the clouds droop to his girdle-waist;

And to his low-hung plateaus' coolness won

The Siddhas in soft shade repose, but run

Soon glittering upwards by wild rain distressed

To unstained summits splendid with the veilless sun.

6

Although unseen the reddened footprints blotted

By the new-fallen snows, the hunters know

The path their prey the mighty lions go;

For pearls from the slain elephants there clotted

Fallen from the hollow claws the dangerous passing show.

7

The birch-leaves on his slopes love-pages turn;

Like spots of age upon the tusky kings

Of liquid metal ink their letterings

Make crimson pages that with passion burn

Where heaven's divine Circes pen heart-moving things.

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8

He fills the hollows of his bamboo trees

With the breeze rising from his deep ravines,

Flutes from his rocky mouths as if he means

To be tune giver to the minstrelsies

Of high-voiced Kinnars chanting in his woodland glens.

9

His poplars by the brows of elephants

Shaken and rubbed loose forth their odorous cream;

And the sweet resin pours its trickling stream,

And wind on his high levels burdened pants

With fragrance making all the air a scented dream.

10

His grottoes are love-chambers in the night

For the strong forest-wanderer when he lies

Twined with his love, marrying with hers his sighs

And from the dim banks luminous herbs give light,

Strange oilless lamps to their locked passion's ecstasies.

11

Himaloy's snows in frosted slabs distress

The delicate heels of his maned Kinnaris,

And yet for all that chilly path's unease

They change not their slow motion's swaying grace

[                                          ]

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12

He guards from the pursuing sun far-hid

In his deep caves of gloom the fallen night

Afraid of the day's eyes of brilliant light:

Even on base things and low for refuge fled

High-crested souls shed guardian love and kindly might.

13

The mountain yaks lift up their bushy tails

And with their lashing scatter gleamings round

White as the moonbeams on the rocky ground:

They seem to fan their king, his parallels

Of symbolled monarchy more perfectly to found.

14

There in his glens upon his grottoed floors

When from her limbs is plucked the raiment fine

Of the Kinnar's shamefast love, hanging come in

His concave clouds across the cavern doors;

Chance curtains shielding her bared loveliness divine.

15

Weary with tracking the wild deer for rest

The hunter bares his forehead to the fay

Breezes which sprinkle Ganges' cascade spray

Shaking the cedars on Himaloy's breast,

Gambolling with the proud peacock's gorgeous-plumed

array.

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16

Circling his mountains in its path below

The sun awakes with upward-glittering wands

What still unplucked by the seven sages' hands

Remains of the bright lotuses that glow

In tarns upon his tops with heaven-kissing strands.

17

Because the Soma plant for sacrifice

He rears and for his mass upbearing earth

The Lord of creatures gave to this great birth

His sacrificial share and ministries

And empire over all the mountains to his worth.

18

Companion of Meru, their high floor,

In equal wedlock he to his mighty bed

The mind-born child of the world-fathers wed,

Mena whose wisdom the deep seers adore,

Stable and wise himself his stable race to spread.

19

Their joys of love were like themselves immense

And its long puissant ecstasies at last

Bore fruit for in her womb a seed was cast;

Bearing the banner of her youth intense

In moving beauty and charm to motherhood she passed.

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20

Mainac she bore, the ocean's guest and friend

Upon whose peaks the serpent-women roam,

Dwellers in their unsunned and cavernous home;

Mainac, whose sides though angry Indra rend

Feels not the anguish of the thunder's shock of doom.

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