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Then like united members with fair voices, They all together sing among the waters.
One like an ox doth bellow, goat-like one bleats;
Spotted is one, and one of them is yellow; Alike in name, but in appearance different, In many ways the voice they, speaking, vary.
As priests about th' intoxicating[24] soma
Talk as they stand before the well-filled vessel, So stand ye round about this day once yearly, On which, O frogs, the time of rain approaches.
(Like) priests who soma have, they raise their voices,
And pray the prayer that once a year is uttered; (Like) heated priests who sweat at sacrifices, They all come out, concealed of them is no one.
The sacred order of the (year) twelve-membered,
These heroes guard, and never do neglect it; When every year, the rainy season coming,
The burning heat receiveth its dismission.[25]
In one hymn no less than four gods are especially invoked for rain-Agni, Brihaspati, Indra, and Parjanya. The two first are sacrificially potent; Brihaspati, especially, gives to the priest the song that has power to bring rain; he comes either 'as Mitra-Varuna or P[=u]shan,' and 'lets Parjanya rain'; while in the same breath Indra is exhorted to send a flood of rain,–rains which are here kept back by the gods,[26]—and Agni is immediately afterwards asked to perform the same favor, apparently as an analogue to the streams of oblation which the priest pours on the fire. Of these gods, the pluvius is Parjanya:
