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SETUBANDHA
39
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17. He took up his bow, a tool for doughty deeds. It was the appointed goal of the goddess of prosperity abidingli with his foes;12 a post, buttressing his deep-rooted wrath. It was a subsidiary base13 of the pride of his arms.
18. The waters of the sea swept over the earth as it sank under the weight of the bow, planted thereon; and the ocean was in peril of its life, even though the bow was still unstrung.14
19. The sky smoked as the bow was darkened by smoke; blazed as the fiery string was joined to the bow; and roared as the crest of the bow roared, filling the regions with echoes.
20. Rāma took up the bow, as if after long revolving a dire resolve in his mind: 'Let the earth be riven asunder; verily the sea shall cease to exist; let the world perish!'
21. His left arm, worn by the grief caused by prolonged separation from his beloved, with the scar left by the bowstring drenched and softened by his constant tears, assumed a different aspect as soon as it became active in contact with the bow.
22. Thereupon the universe, with the expanse of the ten directions filled with echoes as Rāma brandished the bow, recalled as it trembled the crushing force of the rumble of the clouds at the epoch of destruction.15
23. He took an arrow that came to his hand as he heedlessly16 stretched it backwards. It was like one of the rays of the sun of the epoch of universal ruin, capable of overturning the ocean.
24. He heaved a deep sigh as he fixed the arrow in the bow, and looked at the ocean, his frown obliterated by another emotion, 17 and his countenance saddened by compassion.
11. Lit. seen.
12. The bow is fancied as a trysting-place where the goddess of prosperity, forsaking the defeated enemies, met the victorious Rāma, like a näyikā meeting her lover.
13. Lit. the second base, i.e., second in relation to Rāma's arms on which his valour was primarily based.
14. Rama prepares to hit the ocean with his fiery arrows. 15. See Extracts for the readings followed. 16. Indicates contempt for the ocean. 17. i.e., pity.
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