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CANTO VII
1. Then did they begin to build the causēway that was to be the touchstone of their valour; the precursor of the overthrow of Rāvana's might; the abiding symbol of Rāma's fame.
2. Thereupon the mountains, held up in the sky, were dropped by the apes on the sea, even as the portions of the earth that broke away while it was raised from the waters of the Deluge were dropped on the sea by the arms of the Primeval Boar.1
3. As the mountains dropped the sea vanished from sight; it rocked as they plunged far down; it was convulsed as they slumped in a trice; and swelled as they disappeared in the waters.
4. The waters of the ocean, first surging up, and then rolling into the beach, became turbid as they filled up with the whirling woods swept away from the mountains, 2 with the animals killed and overturned.
5. Even with the mountains vanishing in the waters, the interval between the sky and the ocean appeared to be full of mountains as before, because masses of other mountains imperceptibly gathered again.3
6. The mountains were uprooted, and the ocean rocked by the apes, striking terror into the enemy. Not only the strength of will but also the enterprises of those who have lofty aims are great.
7. As a mountain came into view it seemed that it would span the sea; but none knew whither the mountains, plunging into the sea, were gone amidst the waters.
8. Broad as the earth, a mountain that blocked the path of the Sun's chariot with its thousand peaks, vanished, even though so lofty, in the mouth of a whale-devouring monster, like a blade of grass.
1. See 6.12, 13 for the allusion. 2. Cf. Krsna in Extracts.
3. The verse describes the unbroken succession of the mountains dropped by the apes.
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