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SETUBANDHA
153
26. The scions of Raghu, who held their bows and arrows as before, with their arms pierced and paralysed by the serpent arrows, were rendered helpless, with their futile wrath perceptible as they merely bit their lips.
27. Their bodies being pierced through and through by the arrows, the limbs had to be searched out to be seen; while the clotted blood accumulating on the feathers of the arrows could partly be seen.
28. Even their power to move was lost, with the thighs transfixed by the arrows, and the feet held fast, feeble and motionless, and all the limbs bound tight.
29. Thereupon as the spirits of the gods drooped the bow fell from Rāma's hand, crippled by the arrows discharged by the unseen foe; while the arrow fixed aforetime slipped from the bow.
30. All of a sudden the piercing cry of the celestial maidens, like unto the notes of the strings of a lyre sounding in unison, rose in the rear of their fleeing aerial cars.12
31. Thereafter Rāma sank to the ground, shattering the hope of the universe, even as a wild elephant, mauled by the claws of a lion, falls, breaking a tall neighbouring tree.
32. When Rāma fell, Lakṣmaṇa fell after him, like the reclining shadow in the wake of a lofty tree crashing to the ground.
33. And when they sank to the ground, the chariots of the gods tarried long (in the sky), lurching under the weight of the occupants as they bent forward and looked on, with one wheel turned upwards, and the side walls turning aslant.13
34. When Rāma fell, the world was stupefied as when the mental faculties fail. It was suddenly plunged into gloom as at the setting of the sun. It appeared to be bereft of life as when the (severed) head falls to the ground.
12. They had come to the rear of their cars to watch the happenings below.
13. The occupants of the chariots, apparently two-wheeled, had gathered on one side to look down at the battlefield.
S. 20
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