These first, the boundless Sea, and Matarisvan, fierce glowing
Fire, the Strong, the Bliss-bestower,
And heavenly Floods, first-born by holy Order, exclaimed
against the outrage on a Brahman.
King Soma first of all, without reluctance, made restitution of
the Brahman's consort.
Mitra and Varuna were the inviters: Agni as Hotar took her
hand and led her.
The man, her pledge, must by the hand be taken when he hath
cried, She is a Brahman's consort.
She stayed not for a herald to conduct her: thus is the kingdom
of a ruler guarded.
She whom they call the star with loosened tresses, descending as.
misfortune on the village,
The Brahman's consort, she disturbs the kingdom where hath
appeared the hare with fiery flashing.
Active in duty serves the Brahmachari: he is a member of the
Gods' own body.
Through him Brihaspati obtained his consort, as the Gods gained
the ladle brought by Soma.
Thus spake of her those Gods of old, Seven Rishis, who sate
them down to their austere devotion:
Dire is a Brahman's wife led home by others: in the supremest
heaven she plants confusion.
When infants die, untimely born, when herds of cattle waste
away,
When heroes strike each other dead, the Brahman's wife
destroyeth them.
Even if ten former husbands--none a Brahman--had espoused a
dame,
And then a Brahman took her hand, he is her husband, only he,
Not Vaisya, not Rajanya, no, the Brahman is indeed her lord:
This Surya in his course proclaims to the Five Races of man-
kind.
So then the Gods restored her, so men gave the woman back
again.
Princes who kept their promises restored the Brahman's wedded
wife.
Having restored the Brahman's wife, and freed them, with Gods'
aid, from sin,
They shared the fulness of the earth and worn themselves ex-
tended sway.
No lovely wife who brings her dower in hundreds rests upon his
bed,
Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, a
Brahman's dame.
No broad-browed calf with wide-set ears is ever in his homestead
born.
Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, a
Brahman's dame.
No steward, golden-necklaced, goes before the meat-trays of the
man.
Within whose kingdom is detained, through want of sense, a
Brahman's dame.
No black-eared courser, white of hue, moves proudly, harnessed
to his car,
In whose dominion is detained, through want of sense, a
Brahman's dame.
No lily grows with oval bulbs, no lotus-pool is in his field,
In whose dominion is detained, through senseless love, a
Brahman's dame.
The men whose task it is to milk drain not the brindled cow for
him,
In whose dominion is detained, through senseless love, a
Brahman's dame.
His milch-cow doth not profit one, his draught-ox masters not
the yoke,
Wherever, severed from his wife, a Brahman spends the mourn-
ful night.