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Rig Veda 4.27: The Falcon

by The Rishis of the Rig Veda c. 1500–1000 BCE (traditional; uncertain)

Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (1896) · From The Hymns of the Rigveda (1896)

Religion

As I lay within the womb, considered all generations of these Gods in order.
A hundred iron fortresses confined me, but forth I flew with rapid speed a Falcon,

Not at his own free pleasure did he bear me: he conquered with his strength and manly courage.
Straightway the Bold One left the fiends behind him and passed the winds as he grew yet more mighty.

When with loud cry from heaven down sped the Falcon, thence hasting like the wind he bore the Bold One,
Then, wildly raging in his mind, the archer Kṛiṣânu aimed and loosed the string to strike him.

The Falcon bore him from heaven's lofty summit as the swift car of Indra's Friend bore Bhujyu.
Then downward hither fell a flying feather of the Bird hasting forward in his journey.

And now let Maghavan accept the beaker, white, filled with milk, filled with the shining liquid;
The best of sweet meath which the priests have offered: that Indra to his joy may drink, the Hero, that he may take and drink it to his rapture.

Cite this poem

MLA

Veda, The Rishis of the Rig. “Rig Veda 4.27: The Falcon.” Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/rigveda-rishis/321/.

Chicago

Veda, The Rishis of the Rig. “Rig Veda 4.27: The Falcon.” Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/rigveda-rishis/321/.

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