Classic Poem

You who are descended from men renowned
for their superb learning, men who
performed to perfection all twenty-one
kinds of sacrifice, who confirmed
the truth, never thinking it false,
who understood lies that resembled truth,
thus defeating those who would contend
with the one ancient work of six sections
and four divisions, focused on Righteousness,
never swerving from the well-chosen words
of the Primal Being with his long, matted hair!
You glow in your black antelope skin
from dry forest land, needed for the ritual,
worn over the thread around your shoulder!
Your beloved wives, worthy of your high
station, flawlessly faithful, free of harshness,
renowned for their virtue, donning the sacred ornaments,
their foreheads small, their hips and thighs large and wide,
of few words and rich abundant hair, request their ritual responsibilities!
Whether in settled land or jungle, omitting
none of the fourteen sites, you pour out
more ghee than there is water, sacrifice
more times than there are numbers, spread
your fame wider than the earth, and at
the great moment when a difficult sacrifice is completed,
may we always see you in your high and perfect state, offering hospitality!
Once I have eaten, devoured the food and mounted
a chariot, I will celebrate my luck and then go off
to our city with its cool bathing places ever renewed
by the fresh waters of the Kaviri River spread
with flowers when above the tall gold-bearing mountain
in the west, the thunder roars! May you be
as firmly established over the earth
as Himalaya where the bamboo grows and rising mountains block the clouds!