He who faced your stoutest warriors and in battle never failed,
He who led the Kuru forces and in danger never quailed,
He who knew no peer in prowess, owned in war no haughtier name,
He who yielded life, not honour, and by death hath conquered fame,
He, in truth who never faltered, never left his vow undone,
Offer unto him oblation, Karna was my eldest son!
Karna was your honoured elder, and the Sun inspired his birth,
Karna in his rings and armour Sun-like trod the spacious earth!”
Pritha spake, and terror-stricken Pandav brothers groaned in pain,
And they wept in woe and anguish for the brother they had slain.
Hissing forth his sigh of sorrow like a trodden, hissing snake,
Sad Yudhishthir to his mother thus his inward feelings spake:
“Didst thou, mother, bear the hero fathomless like ocean dread,
Whose unfailing glistening arrows like its countless billows sped?
Didst thou bear that peerless archer, all-resistless in his car,
Sweeping with the roar of ocean through the shattered ranks of war?
Didst thou bear the mighty hero, mortal man of heavenly birth,
Crushing 'neath his arm of valour all his foemen on the earth?
Didst thou hide the birth and lineage of that chief of deathful ire,
As a man in folds of garments seeks to hide the flaming fire?