Loudly laughed proud Sisupala, spake with bitter taunt and jeer,
Answered Krishna's lofty menace with disdain and cruel sneer:
“Wherefore in this vast assembly thus proclaim thy tale of shame,
If thy wedded wife and consort did inspire my youthful flame?
Doth a man of sense and honour, blest with wisdom and with pride,
Thus proclaim his wedded consort was another's loving bride?
Do thy worst! Or if by anger or by weak forbearance led,
Sisupala seeks no mercy, nor doth Krishna's anger dread!”
Lowered Krishna's eye and forehead, and unto his hands there came
Fatal disc, the dread of sinners, disc that never missed its aim,
“Monarchs in this hall assembled!” Krishna in his anger cried,
“Oft hath Chedi's impious monarch Krishna's noble rage defied,
For unto his pious mother plighted word and troth was given,
Sisupala's hundred follies would by Krishna be forgiven,
I have kept the plighted promise, but his crimes exceed the tale,
And beneath this vengeful weapon Sisupala now shall quail!”
Then the bright and whirling discus, as this mandate Krishna said,
Fell on impious Sisupala, from his body smote his head,
Fell the mighty-arméd monarch like a thunder-riven rock,
Severed from the parent mountain by the bolt's resistless shook!