52. Alas for shame! says one, that these arrows flung with such force from the bow strings, and flying with such loud hissing, and glittering as red hot lightnings in the air, are foiled in their aim of piercing the impenetrable armours, and driven back by them to hit at the stony hills.
53. Hear me friend, that art tired with the sight, that it is time for us to depart from this place, ere we are pierced in our bodies by these sharp arrows flashing as fire, and before the day runs its course of the fourth watch (evening).
CHAPTER XXXV.
Description of the Battlefield.[20]
Vasishtha said:—Then the waves of horse troops mounting to the sky, made the battlefield appear as a raging sea.
2. The moving umbrellas floated as its foam and froth, and the feathered silvery arrows glided like the finny pearly fishes in it, while the high flight and rush of the cavalry, heaved and dashed as surges of the sea.
3. The rushing of the weapons resembled the running of its currents, and the circles of the soldiers were as vortices of its waters. The elephants were as its islets and their motions resembled the moving rocks in it.
4. The whirling disks were as its eddies, and the flying hairs on the heads likened its floating weeds. The sparkling sands were as its shining waters, and the flash of swords like its glassy spray.
5. The gigantic warriors were its whales and alligators, and the resounding caverns like its gurgling whirlpools.
6. The flying arrows were like its swimming fishes, and the floating flags likened its uprising waves and bores.
7. The shining weapons formed the waters of this ocean and their whirlpools also, while the long lines of forces appeared as the huge and horrible bodies of its whales.