Book I

, Canto XLV.

828 Rávaṇ in his magic car carrying off the most beautiful women reminds us of the magician in _Orlando Furioso_, possesor of the flying horse.

“Volando talor s’alza ne le stelle, E poi quasi talor la terra rade; E ne porta con lui tutte le belle Donne che trova per quelle contrade.”

829 Indian women twisted their long hair in a single braid as a sign of mourning for their absent husbands.

830 Janak, king of Míthilá, was Sítá’s father.

831 Hiraṇyakaśipu was a king of the Daityas celebrated for his blasphemous impieties. When his pious son Prahlada praised Vishṇu the Daitya tried to kill him, when the God appeared in the incarnation of the man-lion and tore the tyrant to pieces.

832 Do unto others as thou wouldst they should do unto thee, is a precept frequently occurring in the old Indian poems. This charity is to embrace not human beings only, but bird and beast as well: “He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.”

833 It was the custom of Indian warriors to mark their arrows with their ciphers or names, and it seems to have been regarded as a point of honour to give an enemy the satisfaction of knowing who had shot at him. This passage however contains, if my memory serves me well, the first mention in the poem of this practice, and as arrows have been so frequently mentioned and described with almost every conceivable epithet, its occurrence here seems suspicious. No mention of, or allusion to writing has hitherto occurred in the poem.

834 This threat in the same words occurs in Book III , Canto LVI.

835 Rávaṇ carried off and kept in his palace not only earthly princesses but the daughters of Gods and Gandharvas.

836 The wife of Indra.

837 These four lines have occurred before.