10. ⌊Away⌋ his feet, that he may not go; ⌊away⌋ his hands, that he may not harm.
What marauder shall approach, may he go away all crushed; may he go away, may he go well away; may he go away in a dry place (?).
At the end of b, the majority of mss. read yáthā́çiṣaḥ, which all the pada-mss. resolve into yáthā: áçiṣaḥ; ⌊most of⌋ the rest, and SPP., give yáthā́ ’çiṣat; the comm. yathā ”çliṣat (= saṁçleṣayet). Ppp. offers pra pādāu na yat āhataṣ pra hastāu na yanāçiṣat. In e, the pada-mss. compound su॰ápāyati, doubtless wrongly; ⌊read as pada-text sú: ápa: ayati⌋. All the mss., the comm., and SPP., give in f sthāṇāú, and the comm. explains it as = çākhopaçākhārahitavṛkṣamūla āçraye. After it, the mss. have apā́yataḥ (p. apa॰áyataḥ), but the comm. agrees with us in ápā ’yati, and SPP. accordingly also adopts it. The translation follows throughout the emendations of our text; perhaps, in f, sthā́ne would be better than sthalé, as more closely resembling the ms.-reading. We are deprived of the help of Ppp. upon the point, as it skips from apāyati in e to tṛṣṭadhūnam in 50. 1 a; for c, d, it had yo mulalaṁ sulapāyati sa saṁpiṣṭyo upāyati. We had d above as iv. 3. 5 b; ⌊cf. the end of the note to vs. 9⌋.
50. To night: for protection.
[As 47.—saptakam.]
Follows also in Pāipp. xiv. our hymn 49. Has the same liturgical use as hymn 49.
Translated: Ludwig, p. 465; Griffith, ii. 307.
1. Do thou, O night, make the snake blind, harsh-smoked, headless; smite out the eyes of the wolf; cast the thief into the snare.
This verse is nearly identical with that translated as 47. 8 above (8 c, d and 9 a, b of the printed text). As there, the mss. have at the beginning ándha, which SPP., with the comm., changes to ádha; and all, in c, d, have nír jahyās téna* táṁ ⌊or tváṁ⌋ drupadé jahi in a manner analogous with the reading there. ⌊The translation implies the division nír jahy ā́...jahi: cf. my note to 47. 8.⌋ ⌊Apart from some less important variants.⌋ the mss. are divided, as often in such cases, between akṣāú and akṣyāú, and SPP. chooses the worse, akṣāú; our akṣyāù is alone defensible. Ppp. omits (see note to 49. 10) the first two words, and reads, as at 47. 8, tiṣṭadhūmam; ⌊it begins the second line with hano vṛkasya and ends it (as above) with nṛpate jahi; what the intervening words are is not clear from Roth's Collation⌋. ⌊Meantime Bloomfield kindly informs me that Ppp. reads the line thus: hano vṛkasya nir jahy ā tvāinaṁ nṛpate jahi: this gives no support for a jahyās (see note to 47. 8); but the tvāinaṁ obviously stands in some relation to the dvāinaṁ of the Ppp. reading at 47. 8, which is jambhayādvāinaṁ.⌋ *⌊The pada-reading is níḥ: jahyāḥ: téna.⌋
2. What draft-oxen thou hast, O night, sharp-horned, very swift, with them do thou today pass us always (viçváhā) over difficulties.
SPP. follows the mss. in the false accent tī́kṣṇa- in b. In c, d, he reads pārayā́ ’ti with us and with the comm. (also with Ppp.), ⌊but against the mss., most of which⌋ have pārayaty áti. In b, Ppp. gives -çṛn̄gyāçvāsavaḥ.
3. May we pass (tṛ) night after night receiving no harm with ourselves (tanvā̀); may the niggards fail to pass [it], as men without boats a deep [water].
