The twain that bear the heat—be it flame and sun, be it chant and tune—have stretched their reach o’er the threefold world.
Mātariśvan hath come unto their joy.
The gods, desiring the milk of the heavens, have labored; they know the song set right with melody.

Three dissolvers, holy in their tread, draw near to be marked by sight, For they who bear the song and hear from far away, these know them.

The seer-poets behold their bond, though they abide among hidden and far-off laws.

She that is richly decked, face gleaming with ghee, her locks fourfold braided, doth garb herself in the rites.
Two mighty eagles, bullish in their bearing, alight upon her—there, the gods find their lot.

The eagle is but one; yet it hath plunged into the sea and cast its gaze upon all that is.
I, with plain mind, beheld it close at hand: the mother doth lick it, and it licketh the mother.

The seers, the wise ones, shape the eagle in many fashions, though it be but one, by way of word.
They set their measures round the rites, and mete out twelve-fold draughts of soma.

They set the four as six and thirty, and climb the meter’s ladder unto the twelfth.
With soul-stirred thought, they have weighed the offering, and make the chariot move by verse and song.

Fourteen are the other strengths of this one chariot.
Seven wise men draw it on by speech.
But who shall speak of the wealthy ford— the path by which they sip the soma first?

A thousandfold are the fifteen praises; as broad as sky and earth, such is their stretch.
A thousandfold their thousand strengths. And speech flows as far as the sacred spell is spread.

Who among men is wise and knoweth the yokings of the meters?
Who hath laid hold upon the holy word?
Whom call they the eighth of the priestly kind?
Who hath seen the pair of pale bays that bear Indra?

Such ones go round the bounds of the earth, yet stand fast yoked unto the axle's hold.
The gods, perchance, bestow the fruit of toil upon them when Yama is set fast in his surest seat.