While every other stranger hath come unto this place, my husband’s father alone hath not appeared.

Let him eat of the roasted grain, let him drink the soma deep.
Let him be well filled, and thence return again unto his house.

The sharp-hornèd bull, bellowing without end, hath mounted high, even to the heavens, and upon the broad earth he maketh his noise.
In all the gatherings of men, I shield him— he who, having pressed the soma, filleth both my cheeks with joy.

With stone they press the gladdening draught, the strong soma, full of might and sweetness— these they prepare for thee, Indra, and thou drinkest them.
They roast great bulls for thy feast, and thou eatest well— coming at the call, O generous one, hungering not.

Hearken to this word of mine, thou singer of hymns:
The rivers bear their flotsam backwards, against their own flow.

The fox crept upon the lion unawares;
the jackal sprang out of the brush upon the boar, his better.

How shall I mark this riddle of thine?
I, a plain man, how can I grasp the deep thought of one so cunning and strong?

Thou, who knowest all, shalt show us in good time toward which side thy chariot-pole will rest, O giver of riches.

For they strengthen me thus, and make me great; my chariot-pole reacheth higher than the very heavens.

Thousands I do crush at once beneath me— for he that sired me made me peerless, without match.

They knew me thus: strong, mighty, worthy of call.
At every deed, men cry, “Indra!”—the bull among gods.
I struck down Vṛtra with the mace, my spirit roused with soma; through my strength I burst the bars and opened the way for the godly.

The gods came forth with axes in hand.
They hewed the trees, and marched with their kindreds to the holy ground.
They laid the good wood in the fire’s belly, and where brushwood stood, the flames consumed it all.

The hare, seeing the razor come, swallowed it whole.
With but a clod of earth hurled from afar, I cleft a stone in twain.
Yea, the high and mighty shall I humble for the weak; and the calf, swelling in spirit, shall run after the bull.

The eagle caught his claw in kind, as the lion was snared in the hunter’s noose.
The buffalo too was caught, dying of thirst, and the monitor-lizard plowed him a way.

The lizard shall plow such a path for those who scorn the priests at their meal.
These same men eat the freed oxen, and by their own hand undo their strength, their very flesh.

But others have waxed in fortune, through rite and labor, and the pressing of the soma.
With bold speech they measured out the gifts— and thou, O Indra, hast fixed thy name as hero high in the heavens.