That is, 'what is pleasant to us,' apparently. Pūrva in a might also mean 'in front, in our van.' Ppp. reads in a, b viṣahasva çatrūn: vada bahu rocamānah; and it makes the second half-verse exchange places with 8 c, d.
7. Let there be noise between these two firmaments (nábhas); severally let thy sounds (dhvaní) go swiftly; roar at [them], thunder, truculent (?), resounding (çlokakṛ́t) unto the victory of our friends, a good partizan.
Mitra in mitratū́rya has to be taken as subjective instead of objective genitive. It is only with difficulty (iantu?) that b can be made metrically complete ⌊unless we read táva for te⌋. Ppp. reads at the end çraddhī. ⌊Bloomfield discusses utpípāna, AJP. xii. 441.⌋
8. Made by devices (dhī́), may it speak forth its voice; excite thou the weapons of the warriors; allied with Indra, call in the warriors; by friends smite mightily down the enemies.
'By devices': i.e., apparently, with art. Emendation of vadāti to vadāsi in a is very desirable; Ppp. has the 2d pers. bharasva instead; and, as noted above, it substitutes our 6 c, d for the second half-verse. There is a syllable lacking in a.
9. A vociferating herald (? pravadá), with bold army, making proclaim in many places, sounding through the villages, winning advantage, knowing the ways, do thou distribute (vi-hṛ) fame to many in the [battle] of two kings.
The verse seems to relate to the proclamation of victory and of the desert of those to whom it is due: see Roth, Festgruss an Böhtlingk, p. 99. Ppp. reads prasraveṇo for pravadó in a, and bhaja for hara in d. ⌊For vayúna, Pischel, Ved. Stud. i. 297.⌋
10. Aiming at advantage, conquering good things, very powerful, conquering a host, thou art sharpened by bráhman; as the pressing-stone on the [soma-] stalks in the press, do thou, O drum, dance on [their] possession, seeking booty (gavyán).
The translation implies emendation of gavyám (read by all our mss.) in d to gavyán as made in our edited text; but gavyám védas might perhaps mean 'their possession in kine.' Prāt. ii. 62 prescribes çreyaḥketas (not -yask-). Bp. alone reads ádhriḥ in c, which Pet. Lexx. prefer; adris is, to be sure, superfluous beside grā́vā, and can hardly be translated. Ppp. has, for b, mitraṁ dadhānas tviṣito vipaçcit; and it reads adhi (not ‘dhi) in d. The first pāda is defective, unless we make the violent resolution çr-e- at the beginning; in the third we have to read ’va ⌊or ‘driḥ⌋.
11. Overpowering foes, overpowering and putting down, overpowering hostile plotters, seeking kine, overpowering, up-shooting, bring forth thy voice as a speaker (vāgvín) his discourse (mántra); speak up force (? íṣ) here in order to the conquering of the host.
Sā́ṁgram- in our text is a misprint for sā́ṁgrām-. Ppp. offers no variants. The words çatrūṣā́ṭ and nīṣā́ṭ (both unchanged in pada-text) fall under Prāt. ii. 82; iii. 1; iv. 70. Gavéṣaṇa (p. go॰éṣaṇaḥ) is by Prāt. ii. 23. The second pāda is defective by one syllable.
