18. We go forward (pū́rva) to meet him of dark horses, black, swarthy, killing, fearful, making to fall the chariot of the hairy one (keçín); homage be to him.
The comm. understands the connection as here given, making keçín the name of an Asura; Ludwig takes ratham as object of pratī ’mas and the other words as its epithets. ⌊Ppp. reads çyāvāsyaṁ at the beginning, and has, in b, bhīmo and pārayantam.⌋
19. Do not let fly at us the club (? matyà), the god-missile; be not angry at us, O lord of cattle; homage to thee; elsewhere than [over] us shake out the heavenly bough.
The bough, namely (so it would seem), from which the portents that fall from the sky appear to be shaken by a hostile divinity. The comm. reads martyam instead of matyam in a. He recognizes that srās (i.e. srā[kṣ]s) is from root sṛj ("= vi sṛja "). Ppp. has srā m. devahitam in a.
20. Do not harm us; bless us; avoid us; be not angry; let us not come into collision with thee.
Ppp. omits nas before brūhi in a, and has at the end arāmasi (as in vs. 7).
21. [Be] not [greedy] for our kine, our men; be not greedy for our goats and sheep; elsewhere, O formidable one, roll forth [thy missile]; smite the progeny of the mockers (píyāru).
The insertion in c seems unavoidable; the comm. ⌊in a passage restored by SPP.?⌋ supplies tava hetim; Ludwig, deinen Pfeil. ⌊Ppp. inserts ‘çveṣu before goṣu.⌋
22. Of whom the takmán, the kā́sikā, goes as one weapon, like the noise of a stallion horse, to him, leading out in succession, be homage.
The verse is very obscure, and the translation mechanical; Ppp. reads, in a-b, eka ’çvasya, and this reading is followed; the comm. supplies, to ekam, apakāriṇam puruṣam, and makes it object of eti = prāpnoti. Ludwig understands nirṇayate as 'extracting arrows from the quiver.' ⌊As for vṛ́ṣaṇas, cf. JAOS. x. 534, 524.⌋
23. He who stands propped up in the atmosphere, killing the non-sacrificing, the god-mockers—to him be homage with the ten clever ones (çákvarī).
The 'ten clever ones' are probably the fingers: cf. v. 28. 11; the comm. glosses the word with an̄gulibhis, as = karmasu çaktābhiḥ. Ppp. begins yas tiṣṭhati viçvabhṛto antarikṣe ‘yajvanaṣ pra-.
24. To thee are assigned the forest animals ⌊paçú⌋, the wild beasts in the woods, the geese (haṅsá), eagles, hawks, birds; thine, O lord of cattle, is the monster (? yakṣá) within the waters; for thine increase flow the waters of the heaven.
