Book 7: Hymn 76: A charm to cure scrofulous pustules and scrofula

HYMN LXXVI

A charm to cure scrofulous pustules and scrofula

1Rapidly dropping, quick to drop, more evil than the evil ones,
More sapless than a dried-up bone, swifter than salt to melt
away.
2Pustules that rise upon the neck, Pustules upon the shoulder-
joints,
Pustules that, falling of themselves, spring up on every twofold
limb:
3I have expelled and banished all Scrofula harboured in the head,
And that which bores the breast-bone through, and that which
settles in the sole.
4Scrofula flies borne on by wings: it penerates and holds the
man.
Here is the cure of either kind, the chronic and the transient.
5We know thine origin, Scrofula! know whence thou, Scrofula,
art born.
How hast thou then struck this man here, him in whose house
we sacrifice?
6Boldly drink Soma from the beaker, Indra! hero in war for
treasure! Vritra-slayer.
Fill thyself full at the mid-day libation: thyself possessing riches
grant us riches.