But how to bring that wondrous boy His troubled thoughts will long employ, And hopeless to achieve the task He counsel of his lords will ask, And bid his priests and servants bring With honor saintly Rishyaśring. But when they hear the monarch's speech, All these their master will beseech, With trembling hearts and looks of woe, To spare them, for they fear to go. And many a plan will they declare And crafty plots will frame, And promise fair to show him there, Unforced, with none to blame. On every word his lords shall say, The King will meditate, And on the third returning day Recall them to debate. Then this shall be the plan agreed, That damsels shall be sent Attired in holy hermits' weed, And skilled in blandishment, That they the hermit may beguile With every art and amorous wile Whose use they know so well, And by their witcheries seduce The unsuspecting young recluse To leave his father's cell. Then when the boy with willing feet Shall wander from his calm retreat And in that city stand, The troubles of the King shall end, And streams of blessed rain descend Upon the thirsty land. Thus shall the holy Rishyaśring To Lomapád, the mighty King, By wedlock be allied; For Śántá, fairest of the fair, In mind and grace beyond compare, Shall be his royal bride. He, at the Offering of the Steed, The flames with holy oil shall feed, And for King Daśaratha gain Sons whom his prayers have begged in vain,' I have repeated, sire, thus far, The words of old Sanatkumár, In order as he spoke them then Amid the crowd of holy men." Then Daśaratha cried with joy, "Say how they brought the hermit boy." CANTO IX RISHYAŚRING