We worship Sraosha [Obedience] the blessed, whom four racers draw in harness, white and shining, beautiful and (27) powerful, quick to learn and fleet, obeying before speech, heeding orders from the mind, with their hoofs of horn gold-covered, (28) fleeter than [our] horses, swifter than the winds, more rapid than the rain [drops as they fall]; yea, fleeter than the clouds, or well-winged birds, or the well-shot arrow as it flies, (29) which overtake these swift ones all, as they fly after them pursuing, but which are never overtaken when they flee, which plunge away from both the weapons [hurled on this side and on that] and draw Sraosha with them, the good Sraosha and the blessed; which from both the weapons [those on this side and on that] bear the good Obedience the blessed, plunging forward in their zeal, when he takes his course from India on the East and when he lights down in the West. Yasna lvii. 27-29: Translation of L.H. Mills. TO THE FIRE I offer my sacrifice and homage to thee, the Fire, as a good offering, and an offering with our hail of salvation, even as an offering of praise with benedictions, to thee, the Fire, O Ahura, Mazda's son! Meet for sacrifice art thou, and worthy of [our] homage. And as meet for sacrifice, and thus worthy of our homage, may'st thou be in the houses of men [who worship Mazda]. Salvation be to this man who worships thee in verity and truth, with wood in hand and baresma [sacred twigs] ready, with flesh in hand and holding too the mortar. 2. And mayst thou be [ever] fed with wood as the prescription orders. Yea, mayst thou have thy perfume justly, and thy sacred butter without fail, and thine andirons regularly placed. Be of full age as to thy nourishment, of the canon's age as to the measure of thy food. O Fire, Ahura, Mazda's son! 3. Be now aflame within this house; be ever without fail in flame; be all ashine within this house: for long time be thou thus to the furtherance of the heroic [renovation], to the completion of [all] progress, yea, even till the good heroic [millennial] time when that renovation shall have become complete. 4. Give me, O Fire, Ahura, Mazda's son! a speedy glory, speedy nourishment and speedy booty and abundant glory, abundant nourishment, abundant booty, an expanded mind, and nimbleness of tongue and soul and understanding, even an understanding continually growing in its largeness, and that never wanders. Yasna lxii. 1-4: Translation of L.H. Mills. THE GODDESS OF THE WATERS