Night, shining goddess, comes, who now Looks out afar with many eyes, And putteth all her beauties on. Immortal shining goddess, she The depths and heights alike hath filled, And drives with light the dark away. To me she comes, adorned well, A darkness black now sightly made; Pay then thy debt, O Dawn, and go.[100] The bright one coming put aside Her sister Dawn (the sunset light), And lo! the darkness hastes away. So (kind art thou) to us; at whose Appearing we retire to rest, As birds fly homeward to the tree. To rest are come the throngs of men; To rest, the beasts; to rest, the birds; And e'en the greedy eagles rest. Keep off the she-wolf and the wolf, Keep off the thief, O billowy Night, Be thou to us a saviour now. To thee, O Night, as 'twere an herd, To a conqueror (brought), bring I an hymn Daughter of Heaven, accept (the gift).[101] THE AÇVINS. The Açvins who are, as was said above, the 'Horsemen,' parallel to the Greek Dioskouroi, are twins, sons of Dyaus, husbands, perhaps brothers of the Dawn. They have been variously 'interpreted,' yet in point of fact one knows no more now what was the original conception of the twain than was known before Occidental scholars began to study them.[102] Even the ancients made mere guesses: the Açvins came before the Dawn, and are so-called because they ride on horses _(açva, equos)_ they represent either Heaven and Earth, or Day and Night, or Sun and Moon, or two earthly kings--such is the unsatisfactory information given by the Hindus themselves.[103] Much the same language with that in the Dawn-hymns is naturally employed in praising the Twin Brothers. They, like the Dioskouroi, are said to have been incorporated gradually into the pantheon, on an equality with the other gods,[104] not because they were at first human beings, but because they, like Night, were adjuncts of Dawn, and got their divinity through her as leader.[105] In the last book of the Rig Veda they are the sons of Sarany[=u] and Vivasvant, but it is not certain whether Sarany[=u] means dawn or not; in the first book they are born of the flood (in the sky).[106] They are sons of Dyaus, but this, too, only in the last and first books, while in the latter they are separated once, so that only one is called the Son of the Sky.[107] They follow Dawn 'like men' (VIII. 5. 2) and are in Brahmanic literature the 'youngest of the gods.'[108]