17. Upon the blessings saying so, the personified curse of the sage got enraged, and returned in reply saying, I am no less the creation of a God than you are since we are born of the God Rudra by his consort Rudrání--the Fury. 18. Rudra is the greatest of gods, and the sage was born with a portion of Rudra’s prowess; saying so the accursed curse lifted up its head, as high as the exalted summit of a mountain. 19. On seeing the haughty high-headedness of the personation of curse; the personified image of the boon smiled scornfully at him, and then made his reply in his speech of well weighed words. 20. O thou miscreant curse, leave thy wickedness and think on the end of this affair; as also about what is to be done, after termination of all this altercation of ours. 21. We must have recourse to the father of the gods, for his favourable decision of the case, is it not therefore better for us to do even now what must come to be finally determined by him. 22. The curse on hearing these words of the personified boon replied, well, I agree to what you say; because a fool even cannot decline to accept the reasonable proposal of a person. 23. Then the curse agreed to resort to the abode of Brahmá; in company with the divine Blessing; because the great-minded gods are always resorted to by the wise, for the dissipation of their doubts. 24. They bended down before Brahmá, and related all that had occurred between them; and the god on hearing the whole on both sides, replied to them in the following manner. 25. Brahmá said:--Hearken unto me, ye master of blessing and curse, and let him have the precedence of the other, that is possessed of intrinsic merit and essence. 26. Upon hearing this from the mouth of the great god, they both entered in their turn into the heart of one another, in order to sound their understandings, and descry their respective parts. 27. They then having searched into the eternal essentialities of one another, and having known their respective characters; came out in presence of the God, and besought him by turns. 28. The curse said:--I am overcome, O Lord of creatures, by this my adversary, in my having no internal merit in myself, and finding the curses of my foe, to be as sound and solid as the hard stony rock and the strong thunderbolt. 29. But both ourselves and the blessings, being always but intellectual beings, we have no material body whatever to boast of at any time. 30. The Blessing replied:--The intellectual blessing, which its giver (the god in the sun), has given to its askers the Bráhmans, is here present before you; and this is entrusted to my charge (to be delivered unto them).