Storia do Mogor 252.2

252.2

If he spoke well, he acted still better. When he swallows the sun, that planet is in eclipse ; and when it is the moon he swallows, the moon is eclipsed. But in order that the world be not left in an unending night, the gods, the Brahmans, and others, never fail to bathe at these conjunctures, and offer up prayers, not only with fasting, but with the shedding of many tears. They ardently implore the snake that he be pleased to release the sun or the moon, according to which of them is in eclipse. Such is their persistence in these prayers, that for one day before the completion of the eclipse they neither eat nor drink, they cook nothing, and allow no food to be in their houses. They declare that the eclipse only ends because the snake Sesham, being affected by so many prayers, releases those two great planets that he had already swallowed.