., I will not fight. O Madhava, people will say that
thou art a liar. All this burden resteth upon me. I will slay the
grandsire. I swear, O Kesava, by my weapons, by truth, and my good deeds,
that, O slayer of foes, I will do all by which the destruction of my foes
may be achieved. Behold this very day that invincible and mighty
car-warrior in the act of being thrown down by me, with the greatest
ease, like the crescent moon at the end of the Yuga (when the destruction
of the universe comes).' Madhava, however, hearing these words of the
high-souled Phalguni, spoke not a word, but in anger once more mounted
upon the car. And then upon those two tigers among men, when stationed on
their car, Bhishma the son of Santanu, once more poured his arrowy
showers like the clouds pouring rain upon the mountain-breast. Thy sire
Devavrata took the lives of the (hostile) warriors like the Sun sucking
with his rays the energies of all things during summer. As the Pandavas
had been breaking the ranks of the Kurus in battle, so thy sire broke the
Pandava ranks in battle. And the routed soldiers, helpless and heartless,
slaughtered in hundreds and thousands by Bhishma, were unable to even
look at him in that battle,--him who resembled the mid-day Sun blazing in
his own splendour. Indeed, the Pandavas afflicted with fear, timidly
gazed at Bhishma who was then achieving super-human feats in that battle.
And the Pandava troops, thus fleeing away, O Bharata, failed to find a
protector, like a herd of kine sunk in a shoal of ants while being trod
down by a strong person. Indeed, the Pandavas could not, O Bharata, look
at that mighty car-warrior incapable of being shaken, who, furnished with
a profusion of shafts, was scorching the kings (in the Pandava army), and
who in consequence of those shafts looked like the blazing Sun shedding
his fiery rays. And while he was thus grinding the Pandava army, the
thousand-rayed maker of day repaired to the setting hills, and the
troops, worn with fatigue, set their hearts on withdrawal (from the
field)."

SECTION CVIII

Sanjaya said, "While they were battling, the Sun set, O Bharata, and
there came the dreadful hour of twilight and the battle could no longer
be seen. Then king Yudhishthira, seeing that twilight had come and that
his own troops, slaughtered by Bhishma, had thrown aside their weapons,
and that stricken with fear, and turned off the field, they were seeking
to flee away, and beholding