hief councillors.

866 Hanuman when he entered the city had in order to escape observation
condensed himself to the size of a cat.

867 The brook Mandakini, not far from Chitrakuta where Rama sojourned
for a time.

868 The poet here changes from the second person to the third.

869 The whole long story is repeated with some slight variations and
additions from Book II, Canto XCVI. I give here only the outline.

870 The expedients to vanquish an enemy or to make him come to terms are
said to be four: conciliation, gifts, disunion, and force or
punishment. Hanuman considers it useless to employ the first three
and resolves to punish Ravan by destroying his pleasure-grounds.

871 Kinkar means the special servant of a sovereign, who receives his
orders immediately from his master. The Bengal recension gives these
Rakshases an epithet which the Commentator explains "as generated in
the mind of Brahma."

872 Rama _de jure_ King of Kosal of which Ayodhya was the capital.

_ 873 Chaityaprasada_ is explained by the Commentator as the place where
the Gods of the Rakshases were kept. Gorresio translates it by "un
grande edificio."

874 The bow of Indra is the rainbow.

875 We were told a few lines before that the chariot of Jambumali was
drawn by asses. Here horses are spoken of. The Commentator notices
the discrepancy and says that by horses asses are meant.

876 Armed with the bow of Indra, the rainbow.

877 Ravan's son.

878 Conqueror of Indra, another of Ravan's sons.

879 The _sloka_ which follows is probably an interpolation, as it is
inconsistent with the questioning in Canto L.:

He looked on Ravan in his pride,
And boldly to the monarch cried:
"I came an envoy to this place
From him who rules the Vanar race."

880 The ten heads of Ravan have provoked much ridicule from European
critics. It should be remembered that Spenser tells us of "two
brethren giants, the one of which had two heads, the other three;"
and Milton speaks of the "four-fold visaged Four," the four Cherubic
shapes each of whom had four faces.

881 Durdhar, or as the Bengal recension reads Mahodara, Prahasta,
Mahaparsva, and Nikumbha.

882 The chief attendant of Siva.

883 Bali, not to be confounded with Bali the Vanar, was a celebrated
Daitya or demon who h