“That small infantry · Warred on by cranes”

“That small infantry / Warred on by cranes” is a compact image of a battle between beings of radically unequal scale. An editorial note links the phrase to divine personages of minute size said to have been produced from Brahmá’s hair, offering a mythic explanation for the image rather than identifying a separate episode in the narrative.

The Image and Its Scale

The expression sets “infantry,” a term for organized fighters, against cranes, whose size makes the conflict seem almost absurdly disproportionate. Its brevity sharpens the contrast: the tiny combatants are rendered as an army, while the cranes become overwhelming opponents. The note’s comparison suggests that this small-scale warfare belongs to a mythic register, not merely to an ordinary scene of birds attacking people.

The Editorial Explanation

The accompanying commentary identifies minute divine personages produced from Brahmá’s hair as the likely source of the image. It presents this connection as probable, not certain. The explanation therefore preserves a distinction between the vivid wording and the interpretive hypothesis attached to it: the phrase evokes miniature combat, while the note proposes a mythological origin for that conceit.

Significance of the Expression

The phrase compresses scale, spectacle, and humor into a few words. The commentary expands that miniature scene into a cosmological possibility by associating its combatants with beings created from a deity’s hair. Its significance here rests on that conjunction of poetic image and cautious annotation; the available evidence does not establish a fuller episode or identify further details about the battle.