Book-9-Study-Canto-1

Book Nine: Canto 1

Towards The Black Void

Summary
Savitri is alone in the huge forest with the dead body of her husband on her breast. She does not grieve, but leans over his body in great stillness. Suddenly a change comes over her like what sometimes overtakes men in moments of crisis. The mind is no more, only the spirit sees. A calm Power seated above the brows sees and moves Nature. The spirit grows and voices and thoughts come from on high. A new birth takes place.

It takes place in Savitri. Her spirit soars high and joins its source on the summits of her being. A new Force descends into her soul and she is totally changed. Her mortal elements are displaced by a young divine infusion. Pain, grief, all are left behind. Her mind is still.

She lays down the dead body on the forest soil and turns to meet the dreadful God of Death who is a veritable Denial of all. He fixes his forbidding look upon her and asks her to unclasp her hold upon the soul of Satyavan and return back to earth.

Savitri does not move. The Voice warns her that her husband suffers and she should let him go. She, then, draws back her heart’s force that has held him still and rises gathered in her strength. Death leans to the earth and then rises; Satyavan forsakes his body and a new luminous form of him rises up.

Savitri is unable to reach this lustrous form through her mind and senses, but her spirit knows his spirit. He stands between Savitri on one side and the God of Death on the other. There is a silent struggle to draw him from either side.

They now move on, Satyavan in front, Death behind him and Savitri behind eternal Death. Their journey proceeds through eerie spaces, as if on the tops of the forest trees. The earth’s pull on Savitri increases. It looks, at one stage, as if both Satyavan and Death are fast moving away from her reach. But her passionate spirit soars towards Satyavan and she goes into deep trance. Human Savitri is forgotten. Her will oceans out and holds Satyavan captive. They proceed on their course through strange realms where souls are not, only living moods exist.

They arrive at the brooding gates of pillared rocks opening into the giant Night. They have reached a boundary. Death speaks to Savitri that she must now go back and not aspire to accompany him to his home. She cannot survive there. Man can live safe only within human limits and she must be sensible. Otherwise she is sure to perish.

But Savitri does not answer. Her high nude soul stands up against fixed destiny and the grooves of law and against the dark abysses piled up in front of her. She rises up like a columned shaft of fire and light.

Savitri left Alone

So was she left alone in the huge wood,
Surrounded by a dim unthinking world,
Her husband’s corpse on her forsaken breast.

She measured not her loss with helpless thoughts,
Nor rent with tears the marble seals of pain:
She rose not yet to face the dreadful god.

Thus Savitri is left alone in the huge forest; around her spreads a world that is sub-human; on her lone breast lies the dead body of her husband. She does not brood over her loss helplessly, nor does she try to mitigate her pain with tears. She does not rise yet to meet the dreadful god of Death.

She Clasps the Lifeless Form

Over the body she loved her soul leaned out
In a great stillness without stir or voice,
As if her mind had died with Satyavan.

But still the human heart in her beat on.

Aware still of his being near to hers,
Closely she clasped to her the mute lifeless form
As though to guard the oneness they had been
And keep the spirit still within the frame.

Savitri’s soul leans over the body of Satyavan in an intense hush — still, silent. It is as though her mind has died with Satyavan. Her heart beats on, aware that his heart is still close to hers. She holds tight to her the dead form of Satyavan as if to guard the oneness that they both had been and to hold the spirit still within that frame.

Sudden Change

Then suddenly there came on her the change
Which in tremendous moments of our lives
Can overtake sometimes the human soul
And hold it up towards its luminous source.

The veil is torn, the thinker is no more:
Only the spirit sees and all is known.

Suddenly a change comes over her, a change such as comes at times over our lives in great moments; it gains ascendence over the soul and lifts it up towards its shining source above. The veil of the mind is torn, there is no thought; only the spirit sees and all is known at once.

Calm Power

Then a calm Power seated above our brows
Is seen, unshaken by our thoughts and deeds,
Its stillness bears the voices of the world:
Immobile, it moves Nature, looks on life.

Then is seen a calm Power above our eyebrows- the Centre of the thought-will; it is unmoved by our thoughts and acts; its stillness supports the voices of the world. From its immobility it guides Nature and surveys all life.

Its Gaze Controls

It shapes immutably its far-seen ends;
Untouched and tranquil amid error and tears
And measureless above our striving wills,
Its gaze controls the turbulent whirl of things.

This calm Power, though immutable, visions and shapes its distant ends. Untouched and tranquil amid all error and pain in life, immeasurable above our struggling wills, its calm gaze controls the stormy whirl of things.

The Spirit Grows

To mate with the Glory it sees, the spirit grows:
The voice of life is tuned to infinite sounds,
The moments on great wings of lightning come
And godlike thoughts surprise the mind of earth.

The spirit grows in order to companion the Glory it beholds. The voice of life is attuned to the sounds of the infinite. Charged moments come in flashes and godlike thoughts suddenly appear in the mind of earth.

New Birth

Into the soul’s splendour and intensity
A crescent of miraculous birth is tossed,
Whose horn of mystery floats in a bright void
As into a heaven of strength and silence, thought
Is ravished; …

A new birth takes place in the splendour and intensity of the soul; the mystery of this birth glows in a shining void even as thought is filled with rapture in a heaven of felicitous strength and silence.

New Shapes

… all this living mortal clay
Is seized and in a swift and fiery flood
Of touches shaped by a Harmonist unseen.

A new sight comes, new voices in us form
A body of the music of the gods.

This living mortal clay is seized and newshaped by an unseen Master of harmonies in a series of quick and fiery touches. A new sight is formed. New voices fashion in us a whole pattern of celestial music.

Ecstasy of Will

Immortal yearnings without name leap down,
Large quiverings of godhead seeking run
And weave upon a puissant field of calm
A high and lonely ecstasy of will.

Unspecified immortal yearnings leap down; mighty throbs of godhead spread out questing and in that powerful calm, intensify the will into a high and gathered ecstasy.

Spirit Soars

This in a moment’s depths was born in her.

Now to the limitless gaze disclosed that sees
Things barred from human thinking’s earthly lids,
The Spirit who had hidden in nature soared
Out of his luminous nest within the worlds.

Like a vast fire it climbed the skies of night.

Such a miraculous new birth now takes place in a moment in Savitri. Things normally beyond the human sight are disclosed to her gaze. The Spirit so far hidden in Nature soars out of its terrestrial dwelling; like a vast fire it ascends the skies of night.

Her Source

Thus were the cords of self-oblivion torn.

Like one who looks up to far heights she saw,
Ancient and strong as on a windless summit
Above her where she had worked in her lone mind
Labouring apart in a sole tower of self,
The source of all which she had seemed or wrought,
A power projected into cosmic space,
A slow embodiment of the aeonic will,
A starry fragment of the eternal Truth,
The passionate instrument of an unmoved Power.

The cords that had held her down in self-forgetfulness are rent. She looks up towards the heights of her being and there — on the summits of her mind —where she had worked in concentration in her solitary moments, she sees the source of all that she had seemed to be or worked out: she sees a power emanated into universal space, a slow formulation of the ancient will, a bright portion of the eternal Truth, an intense instrument of an immutable Power.

She is Changed

A Presence was there that filled the listening world,
A central All assumed her boundless life.

A sovereignty, a silence and a swiftness,
One brooded over abysses who was she.

As in a choric robe of unheard sounds
A force descended trailing endless lights;
Linking Time’s seconds to Infinity,
Illimitably it girt the earth and her:
It sank into her soul and she was changed.

A Presence is there filling all the listening space; a central Pervasion takes up her limitless life. One, sovereign, silent and swift, that is herself broods over the depths. In a rush of strange sounds, a force descends followed by endless lights, connecting Time to Infinity. It surrounds both earth and her. It sinks into her soul and she is changed.

Mightiness Assumes Form

Then like a thought fulfilled by some great word
That mightiness assumed a symbol form;
Her being’s spaces quivered with its touch,
It covered her as with immortal wings;

Then, like a thought which gets fulfilment when a great word expresses it, that mightiness takes a symbolic form. Her being trembles at its touch; it covers her as though with immortal wings.

It Enters her Mystic Lotus

On its lips the curve of the unuttered Truth,
A halo of Wisdom’s lightnings for its crown,
It entered the mystic lotus in her head,
A thousand-petalled home of power and light.

Its lips are curved with the burden of the Truth that is not yet uttered; a halo formed of flashes of wisdom is its crown. It enters the mystic lotus of thousand petals, the home of power and light, in her head.

Immortal Leader

Immortal leader of her mortality,
Doer of her works and fountain of her words,
Invulnerable by Time, omnipotent,
It stood above her calm, immobile, mute.

It is the immortal leader of Savitri’s mortality, the real doer of her works, the source of her speech. Unassailable by Time, omnipotent, it stands above her, calm, unmoving and mute.

Remnant of Humanity Slain

All in her mated with that mighty hour,
As if the last remnant had been slain by Death
Of the humanity that once was hers.

All in Savitri rises to contain the inrush in that great moment. It is as if the last vestige of her humanity had been cast away by Death.

Young Divinity Fills

Assuming a spiritual wide control,
Making life’s sea a mirror of heaven’s sky,
The young divinity in her earthly limbs
Filled with celestial strength her mortal part.

Over was the haunted pain, the rending fear:
Her grief had passed away, her mind was still,
Her heart beat quietly with a sovereign force.

The young divinity in her assumes a wide spiritual control, filling her life-energies with the spirit from above, infusing celestial strength in her human part. The old haunted pain and tearing fear are over; her grief has passed away, her mind is calm. Her heart beats quietly with an imperious force.

She Rises to Meet Death

There came a freedom from the heart-strings’ clutch,
Now all her acts sprang from a godhead’s calm.

Calmly she laid upon the forest soil
The dead who still reposed upon her breast
And bore to turn away from the dead form:
Sole now she rose to meet the dreadful god.

Savitri is now free from the hold of attachment. All her movements now issue from a god-like calm. Calmly she lays Satyavan’s body, which has been lying on her breast, upon the ground and bears the pang of turning away from that dead form of his. Alone, she rises to meet the dreadful god, Death.

Mighty Spirit Gazes

That mightier spirit turned its mastering gaze
On life and things, inheritor of a work
Left to it unfinished from her halting past,
When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled
And ill-shaped instruments were crudely moved.

The powerful spirit that fills her now turns its supreme gaze on the life around. It inherits the work left unfinished from her unsteady past when her mind, still an eager novice, had worked crudely with the imperfect instruments at its disposal.

Human Rule Transcended

Transcended now was the poor human rule;
A sovereign power was there, a godlike will.

A moment yet she lingered motionless
And looked down on the dead man at her feet;

The inadequate human rule is now exceeded. A sovereign power and a godlike will are now there. Still, for a moment she lingers without moving and looks down on the dead body of Satyavan lying at her feet.

Terror and Wonder of a Shape

Then like a tree recovering from a wind
She raised her noble head; fronting her gaze
Something stood there, unearthly, sombre, grand,
A limitless denial of all being
That wore the terror and wonder of a shape.

Then Savitri recovering herself raises her noble head. In front of her gaze stands something unearthly, tearful, grand, a pervading denial of all being which has taken a shape exciting wonder and terror at the same time.

Pity and Irony of the Tenebrous Form

In its appalling eyes the tenebrous Form
Bore the deep pity of destroying gods.

A sorrowful irony curved the dreadful lips
That speak the word of doom. …

This dark Form bears in its terrifying eyes the deep pity that the gods have when they destroy because they must. An irony full of sorrow curves its dreadful lips that pronounce the word of doom.

Eternal Night Arises

… Eternal Night,
In the dire beauty of an immortal face,
Pitying arose, receiving all that lives
For ever into its fathomless heart, refuge
Of creatures from their anguish and world-pain.

Eternal Night, with an immortal face of dreadful beauty, rises in pity, receiving all that lives into its unfathomed heart, the final refuge of all creatures from their own anguish and world-pain.

Nothingness made Real

His shape was nothingness made real, his limbs
Were monuments of transience and beneath
Brows of unwearying calm large godlike lids
Silent beheld the writhing serpent, life.

His shape is a form taken by Nothingness. His limbs are visible moulds of transience. His large godlike eyes, beneath brows of untiring calm, behold in silence the writhing serpent of life.

Immutable Orbs

Unmoved their timeless wide unchanging gaze
Had seen the unprofitable cycles pass,
Survived the passing of unnumbered stars
And sheltered still the same immutable orbs.

The eternal, wide, unchanging gaze of those eyes has watched unmoved the passing of vain cycles of time; it has been the witness of the appearance and disappearance of countless stars. Only these immutable orbs have existed always.

Two Oppose each other

The two opposed each other with their eyes,
Woman and universal god: around her,
Piling their void unbearable loneliness
Upon her mighty uncompanioned soul,
Many inhuman solitudes came close.

Human Savitri and the universal God of Death confront each other with their eyes. Many vibrations of inhuman solitariness fling themselves upon her mighty soul, now uncompanioned.

Formidable Voice Arises

Vacant eternities forbidding hope
Laid upon her their huge and lifeless look,
And to her ears silencing earthly sounds,
A sad and formidable voice arose
Which seemed the whole adverse world’s. …

Unending emptiness imposes upon her, denying any hope. And, silencing all the earthly sounds around, a sad and formidable voice, sounding like the voice of the entire hostile world, rises to her ear.

"Unclasp

… “Unclasp”, it cried,
“Thy passionate influence and relax, O slave
Of Nature, changing tool of changeless Law,
Who vainly writhst rebellion to my yoke,
Thy elemental grasp; weep and forget.

Entomb thy passion in its living grave.

Leave now the once-loved spirit’s abandoned robe:
Pass lonely back to thy vain life on earth.”

It cries:"O slave of Nature who art but a changing tool of a Law that is unchanging, who vainly rebellest against my yoke, loosen thy passionate hold and relax thy primitive grasp upon Satyavan. Weep and forget. Bury thy passion. Leave now the forsaken robe of this spirit once loved by thee. Go back to thy vain life on earth."

Voice Speaks again

It ceased, she moved not and it spoke again,
Lowering its mighty key to human chords,—
Yet a dread cry behind the uttered sounds,
Echoing all sadness and immortal scorn,
Moaned like a hunger of far wandering waves.

The voice ceases, but Savitri does not move. Then the voice speaks again lowering its formidable note to suit the human ear. Yet behind the sounds uttered by it, a fearful cry moans, like the moaning of hungry far sweeping waves, echoing all sadness and the lofty scorn of the gods.

"Thy Husband Suffers"

“Wilt thou for ever keep thy passionate hold,
Thyself, a creature doomed like him to pass,
Denying his soul death’s calm and silent rest?

Relax thy grasp; this body is earth’s and thine,
His spirit now belongs to a greater power.

Woman, thy husband suffers.…

"Thou art thyself a creature like him, doomed to pass away as he has done. Seekest thou to keep thy passionate hold upon him for ever and deny to his soul the calm and the silent rest of death? Relax thy grasp; only his body belongs to earth and to thee, not his spirit. His spirit now belongs to a greater power. O woman, thy husband Satyavan suffers; leave him."

Savitri draws back her Force

…” Savitri
Drew back her heart’s force that clasped his body still
Where from her lap renounced on the smooth grass
Softly it lay, as often before in sleep
When from their couch she rose in the white dawn
Called by her daily tasks: …

From Satyavan’s body Savitri draws back her heart’s force that had clasped it. Removed from her lap, Satyavan’s body lay on the smooth grass below, as it used to be so often before when Savitri rose at early dawn from their couch, called by her chores, while Satyavan lay in sleep.

She Rises in Readiness

… now too as if called
She rose and stood gathered in lonely strength,
Like one who drops his mantle for a race
And waits the signal, motionlessly swift.

She knew not to what course: …

So also now Savitri gets up as if she is called, and stands gathered in her lone strength like a runner who drops his mantle to begin the race and waits for the signal, swift in spirit though not yet in motion. She does not yet know what is to be her course.

Spirit Watches

… her spirit above
On the crypt-summit of her secret form
Like one left sentinel on a mountain crest.

A fiery-footed splendour puissant-winged
Watched flaming-silent with her voiceless soul
Like a still sail upon a windless sea.

From the summit of her secret form, her spirit watches in luminous silence, like a sentinel from the mountain-top, along with her mute soul which is like a still sail upon a windless sea.

Waits for Impulse

White passionless it rode, an anchored might,
Waiting what far-ridged impulse should arise
Out of the eternal depths and cast its surge.

This stationed might above holds itself in pure calm, waiting to see what far-ranging impulse is going to arise out of the eternal depths of her being and surge forth.

Death Rises Erect

Then Death, the king, leaned boundless down, as leans
Night over tired lands when evening pales
And fading gleams break down the horizon’s walls,
Nor yet the dusk grows mystic with the moon.

The dim and awful godhead rose erect
From his brief stooping to his touch on earth,

Then, like night leaning over tired lands in the pale evening as light fades out and the moon is not yet, Death leans down in his vastness. And from his brief stooping, his touch-down on earth, the dim and awful godhead arises erect.

Another Satyavan Rises

And like a dream that wakes out of a dream,
Forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay,
Another luminous Satyavan arose,
Starting upright from the recumbent earth
As if someone over viewless borders stepped
Emerging on the edge of unseen worlds.

Then, like a dream awaking out of a dream, another luminous Satyavan rises up abandoning the dead form, standing up straight from the stretched earth. It is as though someone stepped over unseen borders, emerging on the edge of unseen worlds.

Between Woman and God

In the earth’s day the silent marvel stood
Between the mortal woman and the god.

Such seemed he as if one departed came
Wearing the light of a celestial shape
Splendidly alien to the mortal air.

The silent wonder of the arisen, luminous Satyavan stands between Savitri, the mortal woman, and the god of Death. It looks as if one dead has come back wearing the light of a heavenly form, strikingly foreign to the mortal air of the earth.

Mind falls back

The mind sought things long loved and fell back foiled
From unfamiliar hues, beheld yet longed,
By the sweet radiant form unsatisfied,
Incredulous of its too bright hints of heaven;

Savitri’s mind looks for the old loved things in his new form, but falls back foiled from those strange hues; it sees and longs, it is unsatisfied by that sweet luminous form; it finds it difficult to believe in its dazzling hints of heaven.

Only the Spirit Knew the Spirit

Too strange the brilliant phantasm to life’s clasp
Desiring the warm creations of the earth
Reared in the ardour of material suns,
The senses seized in vain a glorious shade:
Only the spirit knew the spirit still,
And the heart divined the old loved heart, though changed.

Her life accustomed to the warm creations of the earth under the bright material sun, finds this brilliant phantasm too strange a form to grasp; the senses rush to seize it but find it is only a glorious shade unseizable by them. Only her spirit recognises still the spirit in that form, her heart feels in it the old heart it has loved, though now so much changed.

Powers not of Earth

Between two realms he stood, not wavering,
But fixed in quiet strong expectancy,
Like one who, sightless, listens for a command.

So were they immobile on that earthly field,
Powers not of earth, though one in human clay.

Satyavan stands between the two realms of earth and heaven (Savitri and Death), firm, quiet, expectant, like one who cannot see, waits listening for a command.Thus they wait, all three, immobile on that earthly field; they are not Powers of earth, though one of them (Savitri) is in a human body.

Two Spirits Strive

On either side of one two spirits strove;
Silence battled with silence, vast with vast.

But now the impulse of the Path was felt
Moving from the Silence that supports the stars
To touch the confines of the visible world.

On either side of luminous Satyavan, the two spirits vie with each other. Silence opposes silence, vast opposes vast. Soon the impulse to move is felt, from that Silence that supports the stars to the borders of the visible world.

He Moves, Death behind Him

Luminous he moved away; behind him Death
Went slowly with his noiseless tread, as seen
In dream-built fields a shadowy herdsman glides
Behind some wanderer from his voiceless herds,

The luminous form of Satyavan moves away; behind him Death follows slowly, noiselessly, like a dream herdsman following a straying member of his silent flock.

Savitri behind Death

And Savitri moved behind eternal Death,
Her mortal pace was equalled with the god’s.

Wordless she travelled in her lover’s steps,
Planting her human feet where his had trod,
Into the perilous silences beyond.

Behind eternal Death follows Savitri. Her human pace equals the god’s. Silently she journeys in the steps of her lover, Satyavan, placing her human feet where his have trod, into the dangerous silences beyond.

She moves in Woods

At first in a blind stress of woods she moved
With strange inhuman paces on the soil,
Journeying as if upon an unseen road.

Around her on the green and imaged earth
The flickering screen of forests ringed her steps.

At first Savitri moves in unseeing thick impenetrable woods with strange inhuman imprints stamped on the soil. It is like walking on a road that is not visible. Her steps are ringed round by a quivering screen of forests growing on the green earth seen as an image.

Emerald Robe Around

Its thick luxurious obstacle of boughs
Besieged her body pressing dimly through
In a rich realm of whispers palpable,
And all the murmurous beauty of the leaves
Rippled around her like an emerald robe.

The thick boughs of the forest trees obstruct her movement with a commotion of palpable whispers all around; the soft rustling droning beauty of the leaves ripples round her like a green robe.

They glide on

But more and more this grew an alien sound,
And her old intimate body seemed to her
A burden which her being remotely bore.

Herself lived far in some uplifted scene
Where to the trance-chained vision of pursuit,
Sole presences in a high spaceless dream,
The luminous spirit glided stilly on
And the great shadow travelled vague behind.

But gradually all this becomes an alien note. Her own physical body seems far-off to her, a load which her being bears distantly. She feels herself in some high region from where she pursues her tranced vision, the luminous spirit (Satyavan) gliding on in stillness followea by the great shadow (Death); they are the only two presences in that high, spaceless dream.

Senses feel Earth’s Air

Still with an amorous crowd of seeking hands
Softly entreated by their old desires
Her senses felt earth’s close and gentle air
Cling round them and in troubled branches knew
Uncertain treadings of a faint-foot wind:
She bore dim fragrances, far callings touched;
The wild bird’s voice and its winged rustle came
As if a sigh from some forgotten world.

Still, her senses feel the earth’s clinging gentle air around them with longing hands urged by old desires; they are aware of the coming of faint winds in the agitated branches. Dim fragrances waft towards her; distant calls touch her; the wild bird’s voice and the rustle of its wings come like a sigh from a forgotten world.

Earth-Mother

Earth stood aloof, yet near: round her it wove
Its sweetness and its greenness and delight,
Its brilliance suave of well-loved vivid hues,
Sunlight arriving to its golden noon,
And the blue heavens and the caressing soil.

The ancient Mother offered to her child
Her simple world of kind familiar things.

The earth stands apart and yet is near, weaving around her its sweetness, freshness and delight, its brilliance of appealing vivid hues, its sunlight now at its bright-gold noon, its blue skies and its soft warm soil. The ancient Mother-earth offers to her child her simple world of gracious, familiar things.

Her Body’s hold Curbs

But now as if the body’s sensuous hold
Curbing the godhead of her infinite walk
Had freed those spirits to their grander road
Across some boundary’s intangible bar,
The silent god grew mighty and remote
In other spaces and the soul she loved
Lost its consenting nearness to her life.

Now the sensuous hold of her body seems to have arrested her pace. And the two spirits are speeding along a grander road beyond the impalpable bar of some boundary: the silent god (of Death) grows mighty and distant as he passes into spaces that are different from those of the earth and the soul of Satyavan that she has loved lets go its contact with her.

Far from her

Into a deep and unfamiliar air
Enormous, windless, without stir or sound
They seemed to enlarge away, drawn by some wide
Pale distance, from the warm control of earth
And her grown far. Now, now they would escape.

Then flaming from her body’s nest, alarmed,
Her violent spirit soared at Satyavan.

Both of them seem to grow away from her into a deep, strange, huge, stirless air, pulled away from the warm hold of earth by some wide, pale, far space. She is left far behind. And now it looks as if they would escape from her.

Suddenly, stirred and alarmed, her violent spirit soars out of its nest in the body and rushes towards Satyavan.

Mass of Golden Fire

Out mid the plunge of heaven-surrounded rocks
So in a terror and a wrath divine
From her eyrie streams against the ascending death,
Indignant at its crouching point of steel,
A fierce she-eagle threatened in her brood,
Borne on a rush of puissance and a cry,
Outwinging like a mass of golden fire.

Like a she-eagle whose little ones are threatened by danger, Savitri’s spirit surges up, through the rocky expanses of heaven, in terror and a divine fury against the ascending god, indignant at his threatening weapon of death; her spirit, borne on the rushing wings of power and grief, rises like a mass of golden fire.

Savitri Forgotten

So on a spirit’s flaming outrush borne
She crossed the borders of dividing sense;
Like pale discarded sheaths dropped dully down
Her mortal members fell back from her soul.

A moment of a secret body’s sleep,
Her trance knew not of sun or earth or world;
Thought, time and death were absent from her grasp:
She knew not self, forgotten was Savitri.

Savitri crosses the borders of the tangible world on the flaming wings of her spirit; like old discarded sheaths, her mortal parts drop from her soul. A momentary loss of consciousness as she enters her subtle body makes her forget the sun, the earth, the world; she is no more conscious of thought, time and death; she is not even aware of her own self. The human Savitri is forgotten.

Violent Ocean of Will

All was the violent ocean of a will
Where lived captive to an immense caress,
Possessed in a supreme identity,
Her aim, joy, origin, Satyavan alone.

Her sovereign prisoned in her being’s core,
He beat there like a rhythmic heart,—herself
But different still, one loved, enveloped, clasped,
A treasure saved from the collapse of space.

All is now a violent ocean of her will. Satyavan who alone is her aim, joy, origin, is held captive in the waves of that will, possessed by her in a supreme identity. Though her sovereign, he is held imprisoned in the core of her being where he beats like a rhythmic heart; he is herself and yet distinct, one who is loved, enveloped and clasped by her, a veritable treasure salvaged from collapsing space.

Savitri Surges

Around him nameless, infinite she surged,
Her spirit fulfilled in his spirit, rich with all Time,
As if Love’s deathless moment had been found,
A pearl within eternity’s white shell.

Savitri’s conscious will surges around Satyavan, her spirit becoming one with his, rich with the content of all Time, as though the immortal moment of Love has been found — a veritable pearl of Love within the pure shell of eternity.

Mind Returns to Time

Then out of the engulfing sea of trance
Her mind rose drenched to light streaming with hues
Of vision and, awake once more to Time,
Returned to shape the lineaments of things
And live in borders of the seen and known.

At last her mind wakes up out of its tranced condition, suffused with the light of the variegated vision and is once more cognisant of the duration of Time; once more it is able to observe the shape of things and to live within the borders of the world that can be seen and known.

The Three Move on

Onward the three still moved in her soul-scene.

As if pacing through fragments of a dream,
She seemed to travel on, a visioned shape,
Imagining other musers like herself,
By them imagined in their lonely sleep.

The three of them Satyavan, Death and Savitri —move on in the scene of her soul, as if walking through the spaces of a dream. She appears to herself a visible shape journeying onward; she imagines there other musing shapes similar to hers, who imagine her in their rapt sleep.

Living Moods

Ungrasped, unreal, yet familiar, old,
Like clefts of unsubstantial memory,
Scenes often traversed, never lived in, fled
Past her unheeding to forgotten goals.

In voiceless regions they were travellers
Alone in a new world where souls were not,
But only living moods.…

Like pieces of vague memories, old scenes often passed through before, but never lived in — flee swiftly past her unnoticed to their unremembered goals. They are lone travellers in these mute regions, where there are no soul-entities as such but only living moods.

Strange World

… A strange, hushed, weird
Country was round them, strange far skies above,
A doubting space where dreaming objects lived
Within themselves their own unchanged idea.

The world around them is strange, silent and unearthly; the skies above are strange. It is a place full of uncertainty in which dreaming objects lived absorbed in themselves and their unchanging ideas.

Weird Surroundings

Weird were the grasses, weird the treeless plains,
Weird ran the road which like fear hastening
Towards that of which it has most terror, passed
Phantasmal between pillared conscious rocks
Sombre and high, gates brooding, whose stone thoughts
Lost their huge sense beyond in giant night.

Everything is weird, the grasses, the bare plains. Like fear hastening towards the very thing of which it is in terror, the road runs weirdly, passing like a phantom between living rocks like pillars, dismal and high, and brooding gates of stone rising in their might towards the huge night beyond.

Brooding Gates

Enigma of the Inconscient’s sculptural sleep,
Symbols of the approach to darkness old
And monuments of her titanic reign,
Opening to depths like dumb appalling jaws
That wait a traveller down a haunted path
Attracted to a mystery that slays,
They watched across her road, cruel and still;
Sentinels they stood of dumb Necessity,
Mute heads of vigilant and sullen gloom,
Carved muzzle of a dim enormous world.

These brooding gates a veritable riddle of the sculpturesque sleep of the Inconscient, signifying approaches to the ancient darkness and monuments of the titanic reign of the Inconscient, opening to abysses like fearful jaws waiting for a traveller on a haunted path, attracting him to a fatal mystery — watch Savitri across the road, cruel and still. They stand like sentinels of mute Necessity, silent heads of vigilant and sullen gloom, well-cut openings of a dim, huge world.

Satyavan looks back

Then to that chill sere heavy line arrived
Where his feet touched the shadowy marches’ brink,
Turning arrested luminous Satyavan
Looked back with his wonderful eyes at Savitri.

Arriving at the brink of that shadowy march, a chill and scorched boundary, luminous Satyavan, arrested, turns back and looks at Savitri with his wonderful eyes.

Death’s Cry

But Death pealed forth his vast abysmal cry:
“O mortal, turn back to thy transient kind;
Aspire not to accompany Death to his home,
As if thy breath could live where Time must die.

But, then, Death cries out in his tremendous voice to Savitri: "O mortal, go back to thy transient world in Time. Do not hope to accompany Death to his home, as though thou couldst live there where Time must cease to be.

Thy Mind-Born Passion Inadequate

Think not thy mind-born passion strength from heaven
To uplift thy spirit from its earthly base
And, breaking out from the material cage,
To upbuoy thy feet of dream in groundless Nought
And bear thee through the pathless infinite.

"Do not think that this passion born from thy mind is a strength from heaven that can lift up thy spirit from its base upon earth, free it from its imprisoning material cage, sustain thy feet in the groundless Nought and bear thee through the pathless infinite.

Man is Safe in Human Limits

Only in human limits man lives safe.

Trust not in the unreal Lords of Time,
Immortal deeming this image of thyself
Which they have built on a dream’s floating ground.

Man is safe only as long as he confines himself to the limits imposed upon the human kind. Do not trust in the false masters of the realm of Time; do not imagine that this image of thyself, which they have erected on the floating grounds of a dream, is immortal by any means.

Dare not to Outstep

Let not the dreadful goddess move thy soul
To enlarge thy vehement trespass into worlds
Where it shall perish like a helpless thought.

Know the cold term-stones of thy hopes in life.

Armed vainly with the Idea’s borrowed might
Dare not to outstep man’s bound and measured force.

Let not thy soul be moved by any dangerous power to further its intrusions into worlds where it shall perish like an alien helpless thought. Know the terminals of thy hopes in life. On the impulse of the strength of an Idea, dare not vainly to go beyond the limited and measured force given to man."

Dream of Divinity

Ignorant and stumbling, in brief boundaries pent,
He crowns himself the world’s mock sovereign
Tormenting Nature with the works of Mind.

O sleeper dreaming of divinity,
Wake trembling mid the indifferent silences
In which thy few weak chords of being die.

Impermanent creatures, sorrowful foam of Time,
Your transient loves bind not the eternal gods.”

"Though he is ignorant and stumbling in his steps, confined within narrow boundaries, man fancies himself to be the king of the world and needles Nature with the operations of his mind. O sleeper who dreamest of attaining divinity, wake up and tremble amid the indifferent silences in which thy few strands of being must die.

O transient creatures, pitiful foam-bubbles on the sea of Time, your fleeting loves certainly do not bind the gods who are eternal."

Dreadful Voice Ebbs

The dread voice ebbed in the consenting hush
Which seemed to close upon it, wide, intense,
A wordless sanction from the jaws of Night.

The dreadful voice of Death fades away in the consenting hush, wide and intense, which closes round it a silent sanction, as it were, from the jaw of darkness.

Columned Shaft of Fire Rises

The Woman answered not. Her high nude soul,
Stripped of the girdle of mortality,
Against fixed destiny and the grooves of law
Stood up in its sheer will a primal force.

Still like a statue on its pedestal,
Lone in the silence and to vastness bared,
Against midnight’s dumb abysses piled in front
A columned shaft of fire and light she rose.

Savitri, the Woman, answers not. Shedding the trappings of mortality, her high nude soul stands up in its primal force of pure will against fixed destiny and the formed grooves of law. Firm and still like a statue on its pedestal, alone in that silence, confronting the vastness around, she rises like a column of soaring flame and light against the dark, mute abysses of midnight massed in front of her.