Opening Remarks
Death continues to dissuade Savitri in various ways.
Ancient goddess
What shall the ancient goddess give to thee
Who helps thy heart-beats? Only she prolongs
The nothing dreamed existence and delays
With the labour of living thy eternal sleep.
Death bids Savitri to reconsider her decision to come so far asking her what shall she gain from the ancient goddess, the Divine Mother, who helps her heart-beats to live and hope? She is only prolonging the dream of an existence and delaying her eternal sleep through death by pushing her to labour and live.
Armed with illusions
A fragile miracle of thinking clay,
Armed with illusions walks the child of Time.
Death describes the soul as itself as a fragile miracle in a thinking body and brain, armed with illusion walking through the fields of Time.
The void
To fill the void around he feels and dreads,
The void he came from and to which he goes,
He magnifies his self and names it God.
Death insists that the void is the only reality. Man feels the dread of the void from which he has emerged, therefore he fills it with an image of his self and calls it God.
Heavens to help his suffering
He calls the heavens to help his suffering hopes.
Man calls the gods of heavens he has imagined to help his suffering hopes.
Empty of all
He sees above him with a longing heart
Bare spaces more unconscious than himself
That have not even his privilege of mind,
And empty of all but their unreal blue,
And peoples them with bright and merciful powers.
Man sees unconscious bare and mindless spaces above with a longing heart. He peoples the unreal blue of the sky with bright and merciful powers.
Prowl of Death
For the sea roars around him and earth quakes
Beneath his steps, and fire is at his doors,
And death prowls baying through the woods of life.
Man is surrounded by Death on every side. The sea roars around him and the earth quakes beneath his feet. Fire is at his doors to burn down and destroy him and Death prowls baying for him through the woods of life.
Offers his soul
Moved by the Presences with which he yearns,
He offers in implacable shrines his soul
And clothes all with the beauty of his dreams.
Man is moved by invisible presences with which he yearns and to which he offers his soul in implacable shrines clothing all with the beauty of his dreams.
The gods who watch
The gods who watch the earth with sleepless eyes
And guide its giant stumblings through the void,
Have given to man the burden of his mind;
In his unwilling heart they have lit their fires
And sown in it incurable unrest.
Mockingly, Death remarks that the gods who watch the earth with sleepless eyes and guide her gigantic motion stumbling through the void have given to man the burden of his mind. They have lit their fires in his unwilling heart and sown in it an incurable rest.
Closing Remarks
Death wants Savitri to believe that all the hopes and dreams and aspirations of man implanted in him by the very gods he has imagined are an illusion.
