Death Questions Savitri, pp. 592-593

Opening Remarks
Death now questions the basis of Savitri’s hope trying the gauge her strength.

Gleam in the trackless night
She spoke and for a while no voice replied,
While still they travelled through the trackless night
And still that gleam was like a pallid eye
Troubling the darkness with its doubtful gaze.

Savitri spoke and there was no immediate response from Death. Awhile they travelled through the trackless night. As they travelled, The pallid eye of Hope continued to trouble the darkness with its doubtful gaze.

What is thy hope?
Then once more came a deep and perilous pause
In that unreal journey through blind Nought;
Once more a Thought, a Word in the void arose
And Death made answer to the human soul:
“What is thy hope? to what dost thou aspire?

After a deep and perilous pause in that strange unreal journey through blind nothingness, Death once again spoke answering the human soul. Once more a Thought, a Word arose in what seemed mere emptiness. Death asked Savitri the basis of her hope and whom does she aspire to?

Brilliant idol of a fugitive hour
This is thy body’s sweetest lure of bliss,
Assailed by pain, a frail precarious form,
To please for a few years thy faltering sense
With honey of physical longings and the heart’s fire
And, a vain oneness seeking, to embrace
The brilliant idol of a fugitive hour.

Death regards love as simply something physical and bodily. Love is a frail precarious body’s sweetest lure of bliss while it is assailed by pain. It comes to please the faltering senses for a few years with the sweet honey of physical longings and the heart’s fire. It is a vain oneness seeking to embrace the brilliant idol of love for a short while as a fugitive hour.

Life’s sunlit mire
And thou, what art thou, soul, thou glorious dream
Of brief emotions made and glittering thoughts,
A thin dance of fireflies speeding through the night,
A sparkling ferment in life’s sunlit mire?

Death further discourages Savitri by filling her with doubt and the sense of a false identity. He questions Savitri saying that her soul is nothing but a glorious dream made up of brief emotions and glittering thoughts. He tells her that she is nothing but a dance of fireflies speeding through the night or just a sparkling ferment in the mire of life lit up by the sun rays.

Wilt thou claim immortality
Wilt thou claim immortality, O heart,
Crying against the eternal witnesses
That thou and he are endless powers and last?

Death challenges Savitri’s claim to immortality chiding her heart for crying against the eternal witnesses as if her soul and the Eternal are the first and last powers.

Death only lasts
Death only lasts and the inconscient Void.

Death alone is permanent and lasts. The inconscient Void alone is.

I only am
I only am eternal and endure.

Death further brags that he alone is eternal and endures.

The mute alone
I am the shapeless formidable Vast,
I am the emptiness that men call Space,
I am a timeless Nothingness carrying all,
I am the Illimitable, the mute Alone.

He continues to claim that he is the shapeless formidable Vast. He is the emptiness called as Space. He is the timeless Nothingness carrying all. He is the illimitable mute Alone.

There is no other God
I, Death, am He; there is no other God.

Death asserts that there is no other God but himself.

All from my depths
All from my depths are born, they live by death;
All to my depths return and are no more.

All emerges from the depths of Death and live by him before returning back to his depths and are no more.

Inconscient Force
I have made a world by my inconscient Force.

Death claims that it is he who has built the world by his inconscient Force.

My Force of Nature
My Force is Nature that creates and slays
The hearts that hope, the limbs that long to live.

Death further claims that what we call as Nature is his mechanical inconscient Force that creates and destroys. It is this inconscient force of Death that hopes in the heart and longs to live in the limbs.

Made man her instrument
I have made man her instrument and slave,
His body I made my banquet, his life my food.

Death says that he has made man the instrument and slave of his Force that is called as Nature. Death has made man’s body his banquet and life his food that he feeds constantly to satisfy his insatiable hunger.

Closing remarks
Death is making false claims after claims to intimidate Savitri.