Opening Remarks
Death epitomising endless Night speaks to Savitri to turn her back to earth without Satyavan.
Lethal call
Then a sound pealed through that dead monstrous realm:
Vast like the surge in a tired swimmer’s ears,
Clamouring, a fatal iron-hearted roar,
Death missioned to the night his lethal call.
Even as Savitri lights up the candle of Hope in that dense darkness, Death’s lethal call pealed through that dead monstrous realm. It seemed like a vast surge, like a fatal iron-hearted roar clamouring in a tired swimmer’s ears.
Home of everlasting Night
“This is my silent dark immensity,
This is the home of everlasting Night,
This is the secrecy of Nothingness
Entombing the vanity of life’s desires.
“This is my silent dark immensity” roared Death in his den which he described with epithets such as the home of everlasting Night and life’s secrecy of Nothingness where the desires of life are buried and entombed.
Transient heart
Hast thou beheld thy source, O transient heart,
And known from what the dream thou art was made?
Death disdains the heart of Savitri asking her condescendingly if her transient heart has beheld her source and known the unreal illusory dreams of which she is made.
Nude emptiness
In this stark sincerity of nude emptiness
Hopest thou still always to last and love?”
He questions her hope asking her how she can even imagine always to last and love in this stark nude emptiness that refuses and rejects everything.
The Woman answered not
The Woman answered not. Her spirit refused
The voice of Night that knew and Death that thought.
Savitri, the Woman answered not. Her spirit refused the voice of Night and the thoughts projected by Death to dishearten and discourage her from every effort towards life and love.
She knew herself eternal without birth
In her beginningless infinity
Through her soul’s reaches unconfined she gazed;
She saw the undying fountains of her life,
She knew herself eternal without birth.
Savitri looked within and saw the Source from which she had come. She knew her beginningless infinity. Through the limitless gaze of her soul she saw the undying founts of her life and knew herself eternal without birth.
Death, the dire god
But still opposing her with endless night
Death, the dire god, inflicted on her eyes
The immortal calm of his tremendous gaze:
“Although thou hast survived the unborn void
Which never shall forgive, while Time endures,
The primal violence that fashioned thought,
Forcing the immobile vast to suffer and live,
This sorrowful victory only hast thou won
To live for a little without Satyavan.
Death, the dire god opposed her with endless night. He inflicted on her eyes the stone-like unchanging calm of his tremendous gaze. Death unwilling to concede his ground says that although Savitri has survived the unborn void, which will never forgive the primal violence that gave birth to thought and forced the Inconscience to live and suffer while Time endures. Yet she has won nothing except the prolongation of her sorrow, of living a little more without Satyavan.
Closing Remarks
Death begins to chastise Savitri for her daring to enter into the forbidden home of Night.
