Opening Remarks
Savitri now walks hand in hand with Satyavan into the forest to take upon herself the challenge of Destiny and death.
Linked hands
Then the doomed husband and the woman who knew
Went with linked hands into that solemn world
Where beauty and grandeur and unspoken dream,
Where Nature’s mystic silence could be felt
Communing with the secrecy of God.
Savitri knew the doom that awaits Satyavan though he knows it not. The two together enter the solemn world of beauty and grandeur and unspoken dream with linked hands. Nature’s mystic silence could be felt in the forest communing with the secrecy of God.
Beside her Satyavan walked
Beside her Satyavan walked full of joy
Because she moved with him through his green haunts:
He showed her all the forest’s riches, flowers
Innumerable of every odour and hue
And soft thick clinging creepers red and green
And strange rich-plumaged birds, to every cry
That haunted sweetly distant boughs replied
With the shrill singer’s name more sweetly called.
Satyavan unaware of the prophecy walked by Savitri’s side full of joy taking her to all the places in the forest that he loved. He showed her all the riches of the forest, the innumerable flowers of every odour and hue and the soft thick red and green creepers. He showed her the strange plumaged birds to whose every cry a response came from distant boughs with the name of the calling bird being sweetly responded to in the language of the bird.
Satyavan spoke and Savitri listened
He spoke of all the things he loved: they were
His boyhood’s comrades and his playfellows,
Coevals and companions of his life
Here in this world whose every mood he knew:
Their thoughts which to the common mind are blank,
He shared, to every wild emotion felt
An answer. Deeply she listened, but to hear
The voice that soon would cease from tender words
And treasure its sweet cadences beloved
For lonely memory when none by her walked
And the beloved voice could speak no more.
Satyavan spoke of all the things that he loved and which were his playfellows and comrades, companions of his life. He knew every mood of the forest, heard the thoughts of the dumb and mute, felt and answered to every wild emotion. Savitri listened, treasuring the voice that would soon cease from tender words and the sweet cadence. She kept them as treasured memory for lonely times when her beloved would speak no more.
Life’s lone end
But little dwelt her mind upon their sense;
Of death, not life she thought or life’s lone end.
But Savitri’s mind dwelt not upon the sense of the words. Satyavan was so full of life but Savitri thought of death and the lone end of life.
Closing Remarks
The Master-poet describes with a touch of the irony of fate wherein the contrasting inner states of Satyavan and Savitri are described.
