Opening Remarks
Savitri’s quest has ended. She has found Satyavan and the two have chosen each other with the God as a witness. She prepares to return back to her father’s home.
Down the narrow path
Then down the narrow path where their lives had met
He led and showed to her her future world,
Love’s refuge and corner of happy solitude.
Satyavan then takes Savitri along with him to see his home which is going to be Savitri’s future world. They go down the narrow path towards his dwelling place.
Heart’s future home
At the path’s end through a green cleft in the trees
She saw a clustering line of hermit-roofs
And looked now first on her heart’s future home,
The thatch that covered the life of Satyavan.
Savitri sees her future home towards the end of the narrow path amidst a clearing of the trees where a line of hermitages take her to the hut where Satyavan lived.
Sylvan beauty
Adorned with creepers and red climbing flowers
It seemed a sylvan beauty in her dreams
Slumbering with brown body and tumbled hair
In her chamber inviolate of emerald peace.
The hut was adorned with flowery creepers and seemed as if her dream house even as an ascetic with a brown body and tumbled hair in the inner chamber of inviolate peace.
Lost in the depths
Around it stretched the forest’s anchorite mood
Lost in the depths of its own solitude.
All around there stretched the forest’s anchorite mood as if lost in the depths of its own solitude. It was a place surrounded by deep solitude.
Her happy voice
Her happy voice cried out to Satyavan
Then moved by the deep joy she could not speak,
A little depth of it quivering in her words,
Her happy voice cried out to Satyavan:
“My heart will stay here on this forest verge
And close to this thatched roof while I am far:
Now of more wandering it has no need.
Then moved by the deep joy she cried out and spoke with her voice quivering that her heart will stay on this forest verge and close to this hut while afar. Her quest has ended and she must return back now having found her partner and mate.
Haste to father’s house
But I must haste back to my father’s house
Which soon will lose one loved accustomed tread
And listen in vain for a once cherished voice.
But now she must haste back to her father’s house which will soon lose her and listen in vain to her cherished voice.
Soon I shall return
For soon I shall return nor ever again
Oneness must sever its recovered bliss
Or fate sunder our lives while life is ours.”
She promises to return back and recover the joy of oneness never to be sundered again throughout their lives.
Once more she mounted
Once more she mounted on the carven car
And under the ardour of a fiery noon
Less bright than the splendour of her thoughts and dreams
She sped swift-reined, swift-hearted but still saw
In still lucidities of sight’s inner world
Through the cool-scented wood’s luxurious gloom
On shadowy paths between great rugged trunks
Pace towards a tranquil clearing Satyavan.
Once more she mounted the chariot and started her journey back at noontime. But brighter than the sun were her thoughts and dreams. She sped swiftly while her inner sight beheld the cool scented world as she went down through thick trees that were as if walking towards Satyavan.
A nave of trees
A nave of trees enshrined the hermit thatch,
The new deep covert of her felicity,
Preferred to heaven her soul’s temple and home.
A nave of trees surrounded the hermit thatch, the place that had become her soul’s temple and home, a deep fount of felicity which she preferred over heaven.
Her heart’s constant scene
This now remained with her, her heart’s constant scene.
Carrying this wonderful image of Satyavan’s house which she had taken as her own, she started her journey back.
Closing Remarks
Savitri promises to Satyavan that she would return back after a brief meeting with her parents to reveal her choice to them.
