Opening remarks
Aswapati now descends into the utter Inconscient to find its source of power and the key to its change.
Wrapped in solitudes
Then ceased the abodes of creatures and their forms
And solitude wrapped him in its voiceless folds.
Then all forms and figures began to cease in a dense and dumb solitude. Aswapati is now wrapped in its lonely and mute folds of darkness.
Nothing was left
All vanished suddenly like a thought expunged;
His spirit became an empty listening gulf
Void of the dead illusion of a world:
Nothing was left, not even an evil face.
Then all vanished save an empty shell that his spirit had become. The world and even its illusoriness had vanished in this stark Nothingness.
Grey python Night
He was alone with the grey python Night.
Only was left the constricting coils of the python Night.
Lust to annihilate
A dense and nameless Nothing conscious, mute,
Which seemed alive but without body or mind,
Lusted all beings to annihilate
That it might be for ever nude and sole.
But this Night was conscious and alive giving it a sinister feel. It lusted only to annihilate all beings so as to preserve its nude loneliness.
Black and giant mouth
As in a shapeless beast’s intangible jaws,
Gripped, strangled by that lusting viscous blot,
Attracted to some black and giant mouth
And swallowing throat and a huge belly of doom,
His being from its own vision disappeared
Drawn towards depths that hungered for its fall.
This darkness gripped and strangulated him as if a shapeless beast was drawn him into its intangible jaws. Its giant mouth and swallowing throat drew all things into its huge belly. Aswapati too was drawn towards this hungry depth and disappeared as if towards some doom of extinction.
A serpent force
A formless void oppressed his struggling brain,
A darkness grim and cold benumbed his flesh,
A whispered grey suggestion chilled his heart;
Haled by a serpent-force from its warm home
And dragged to extinction in bleak vacancy
Life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath;
Lapped was his body by a tenebrous tongue.
Void of sense and thought, oppressed by the grim darkness and whispers of the Night Aswapati experienced as if he was being dragged towards extinction by some serpent force. He felt his very breath being stifled as if life clung somehow while he was being lapped by a tenebrous tongue.
Strangling of Hope
Existence smothered travailed to survive;
Hope strangled perished in his empty soul,
Belief and memory abolished died
And all that helps the spirit in its course.
In that darkness mute and grim, Aswapati struggled to survive. His very existence seemed smothered and hope expelled. Belief and memory were abolished and all that helps the spirit in its ascension.
Closing Remarks
Aswapati has now completed his descent into Inconscience. He must now fathom the heart of Night.
