The Queen Speaks, pp. 425-426

Opening remarks
The queen is now a bit alarmed and hence bids the sage to speak out what he knows and has seen.

Narad answered not
He said and Narad answered not the king.

Narad answered not after listening to the king and his advice that it is best not to reveal the face of fate to man.

The queen is alarmed
But now the queen alarmed lifted her voice:
“O seer, thy bright arrival has been timed
To this high moment of a happy life;
Then let the speech benign of griefless spheres
Confirm this blithe conjunction of two stars
And sanction joy with thy celestial voice.

The queen is bit alarmed at Aswapati’s request to Narad not to reveal the future unless he has the power to change it. She now turns to Narad and instead says that he has come at just the right moment when Savitri has returned from her quest. She requests him to to confirm Savitri’s choice with his benign speech born of the griefless domains. She expects Narad to say that it is indeed the meeting of two stars and to bless her daughter and the mate she has chosen with the boon of joy in togetherness.

Let not the words create the doom
Here drag not in the peril of our thoughts,
Let not our words create the doom they fear.

Our thoughts are dynamic formations and act to realise themselves. Knowing this the queen further requests the sage to bring not any thought of peril and doom and justify our fears.

No cause for dread
Here is no cause for dread, no chance for grief
To raise her ominous head and stare at love.

Hopeful of things, she sees no cause for dread or grief to raise its ominous head and stare at their new found love.

A single spirit in a multitude
A single spirit in a multitude,
Happy is Satyavan mid earthly men
Whom Savitri has chosen for her mate,
And fortunate the forest hermitage
Where leaving her palace and riches and a throne
My Savitri will dwell and bring in heaven.

The queen further says that Satyavan is very fortunate, one and unique to have been chosen by her daughter out of the multitude of humanity. The forest hermitage where Satyavan dwells is very fortunate, she feels, where her daughter shall go leaving the riches and a throne of the palace. Her arrival to the hermitage will bring heaven there with her own fortune.

The immortals’ seal
Then let thy blessing put the immortals’ seal
On these bright lives’ unstained felicity
Pushing the ominous Shadow from their days.

So now she requests the heavenly sage to bless the bright couple putting the seal of gods on an unstained felicity and pushing the Shadow of grief and pain from their days.

The Shadow
Too heavy falls a Shadow on man’s heart;
It dares not be too happy upon earth.

She ruminates that the Shadow and darkness and suffering is too heavy for the human heart so that it dares not to be too happy upon earth.

It dreads the blow
It dreads the blow dogging too vivid joys,
A lash unseen in Fate’s extended hand,
The danger lurking in fortune’s proud extremes,
An irony in life’s indulgent smile,
And trembles at the laughter of the gods.

The human heart dreads the blow that often follows too vivid joys as a lash unseen in Fate’s hand. There is a danger lurking in proud extreme fortune, an irony in life’s indulgent smile and a tremble at the laughter of the gods.

Then also speak
Or if crouches unseen a panther doom,
If wings of Evil brood above that house,
Then also speak, that we may turn aside
And rescue our lives from hazard of wayside doom
And chance entanglement of an alien fate.”

However at the close she bids the sage to speak even if he sees doom crouching behind the days and evil brood above the house of Satyavan. It is better to know she feels so that they could be forewarned and step aside from the path of doom and an unwitting entanglement with adverse fate.

Closing Remarks
The queen has asked the sage to bless the pair of Savitri and Satyavan yet she does wish to know what fate has actually in store for them.