Apropos of Two Vast Negations — 5

Apropos of Two Vast Negations — 5

Death reveals luminous Satyavan

On the fated day, at the noon hour, Death appears in the Shalwa Forests to take away the soul of young Satyavan. The annihilation’s mystery had taken a sensible form, the Shadow of a remote uncaring god. Savitri knew that visible Death was standing there and “Satyavan had passed from her embrace”. But in a flaming moment there came a change in her. Her spirit like a vast fire climbed the skies of night. Assuming a spiritual wide control celestial strength filled in what was mortal in her. The two opposed each other, Woman and the universal god. She was commanded to leave her hold on the dead body of her husband, the hold that was making him suffer. Savitri recognised the occult of it.

Then Death, the king, leaned boundless down, as leans

Night over tired lands when evening pales

And fading gleams break down the horizon’s walls,

Nor yet the dusk grows mystic with the moon. ||135.24||

The dim and awful godhead rose erect

From his brief stooping to his touch on earth,

And like a dream that wakes out of a dream,

Forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay,

Another luminous Satyavan arose,

Starting upright from the recumbent earth

As if someone over viewless borders stepped

Emerging on the edge of unseen worlds. ||135.25||

It is to the credit of Death that luminous Satyavan was revealed, he who was residing in an earthly mortal body. But the urge of the Path was now felt and luminous he moved away, the spirit of Satyavan in front, behind it Death, Savitri behind them. Savitri is there to claim back the soul of Satyavan from Death, and he obeying the unassailable cosmic Law yielding to her in the least. Luminous Satyavan looks back with wonderful eyes at Savitri. Death raises an abysmal cry for Savitri to turn back; she should never think of uplifting her spirit from the earthly base and step into that pathless dire infinity, her transient love has no sway over the eternal gods, a voice that had the sanction of the Night. Death missioned to the night, committed to her, sends his terrifying lethal call. Far greater and occultly more powerful than the Refusal of the Ascetic and the Denial of the firm Materialist is the antagonism of this Denier of the Divine. His terrible retort to Savitri is: “Hope not to win back to thee Satyavan”.

She speaks:

I bow not to thee, O huge mask of Death,

Black lie of night to the cowed soul of man,

Unreal, inescapable end of things,

Thou grim jest played with the immortal spirit. ||137.55||

Conscious of immortality I walk. ||137.56||

A victor spirit conscious of my force,

Not as a suppliant to thy gates I came:

Unslain I have survived the clutch of Night. ||137.57||

Mine is the labour of the battling gods:

Imposing on the slow reluctant years

The flaming will that reigns beyond the stars,

They lay the law of Mind on Matter’s works

And win the soul’s wish from earth’s inconscient force. ||137.61||

I am immortal in my mortality. ||137.72||

I tremble not before the immobile gaze

Of the unchanging marble hierarchies

That look with the stone eyes of Law and Fate. ||137.73||

My soul can meet them with its living fire. ||137.74||

Out of thy shadow give me back again

Into earth’s flowering spaces Satyavan

In the sweet transiency of human limbs

To do with him my spirit’s burning will. ||137.75||

I will bear with him the ancient Mother’s load,

I will follow with him earth’s path that leads to God. ||137.76||

IX:2 # 11

Savitri Book 9 Canto 2 – The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness

Around her rolled the shuddering waste of gloom,
Its swallowing emptiness and joyless death
Resentful of her thought and life and love. ||137.140||
Through the long fading night by her compelled,
Gliding half-seen on their unearthly path,
Phantasmal in the dimness moved the three. ||137.141||

Paintings by Huta

The Winds of Wonder

Apropos of Two Vast Negations — 5

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