The Winds of Wonder

05: Notes — Scansion of a Line in Savitri

In the following passage from Savitri Book Four Canto One we are looking into a line from the point of its scansion. The passage describes the six Indian seasons in the context of timeless transcendental Savitri entering into the paces of time, she accepting the mortal birth. Here is the Spring, an ardent lover, announcing that splendidest birth:

Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves

And caught the earth-bride in his eager clasp;

His advent was a fire of irised hues,

His arms were a circle of the arrival of joy. ||93.23||

His voice was a call to the Transcendent’s sphere

Whose secret touch upon our mortal lives

Keeps ever new the thrill that made the world,

Remoulds an ancient sweetness to new shapes

And guards intact unchanged by death and Time

The answer of our hearts to Nature’s charm

And keeps for ever new, yet still the same,

The throb that ever wakes to the old delight

And beauty and rapture and the joy to live. ||93.24||

His coming brought the magic and the spell,

At his touch life’s tired heart grew glad and young;

He made joy a willing prisoner in her breast. ||93.25||

His grasp was a young god’s upon earth’s limbs:

Changed by the passion of his divine outbreak

He made her body beautiful with his kiss. ||93.26||

Our present focus is on second line in this sentence:

His coming brought the magic and the spell,

At his touch life’s tired heart grew glad and young;

He made joy a willing prisoner in her breast. ||93.25||

Let us scan these lines:

His com|+ing brought| the mag|+ic and| the spell,|

At his| touch life’s| tired heart| grew glad| and young;|

He made joy| a will|+ing pris|+on+er| in her breast.| 93.25

Iamb-iamb-iamb-pyrrhic-iamb

Pyrrhic-spondee-spondee-spondee-iamb

Anapæst-iamb-iamb-pyrrhic-anapæst

That will be a straightforward conventional scanning of the middle line, — At his| touch life’s| tired heart| grew glad| and young. There is a fascination also for the occurrence of three consecutive spondees carrying a kind of happy weight. But that is rather heavy and sounds somewhat jerky at the beginning, — At his| touch life’s|. Perhaps it could be seen from some other angles.

English prosody does permit a single strong mono-syllable foot at the beginning or at the end, very rarely both as in Savitri. If it can be extended to one in the middle of a line we could have

At his touch| life’s| tired heart| grew glad| and young|

Anapæst-iamb-spondee-spondee-iamb.

The possessive “life’s” has sufficient accent for this scansion to stand.

Alternatively, this line could very well be as follows, with “life’s” read as disyllabic because of the sufficient length it has, the perceptible but distinct pause after “life’s” enhancing it as with two syllables, a trochee:

At his touch| life’s| tired heart| grew glad| and young|

Anapæst-trochee-spondee-spondee-iamb.

There is yet another possibility, “tired” read as a trochee, like “fire”, or “desired”, “inspired” amphibrachs, for instance, in

A fi|re fla|ming low| in Na|ture’s grate| ||140.25||

Iamb-iamb-iamb-iamb-iamb

Fire|-intima|tions from| the death|less planes| ||97.9||

Trochee-anapæst-pyrhic-iamb-iamb

She broke| in with| inspi|red speech| for scythe| ||8.8|

Iamb-pyrrhic-iamb-iamb-iamb

And fill| their thoughts| with her| inspi|red voice| ||51.18||

Iamb-iamb-pyrrhic-iamb-iamb

In that case our line would be scanned as follows:

At his touch| life’s ti|red heart| grew glad| and young|

Anapæst-spondee-iamb-spondee-iamb

I would tend to go by this foot-division, in the charm of spondee-iamb spondee-iamb pacing with a strong rhythm of the hopping joy, life glad and young, spondee-iamb.

Savitri Book 4 Canto 1 – The Birth and Childhood of the Flame

Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves

And caught the earth-bride in his eager clasp;

His advent was a fire of irised hues,

His arms were a circle of the arrival of joy. ||93.23||

The featured image is a painting by Huta, IV:1 # 6