The Winds of Wonder

A maenad of the cycles of desire

Dear Deshpande,

A maenad of the cycle of desire

Around a Light she must not dare to touch

Hastening towards afar-of unknown goal

Earth followed the endless journey of the Sun.    93.1

Why “she must not dare to touch”?

Marc Desplanque

RYD Responds

The correct sentence is:

A maenad of the cycles of desire

Around a Light she must not dare to touch,

Hastening towards a far-off unknown goal

Earth followed the endless journey of the Sun. ||93.1||

Why she must not dare to touch that Light? — because she is in the cycles of desire, the daily rounds of the earthly life, in quotidian things. She will touch when Savitri will make her free of them. The Eternal is stepping into the cycles of Time; that is why the Canto opens with the six Seasons, her mortal birth occurring in February when Nature is at Beauty’s Festival. The Eternal into the Temporal without losing that eternality is the incarnation of the supreme Creative Force, coming down of the Divine Mother herself. She comes to make things divine, for the life divine in a divine body.

Thank you for this crystal clear answer!

Marc

Featured Image: Painting by Huta

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||

Then Spring,| an ar|+dent lov|+er, leaped| through leaves|

And caught| the earth|-bride in his ea|+ger clasp;|

His ad|+vent was| a fire| of i|+rised hues,|

His arms| were a cir|+cle of| the ar+ri|+val of joy.|