Savitri-study-Book-10-Canto-1

Book Ten: Canto 1

The Dream Twilight of the Ideal

Summary
In this land of Nought they drift without goal through dumb wastes. An effective beam of light follows them. It is as if Savitri has to pay for the sin of having presumed to live and to think, for having dared to will to be divine. In that formidable darkness she atones for the original revolt of Consciousness in Nature that broke the seal of the sleep of Inconscience. She is condemned to wander through eternal Night.

But Maya is only a veil of the Absolute; an occult Truth has made this great world. There is an Intelligence that works through the paradox of contraries. By Light we come and to the Light we go.

Slowly the Darkness pales and the struggling Dawn appears. Savitri finds herself in a new happy twilit world where everything is vague — vague scenes, vague spirits, vague melodies, elusive forms. Nothing is fixed, nothing stays. And yet there is a strange consistency of shapes. There is a sweetness and an appeal that are unearthly. It is a world of enchantment and strange fleeting joys.

Savitri walks through this realm besieged by bodiless touches, alluring cries, impinging thoughts and unhurting desires. Satyavan is there as the centre of this charm. Even the dreadful majesty of Death's face does not affect this intangible lustre of the skies. Savitri almost seems to be as slight as a thought mid floating thoughts. But she possesses her soul throughout. Her spirit above watches all and lives on for its high task, immutable like a fixed eternal star.

Walk in the Land of Nought

All still was darkness dread and desolate;
There was no change nor any hope of change.

In this black dream which was a house of Void,
A walk to Nowhere in a land of Nought,
Ever they drifted without aim or goal;
Gloom led to worse gloom, death to an emptier death,
In some positive Non-Being’s purposeless Vast
Through formless wastes dumb and unknowable.

All is darkness, dreary and dreadful. Still there is no change, and no prospect of change. They drift without direction or goal in that black dream-like state which is verily a house of Void; it is a walk to Nowhere in the land of Nothingness. Gloom leads to worse gloom, death to still more empty death in that aimless Vast of some impacting Non-Being, through wastes that are formless, voiceless and unknowable.

Beam of Suffering Light

An ineffectual beam of suffering light
Through the despairing darkness dogged their steps
Like the remembrance of a glory lost;
Even while it grew, it seemed unreal there,
Yet haunted Nihil’s chill stupendous realm,
Unquenchable, perpetual, lonely, null,
A pallid ghost of some dead eternity.

Through all the despairing darkness, an effective beam of light, suffering under the pressure of that darkness, follows their steps like the memory of a lost glory. Even as the beam grows, it seems unreal in that setting; yet it haunts that chill stupendous realm of Nihil, unquenchable, constant, alone, unreal, a pale surviving ghost of some eternity that is dead.

Her Original Sin

It was as if she must pay now her debt,
Her vain presumption to exist and think,
To some brilliant Maya that conceived her soul.

This most she must absolve with endless pangs,
Her deep original sin, the will to be

It is as though Savitri has now to pay her debt to some Maya (Illusion) that conceived her soul, for her vain temerity to exist and think, forgetting that she does not in fact exist at all. But that which she has to atone for most, by endless pangs of suffering, is her deep original sin of having determined to be, to exist.

Her Last And Greatest Sin

And the sin last, greatest, the spiritual pride,
That, made of dust, equalled itself with heaven,
Its scorn of the worm writhing in the mud,
Condemned, ephemeral, born from Nature’s dream,
Refusal of the transient creature’s role,
The claim to be a living fire of God,
The will to be immortal and divine.

If the will to be was her original sin, her last and her greatest sin has been her spiritual pride. Though made of earthly dust, she has dared to equal herself with heaven, scornful of the lowly creatures writhing in the common mud; born of Nature's dream and hence transient and condemned, she has refused to accept for herself their fleeting role, has claimed to be a living fire of God, and entertained the will to be divine and immortal.

She Atones For All

In that tremendous darkness heavy and bare
She atoned for all since the first act whence sprang
The error of the consciousness of Time,
The rending of the Inconscient’s seal of sleep,
The primal and unpardoned revolt that broke
The peace and silence of the Nothingness
Which was before a seeming universe
Appeared in a vanity of imagined space
And life arose engendering grief and pain:

In that bare, heavy and formidable darkness, Savitri atones for the sin that all have committed since that first act that gave room to the error of becoming aware of Tune, the breaking of the seals of the sleep of the Inconscient — that first and unforgiven revolt which broke the peace and silence of the Nothingness that had prevailed before an unreal but seeming universe appeared in the illusion of an imaginary space and life awoke begetting all consequent grief and pain.

Great Negation

A great Negation was the Real’s face
Prohibiting the vain process of Time:
And when there is no world, no creature more,
When Time’s intrusion has been blotted out,
It shall last, unbodied, saved from thought, at peace.

A great Nihil was the original appearance of the Real; and this gave no room for the vain movement of Time. And the same shall be when this world is gone and no more creature is left, when the temporary intrusion of Time will have been erased. The Negation alone shall survive, without forms, free from thought, at peace.

Through Eternal Night

Accursed in what had been her godhead source,
Condemned to live for ever empty of bliss,
Her immortality her chastisement,
Her spirit, guilty of being, wandered doomed,
Moving for ever through eternal Night.

Savitri is made to feel guilty for daring to exist; the fact of her source in divinity is made to appear a curse; she is condemned to live bereft of bliss for ever; her innate immortality seems to have invited punishment. Thus exposed, Savitri's spirit wanders endlessly, under the shadow of doom through the pervading, eternal Darkness.

Maya is a Veil

But Maya is a veil of the Absolute;
A Truth occult has made this mighty world:
The Eternal’s wisdom and self-knowledge act
In ignorant Mind and in the body’s steps.

The Inconscient is the Superconscient’s sleep.

But this imposing Maya is only a veil, a front of the Absolute Reality. An unseen Truth has made this mighty world; Maya, Illusion, is not its origin. In the movements of the ignorant Mind and the pacings of the physical body it is the wisdom and the self-knowledge of the Eternal Being that act. What appears inconscient is only a sleep, a state of dormancy of the Superconscient.

Intelligence at Work

An unintelligible Intelligence
Invents creation’s paradox profound;
Spiritual thought is crammed in Matter’s forms,
Unseen it throws out a dumb energy
And works a miracle by a machine.

An Intelligence that is beyond the understanding of the mind poses this profound paradox of contraries in creation. Spiritual thought is packed in forms of Matter. From this unseen Spirit-fount springs a dumb material energy which effects a miracle by its mechanical action.

Mystery of Contrarie

All here is a mystery of contraries:
Darkness a magic of self-hidden light,
Suffering some secret rapture’s tragic mask
And death an instrument of perpetual life.

Here in this world all is a mysterious play of opposites. Darkness is some magic of self-concealed light, suffering only an unhappy mask of a secret rapture and death an instrument, a process, of eternal life affirming itself.

Death

Although Death walks beside us on Life’s road,
A dim bystander at the body’s start
And a last judgment on man’s futile works,
Other is the riddle of its ambiguous face:
Death is a stair, a door, a stumbling stride
The soul must take to cross from birth to birth,
A grey defeat pregnant with victory,
A whip to lash us towards our deathless state.

Death is constantly by our side in our journey of life: at the very start of the body's birth, death is present in a vague form and it is the ultimate end of the vain life-activities of man. This is the appearance, but the truth of its real nature is different. Death is a passage, a ladder, a door, a precipitous step across that the soul must take to journey from birth to birth; it is a dismal defeat but holds in itself the promise of victory; it is a whip goading us to reach our real immortal state; through a long passage punctuated with death, the soul arrives at immortality.

Night our Dark Mother

The inconscient world is the spirit’s self-made room,
Eternal Night shadow of eternal Day.

Night is not our beginning nor our end;
She is the dark Mother in whose womb we have hid
Safe from too swift a waking to world-pain.

This world that is inconscient at its base is a self-projection of the spirit. Eternal Night is only a shadow of eternal Day. Night, Darkness, is neither our beginning nor our end. She is, as it were, our dark Mother in whose womb we have hidden ourselves lest we wake up too soon to the world-pain around.

Light Conquers

We came to her from a supernal Light,
By Light we live and to the Light we go.

Here in this seat of Darkness mute and lone,
In the heart of everlasting Nothingness
Light conquered now even by that feeble beam:
Its faint infiltration drilled the blind deaf mass;
Almost it changed into a glimmering sight
That housed the phantom of an aureate Sun
Whose orb pupilled the eye of Nothingness.

We have come to the dark Mother from a Light beyond; we are able to live because of the Light and we move towards the Light.

Now here in the present condition when Savitri is journeying through the eternal Night, dumb and lone, in the very heart of unending Nothingness, the Light gains over the Darkness even by a single weak beam. The faint and steady entry of that beam makes holes in the pervading, unseeing and unhearing mass of darkness. It almost changes into a glimmer of a phantom golden Sun looking like the eye of that Nothingness.

Darkness Pales

A golden fire came in and burnt Night’s heart;
Her dusky mindlessness began to dream;
The Inconscient conscious grew, Night felt and thought.

Assailed in the sovereign emptiness of its reign
The intolerant Darkness paled and drew apart
Till only a few black remnants stained that Ray.

A golden fire comes in and sets on flame Night's heart. Her dark mindlessness begins to dream; the Inconscient grows conscious, Night begins to feel and think. Then invaded in the pervading vacancy of her reign, the severe Darkness pales and withdraws till only a few black vestiges remain staining that Ray of Light.

Darkness Flees

But on a failing edge of dumb lost space
Still a great dragon body sullenly loomed;
Adversary of the slow struggling Dawn
Defending its ground of tortured mystery,
It trailed its coils through the dead martyred air
And curving fled down a grey slope of Time.

But the vast Darkness still looms on the receding edge of some unknown Space. This opponent of the Dawn that is slowly struggling to be born, is defending its ground of dark and twisted mystery that is now being assailed. Slowly through that dead martyred' air, the dragon of Darkness trails its coils and flees along a grey slope of Time.

Martyred because it has died by being the forerunner of light.

Dawn of the Gods

There is a morning twilight of the gods;
Miraculous from sleep their forms arise
And God’s long nights are justified by dawn.

There breaks a passion and splendour of new birth
And hue-winged visions stray across the lids,
The dreaming deities look beyond the seen
And fashion in their thoughts the ideal worlds
Sprung from a limitless moment of desire
That once had lodged in some abysmal heart.

Before the dawn of creation there is the hour of the awakening of the gods when they arise miraculously from their deep sleep. The periods of sleep prepare for the coming dawn; thus are the long nights of darkness justified.

A passion and splendour of new birth breaks out and colourful visions float before the eyes of the gods; they look beyond the apparent scenes and in their pregnant thoughts, they fashion the ideal worlds that issue from a boundless moment of desire — the desire that originally rose in the fathomless heart of the Transcendent Godhead.

This Desire' is at the root of creation.

Happy Twilit World

Passed was the heaviness of the eyeless dark
And all the sorrow of the night was dead:
Surprised by a blind joy with groping hands
Like one who wakes to find his dreams were true,
Into a happy misty twilit world
Where all ran after light and joy and love
She slipped; there far-off raptures drew more close
And deep anticipations of delight
For ever eager to be grasped and held,
Were never grasped, yet breathed strange ecstasy.

The heaviness of the dark Night is no more; all its sorrow is dead. Savitri is surprised by a blind joy and feels about like a person who wakes up to find that his dreams are happily true. She slips into a happy and vague world of twilight where all pursue light, joy and love. Distant raptures draw close; deep anticipations of delight offer themselves to be grasped but are never grasped and yet they breathe a strange ecstasy.

Vague Fields

A pearl-winged indistinctness fleeting swam,
An air that dared not suffer too much light.

Vague fields were there, vague pastures gleaned, vague trees,
Vague scenes dim-hearted in a drifting haze;
Vague cattle white roamed glimmering through the mist;
Vague spirits wandered with a bodiless cry,
Vague melodies touched the soul and fled pursued
Into harmonious distances unseized;

There is a fleeting and softly glowing indistinctness everywhere; it is an air that cannot bear too much light. Everything is vague; vague fields, vague pastures, vague trees, vague shifting scenes, vague white cattle roaming glistening in the mist, vague spirits wandering with an unseizable cry, vague melodies touching the soul but fleeing into distant harmonies when pursued in vain.

Elusive Forms

Forms subtly elusive and half-luminous powers
Wishing no goal for their unearthly course
Strayed happily through vague ideal lands
Or floated without footing or their walk
Left steps of reverie on sweet memory’s ground;
Or they paced to the mighty measure of their thoughts
Led by a low far chanting of the gods.

Subtle, elusive forms, half-luminous powers, with no goal for their strange, unearthly course, wander happily through these vague ideal lands; they float without treading; or they walk in reverie recalling sweet memories; or they pace to the great rhythms of their thoughts led by a low, distant intoning of the gods.

Half-Heard Lowings

A ripple of gleaming wings crossed the far sky;
Birds like pale-bosomed imaginations flew
With low disturbing voices of desire,
And half-heard lowings drew the listening ear,
As if the Sun-god’s brilliant kine were there
Hidden in mist and passing towards the sun.

A wave of shining birds crosses the far skies — birds like pale imaginations, with low disturbing voices of desire. Indistinct lowings attract the ear, as though the brilliant herds of the Sun-god were there, hidden in mist and passing towards the sun.

Nothing Fixed

These fugitive beings, these elusive shapes
Were all that claimed the eye and met the soul,
The natural inhabitants of that world.

But nothing there was fixed or stayed for long;
No mortal feet could rest upon that soil,
No breath of life lingered embodied there.

These fugitive beings and these elusive forms are all that the eye sees and the soul meets in this realm. They are the natural denizens of this world. Nothing is fixed or stays for long. No mortal can stand upon this soil, no embodied life can last here.

Fine Chaos

In that fine chaos joy fled dancing past
And beauty evaded settled line and form
And hid its sense in mysteries of hue;
Yet gladness ever repeated the same notes
And gave the sense of an enduring world;

In that chaotic realm joy flees dancing away; beauty avoids fixed line and form and hides its presence in changing hues; yet gladness there ever repeats the same notes and thus creates the illusion of a permanent world.

Strange Consistency

There was a strange consistency of shapes,
And the same thoughts were constant passers-by
And all renewed unendingly its charm
Alluring ever the expectant heart
Like music that one always waits to hear
Like the recurrence of a haunting rhyme.

Though not fixed, shapes recur with a strange consistency, while the same thoughts constantly pass by; everything renews its charm again and again, drawing the expectant heart like music that one longs to hear, like the repetition of a rhyme that haunts.

Call to Magic Heaven

One touched incessantly things never seized,
A skirt of worlds invisibly divine.

As if a trail of disappearing stars
There showered upon the floating atmosphere
Colours and lights and evanescent gleams
That called to follow into magic heaven,
And in each cry that fainted on the ear
There was the voice of an unrealised bliss.

Here one touches but is never able to seize anything; it is a hem of worlds that are felt to be divine but not quite seen. Like a line of disappearing stars, there is a shower upon the floating air of colours, lights and fleeting gleams that invite one to follow them to some strange heaven; in each faint cry that the ear catches there is the note of a bliss unrealised.

Elusive Beauty and Delight

An adoration reigned in the yearning heart,
A spirit of purity, an elusive presence
Of faery beauty and ungrasped delight
Whose momentary and escaping thrill,
However unsubstantial to our flesh,
And brief even in imperishableness,
Much sweeter seemed than any rapture known
Earth or all-conquering heaven can ever give.

An adoration pervades the aspiring heart. There is a spirit of purity, and eluding presence of unearthly beauty and ungrasped delight whose thrill, though momentary and always escaping our hold, though vague to our senses and though brief even in its imperishable quality, seems to be much more sweet than any rapture known by us, any rapture that earth or the supreme heaven can ever give.

Immortality of Heaven and Earth

Heaven ever young and earth too firm and old
Delay the heart by immobility:
Their raptures of creation last too long,
Their bold formations are too absolute;
Carved by an anguish of divine endeavour
They stand up sculptured on the eternal hills,
Or quarried from the living rocks of God
Win immortality by perfect form.

Both heaven which is ever young and earth which is too old and fixed, delay the aspiring heart by their immobility. Their delights of creation are too long. Their strong formations are too concrete and unchanging; shaped by the toils of a divine effort they are there permanently chiselled on the eternal hills of Nature; or excavated and dug up from the living rocks of God, they are immortal in their perfect form.

They are too Great

They are too intimate with eternal things:
Vessels of infinite significances,
They are too clear, too great, too meaningful;
No mist or shadow soothes the vanquished sight,
No soft penumbra of incertitude.

These formations are too close to what is eternal. They carry boundless significance, they are too clear-cut, too great, too full of meaning. Neither mist nor shadow is about them to comfort the helpless vision, nor is there any shade of incertitude.

Touch the Hem of Bliss

These only touch a golden hem of bliss,
The gleaming shoulder of some godlike hope,
The flying feet of exquisite desires.

The things of this twilight world, however, touch only the bright hem of a supernal Bliss, brush against some shining godlike hope, draw awhile the fleeting company of keen desires.

On a Brink between Night and Day

On a slow trembling brink between night and day
They shone like visitants from the morning star,
Satisfied beginnings of perfection, first
Tremulous imaginings of a heavenly world:
They mingle in a passion of pursuit,
Thrilled with a spray of joy too slight to tire.

They glisten, on the tremulous border between night and day, like visitors from another planet contented beginnings of a perfection to come, the first vague imaginations of a heavenly world. They mingle with each other in an intensity of pursuit — they are ever fleeting —, vibrating with a sparkle of joy that is too light to be fatigued.

All Shadowed, not Limned

All in this world was shadowed forth, not limned,
Like faces leaping on a fan of fire
Or shapes of wonder in a tinted blur,
Like fugitive landscapes painting silver mists.

Here vision fled back from the sight alarmed,
And sound sought refuge from the ear’s surprise,
And all experience was a hasty joy.

In this twilight world all is shadowy, nothing is dearly outlined — like figures dancing on a sheet of fire or wondrous forms shaping in a hued blur, or fleeting landscapes appearing as paintings on the silvery mists. Here vision flees in alarm before the eye, sound ebbs away from the grasp of the ear, all experience is a hurried and fleeting joy.

Tremblings in Expectation

The joys here snatched were half-forbidden things,
Timorous soul-bridals delicately veiled
As when a goddess’ bosom dimly moves
To first desire and her white soul transfigured,
A glimmering Eden crossed by fairy gleams,
Trembles to expectation’s fiery wand,
But nothing is familiar yet with bliss.

The joys snatched in this realm are half-forbidden things. All are hesitant movements of soul felicity behind delicate veils. They are like the timid thrillings of a goddess to the first advent of desire and the transmuting yieldings of her pure white soul which is like a shimmering heaven crossed by rays of fairy gleams trembling in fiery expectation but not yet knowing real bliss.

All is Strange

All things in this fair realm were heavenly strange
In a fleeting gladness of untired delight,
In an insistency of magic change.

All is heavenly strange in this realm: there is a fleeting felicity of unflagging delight, there is a compulsion of magical change.

Savitri Journeys

Past vanishing hedges, hurrying hints of fields,
Mid swift escaping lanes that fled her feet
Journeying she wished no end: as one through clouds
Travels upon a mountain ridge and hears
Arising to him out of hidden depths
Sound of invisible streams, she walked besieged
By the illusion of a mystic space,
A charm of bodiless touches felt and heard
A sweetness as of voices high and dim
Calling like travellers upon seeking winds
Melodiously with an alluring cry.

Savitri journeys past disappearing hedges and glimpses of fields rapidly passing amidst lanes that seem to flee beneath her feet; she has no wish to end her journey through this enchanting realm. She walks surrounded by the illusion of a mystic space like one walking through clouds upon a mountain-slope and hearing the sound of unseen streams arising out of unseen depths. She feels the charm of formless touches upon herself, and hears sweet sounds like that of high and dim voices arising from the crest of questing winds and calling melodiously with a captivating cry.

Clinging thoughts Andsinging Desires

As if a music old yet ever new,
Moving suggestions on her heart-strings dwelt,
Thoughts that no habitation found, yet clung
With passionate repetition to her mind,
Desires that hurt not, happy only to live
Always the same and always unfulfilled
Sang in the breast like a celestial lyre.

Thus all could last, yet nothing ever be.

Passing suggestions touch her heart-strings like some music old and yet always fresh, thoughts — though not finding a lodging in her — cling to her mind passionately repeating themselves; desires that do not hurt and are happy to be only allowed to live — ever the same and ever unfulfilled — sing in her breast like a heavenly lyre.

Thus all can continue to last and yet nothing can ever be.

Satyavan Centre of the Charm

In this beauty as of mind made visible,
Dressed in its rays of wonder Satyavan
Before her seemed the centre of its charm,
Head of her loveliness of longing dreams
And captain of the fancies of her soul.

In this beauty which seems as though it were the invisible beauty of mind made visible, Satyavan dressed in its wondrous rays appears before her as the very centre of its charm, the source of the loveliness of her longing dreams and the captain of the fancies of her soul.

Death cannot Darken

Even the dreadful majesty of Death’s face
And its sombre sadness could not darken nor slay
The intangible lustre of those fleeting skies.

Even the fearful grandeur of Death's face and its dismal sadness cannot darken or slay the impalpable lustre of these fleeting skies.

Beauty and Laughter made Imperative

The sombre Shadow sullen, implacable
Made beauty and laughter more imperative;
Enhanced by his grey, joy grew more bright and dear;
His dark contrast edging ideal sight
Deepened unuttered meanings to the heart;
Pain grew a trembling undertone of bliss
And transience immortality’s floating hem,
A moment’s robe in which she looked more fair,
Its antithesis sharpening her divinity.

The sombre Shadow that is Death, sullen and unappeasable, makes beauty and laughter all the more indispensable; heightened by his dismal air, joy grows brighter and yet more sweet; his dark contrast against the ideal vision prevailing here deepens the unexpressed meanings of things to the heart; pain grows into a vibrating undertone of bliss; transience is the floating edge of immortality, a robe of the moment in which she (immortality) looks more fair, the very contrast (of transience) throwing into bold relief her divinity.

Savitri almost a Thought

A comrade of the Ray and Mist and Flame,
By a moon-bright face a brilliant moment drawn,
Almost she seemed a thought mid floating thoughts,
Seen hardly by a visionary mind
Amid the white inward musings of the soul

A companion of the Ray of Truth and the Flame of Will and the Mist of the Ineffable, Savitri — with her moon-bright face looking like a picture drawn in a brilliant moment — seems to be as intangible as a thought amidst floating thoughts, hardly glimpsed by a mind in reverie, amidst the pure white inward musings of the soul.

Savitri Possesses her Soul

Half-vanquished by the dream-happiness around,
Awhile she moved on an enchantment’s soil,
But still remained possessor of her soul.

Above, her spirit in its mighty trance
Saw all, but lived for its transcendent task,
Immutable like a fixed eternal star.

Partly overcome by the dream-like happiness around her, Savitri moves for a while in that world of enchantment; but she continues to be in possession of her soul. She is not lost in the enchantment. Above her is her spirit unmoving like a fixed eternal star in its mighty trance, it sees all but lives aloof for its high task.