Opening remarks
Death tries to discredit the possibility of ideal love by describing it as a product of the moment born out of the yearnings of the body, a thing of flesh and not of the spirit.
Love is a myth
O traveller in the chariot of the Sun,
High priestess in thy holy fancy’s shrine
Who with a magic ritual in earth’s house
Worshippest ideal and eternal love,
What is this love thy thought has deified,
This sacred legend and immortal myth?
Death mockingly addresses Savitri as a traveller in the chariot of the Sun, a goddess not of the earth who is moving in the skies. Next he calls her a high priestess in the holy shrine built by her imagination who is living in the world of fancies, worshiping ideal and eternal love by some magic ritual as if it can be found in the bodily house. He then questions Savitri as to what this love is that her thoughts have turned into a god, a sacred legend and immortal myth?
Yearning of thy flesh
It is a conscious yearning of thy flesh,
It is a glorious burning of thy nerves,
A rose of dream-splendour petalling thy mind,
A great red rapture and torture of thy heart.
According to Death love is simply a conscious yearning of the flesh for some bodily pleasure. It is a burning of the nerves which our mind turns into something glorious as a dream-splendour surrounding her mind by rose petals, or a great burning rapture and torture of thy heart.
Transient transfiguration
A sudden transfiguration of thy days,
It passes and the world is as before.
Love transfigures your days momentarily and then passes away leaving all as before.
Thrill in its yearning
A ravishing edge of sweetness and of pain,
A thrill in its yearning makes it seem divine,
A golden bridge across the roar of the years,
A cord tying thee to eternity.
It is a double edged blade of sweetness and pain. It is the intensity of its thrill that makes it seem divine. Or like a golden bridge across the roar of time, an imaginary cord tying her to eternity.
Brief and frail
And yet how brief and frail! how soon is spent
This treasure wasted by the gods on man,
This happy closeness as of soul to soul,
This honey of the body’s companionship,
This heightened joy, this ecstasy in the veins,
This strange illumination of the sense!
Death points out that this thrill and yearning are fragile and lasts only for a brief while. It is a treasure spent too soon, lavished by the gods on man. Death reminds that this so-called happy closeness as of soul to soul, this sweetness of the body’s companionship with another body giving a heightened joy and ecstasy in the veins, this strange illumination of the sense is all too brief.
Fade on memory’s wall
If Satyavan had lived, love would have died;
But Satyavan is dead and love shall live
A little while in thy sad breast, until
His face and body fade on memory’s wall
Where other bodies, other faces come.
If Satyavan had lived then love would have died, remarks Death. But since Satyavan is dead, love shall live a little longer in her sad breast until the face and body of Satyavan will fade on memory’s wall and in his place other people will come and occupy her heart.
Closing Remarks
Thus Death mocks at the effort of human idealism to immortalise love that stays so briefly in the human heart.
