Savitri Replies, pp. 435-436 & Closing Remarks for the Canto

Opening Remarks
It is now Savitri’s moment of a decisive final choice. She boldly declares.

The spirit’s strength
But Savitri replied with steadfast eyes:
“My will is part of the eternal Will,
My fate is what my spirit’s strength can make,
My fate is what my spirit’s strength can bear;
My strength is not the Titan’s; it is God’s.

Savitri steadfast in her will replies that her will is part of the eternal Will. Her choice is therefore not made under a rash titanic impulse but from the depths of her soul that has the strength to bear and change the scroll of fate.

Unchanging soul of love
I have discovered my glad reality
Beyond my body in another’s being:
I have found the deep unchanging soul of love.

She affirms that she has discovered her own glad reality in Satyavan, the complimentary soul and thereby found the deep unchanging love.

A lonely good
Then how shall I desire a lonely good,
Or slay, aspiring to white vacant peace,
The endless hope that made my soul spring forth
Out of its infinite solitude and sleep?

How then can she desire a lonely good or slay her endless hope of perfect love that made her soul enter the cycles of creation out of infinite solitude of the state before creation. She cannot now return to a blank neutral peace desiring a lonely good of a personal nirvana.

Deep possibility
My spirit has glimpsed the glory for which it came,
The beating of one vast heart in the flame of things,
My eternity clasped by his eternity
And, tireless of the sweet abysms of Time,
Deep possibility always to love.

Savitri reveals that she is a conscious being. She has glimpsed the purpose of her birth. She incarnates the power of boundless universal love that unites all things in the universal Self. She has seen the eternity of Satyavan and is not charmed by form and appearances. She knows that her love will outlast time and stay through numberless bodies and births.

This is first
This, this is first, last joy and to its throb
The riches of a thousand fortunate years
Are poverty. Nothing to me are death and grief
Or ordinary lives and happy days.

She is clear about her priority. Her love for Satyavan is the first and last joy before which even a thousand fortunate years or ordinary lives and happy days are a poverty. Death and grief mean nothing to her since she is conscious of her soul.

Common souls of men
And what to me are common souls of men
Or eyes and lips that are not Satyavan’s?

Her heart and destiny are now tied to Satyavan. The common souls of men, their eyes and lips mean nothing to her.

No need to draw back
I have no need to draw back from his arms
And the discovered paradise of his love
And journey into a still infinity.

She does not feel any necessity to draw back from Satyavan’s embrace in whom she has discovered the joy of true love and the journey towards the still infinity, the Divine Presence that declares itself through Peace rather than restlessness.

I shall walk with him
Only now for my soul in Satyavan
I treasure the rich occasion of my birth:
In sunlight and a dream of emerald ways
I shall walk with him like gods in Paradise.

She has felt it through the deep contact with her soul that it is Satyavan who is her chosen partner in the game of life. It has given her a new purpose for which she treasures her birth. Now she is ready to walk with him through the sunlit and the dream worlds as the gods in their heavens.

That year is all my life
If for a year, that year is all my life.

If he is destined to live only for a year then that one year with him is all her life.

This is not all my fate
And yet I know this is not all my fate
Only to live and love awhile and die.

Yet she knows that this is not all her fate, to live and love awhile and die.

I know who I am
For I know now why my spirit came on earth
And who I am and who he is I love.

Savitri knows who she is and her purpose, the work she has to do. She knows who is Satyavan wearing a mortal form.

I have seen
I have looked at him from my immortal Self,
I have seen God smile at me in Satyavan;
I have seen the Eternal in a human face.”

The power of love has rent the veil and she has seen God smile at her in Satyavan. She has looked upon him from her soul depths and seen the Eternal in a human face.

None could answer
Then none could answer to her words. Silent
They sat and looked into the eyes of Fate.

Her words were too powerful and none could answer her. Everyone became silent looking into and trying to understand the ways of fate.

Closing Remarks
The scroll of destiny has been opened. Now the characters involved has to each make their move. At the centre of it all there stands Savitri with her strong unshakable will.

Closing Remarks for the Canto

This Canto is the moment of transition in the epic whence the story suddenly enters a dramatic unexpected turn. Savitri, the incarnate Divine Mother is destined to bear the burden of an adverse Fate. She must pass through the gates of suffering and pain supported by the power of Love and her lonely steadfast will made stronger by the decree.