Savitri’s response to the challenge of Death, p. 571

Opening Remarks
Savitri suddenly finds herself alone in the forest with the corpse of Satyavan by her side. Immobile to the blow Savitri soon regains her poise and rises to the challenge of Death and Fate.

Alone in the huge wood
So was she left alone in the huge wood,
Surrounded by a dim unthinking world,
Her husband’s corpse on her forsaken breast.

Satyavan had died and Savitri was left alone in the huge wood surrounded by the forest and its creatures. Satyavan’s lifeless body was lying on her breast.

Silent motionless spirit
In her vast silent spirit motionless
She measured not her loss with helpless thoughts,
Nor rent with tears the marble seals of pain:
She rose not yet to face the dreadful god.

Savitri remains motionless and silent for a while not letting in any despondent thoughts of loss or cry in helpless pain. For a while she was there not yet arisen to the challenge of Death, the dreadful god.

Her soul leaned out
Over the body she loved her soul leaned out
In a great stillness without stir or voice,
As if her mind had died with Satyavan.

Her soul leaned out with all her love over the body of Satyavan without any stir or sound as if her mind had grown blank.

The human heart
But still the human heart in her beat on.

But the human heart continued to live.

Closely she clasped
Aware still of his being near to hers,
Closely she clasped to her the mute lifeless form
As though to guard the oneness they had been
And keep the spirit still within its frame.

She was aware that not all of Satyavan had gone. Savitri clasped the lifeless body as if to keep the oneness of the soul intact and through it keep it still around.

The change
Then suddenly there came on her the change
Which in tremendous moments of our lives
Can overtake sometimes the human soul
And hold it up towards its luminous source.

Then suddenly a change took over her which in tremendous moments of crisis can seize the soul and connect it with its luminous source.

Only the spirit
The veil is torn, the thinker is no more:
Only the spirit sees and all is known.

In such tremendous moments of the soul, the thinker steps behind and the veil between the outer and the inmost is completely rent. Only the seer spirit remains that sees and knows all.

Closing Remarks
The first natural human response being subdued, Savitri now prepares herself for the greater divine response.