Opening Remarks
Even as Savitri dwelt in her new found inner felicity the Abyss opened up denying her victory. It tried to inflict her with a nameless fear born from the deepest gulfs of darkness.
An abyss yawned
Once as she sat in deep felicitous muse,
Still quivering from her lover’s strong embrace,
And made her joy a bridge twixt earth and heaven,
An abyss yawned suddenly beneath her heart.
Once while Savitri sat musing in a deep felicitous state still quivering from the sweetness of Satyavan’s embrace making her joy a bridge towards the heights, suddenly an abyss opened in her heart.
Vast and nameless fear
A vast and nameless fear dragged at her nerves
As drags a wild beast its half-slaughtered prey;
It seemed to have no den from which it sprang:
It was not hers, but hid its unseen cause.
Death came to remind her of the transience and vanity of earthly life filling her nerves dragging her as a wild beast would drag its half-slaughtered prey. She could not surmise its origin though she saw that it was not natural to her. Yet its hidden cause could not be seen.
Fearful front
Then rushing came its vast and fearful Fount.
Then it came rushing with a huge and fearful mouth to seize her.
Formless dread
A formless Dread with shapeless endless wings
Filling the universe with its dangerous breath,
A denser darkness than the Night could bear,
Enveloped the heavens and possessed the earth.
It came to her as a formless dread with shapeless wings that could fill the universe with its dangerous breath. It was a darkness denser than the Night could endure. It enveloped the heavens and possessed the earth with its terror and dread.
Silent death
A rolling surge of silent death, it came
Curving round the far edge of the quaking globe;
Effacing heaven with its enormous stride
It willed to expunge the choked and anguished air
And end the fable of the joy of life.
It was the silent tread of death that came from around the far edges of earth. It seemed to efface the heavens with its enormous stride as if to blot and chock the anguished air and completely remove and end the myth of the joy of life.
Black infinity
It seemed her very being to forbid,
Abolishing all by which her nature lived,
And laboured to blot out her body and soul,
A clutch of some half-seen Invisible,
An ocean of terror and of sovereign might,
A person and a black infinity.
It seemed to forbid her very being from existing, abolishing all that was natural to her being. This darkness and dread clutched and threatened to abolish her body and soul. It was as if an unseen or half-seen ocean of terror and sovereign might, a dark infinity had assumed a shape.
Made unreal the world
It seemed to cry to her without thought or word
The message of its dark eternity
And the awful meaning of its silences:
Out of some sullen monstrous vast arisen,
Out of an abysmal deep of grief and fear
Imagined by some blind regardless self,
A consciousness of being without its joy,
Empty of thought, incapable of bliss,
That felt life blank and nowhere found a soul,
A voice to the dumb anguish of the heart
Conveyed a stark sense of unspoken words;
In her own depths she heard the unuttered thought
That made unreal the world and all life meant.
It seemed to cry to her without thought or word the message of its dark eternity and the awful meaning of its immense silences. Out of some grey monstrous foulness it rose, out of some abysmal deep grief and fear it came up as some blind and regardless self or a consciousness of joyless being. It seemed empty of thought and incapable of bliss. It felt life as a blank emptiness and without a soul. Its voice was a dumb anguish of the heart the conveyed the stark sense of unspoken words. She felt and heard the voice of its unspoken thought that made the world seem vain and unreal and life meaningless without a purpose and aim.
Closing Remarks
Death is introduced as a nameless dread and fear that nudges the human heart and fills us with the sense of meaninglessness of existence. It robs us of all joy and makes all effort seem vain.
