Opening Remarks
The queen raises her questions to Narad the heavenly sage.
Earth’s strange twi-natured life
“O seer, in the earth’s strange twi-natured life
By what pitiless adverse Necessity
Or what cold freak of a Creator’s will,
By what random accident or governed Chance
That shaped a rule out of fortuitous steps,
Made destiny from an hour’s emotion, came
Into the unreadable mystery of Time
The direr mystery of grief and pain?
The queen asks Narad as to what is this strange law of earth life, what is this Creator’s will or what random accidents and Chance that shape our destiny from a moment’s emotion. What is this mystery of pain and grief that afflicts all creatures upon earth.
Cruel law
Is it thy God who made this cruel law?
She finds it a cruel law and asks if God has made it so?
Some disastrous Power
Or some disastrous Power has marred his work
And he stands helpless to defend or save?
Or is it some disastrous power that has spoilt God’s work and He is now helpless against it.
A fatal seed
A fatal seed was sown in life’s false start
When evil twinned with good on earthly soil.
She remarks that a fatal seed of evil was sown in the very beginning of life that twinned itself with good upon earth.
Malady of the mind
Then first appeared the malady of mind,
Its pang of thought, its quest for the aim of life.
Then mind appeared with its urge to know and think. And search for an aim.
Good and ill
It twisted into forms of good and ill
The frank simplicity of the animal’s acts;
It turned the straight path hewn by the body’s gods,
Followed the zigzag of the uncertain course
Of life that wanders seeking for its aim
In the pale starlight falling from thought’s skies,
Its guides the unsure idea, the wavering will.
The mind started categorising life into good and ill thereby turning away from the simplicity of animal instincts and the straight path that follows the inbuilt intuition in the body. It followed an uncertain path meandering in search of an aim in the pale starlight of thought, guiding he unsure idea and the wavering will.
Instinct’s safe identity
Lost was the instinct’s safe identity
With the arrow-point of being’s inmost sight,
Marred the sure steps of Nature’s simple walk
And truth and freedom in the growing soul.
With the emergence of the mind the safety of the instinct was lost through which one could know the immediate necessity. This straight and simple road of nature was marred and with it the truth and freedom in the growing soul.
Born in pain and with a cry
Out of some ageless innocence and peace,
Privilege of souls not yet betrayed to birth,
Cast down to suffer on this hard dangerous earth
Our life was born in pain and with a cry.
We lost the ageless innocence that we had before the advent of the mind as if we fell and were cast down from the skies to suffer upon this dangerous earth. Our life itself is born in pain and with a cry.
Closing Remarks
It is with the advent of mind that the sure natural instinct of the animal is lost leaving man with an uncertainty wherein he has to make conscious choices.
