Opening Remarks
The prophesy tears the queen’s heart. She cries out in anguish and pain.
The sentence
A lightning bright and nude the sentence fell.
Narad’s prophesy struck everyone as a sentence of punishment or a verdict of suffering and pain.
The queen retorts
But the queen cried: “Vain then can be heaven’s grace!
The queen retorted saying that vain is heaven’s grace.
Heaven mocks
Heaven mocks us with the brilliance of its gifts,
For Death is a cupbearer of the wine
Of too brief joy held up to mortal lips
For a passionate moment by the careless gods.
The queen released her anguish saying that heaven then mocks us with its brilliant gifts since death brings this sweet wine of love to the lips of Savitri for a brief joy. It is as if the careless gods had lent one passionate moment for Savitri and Satyavan.
But I reject
But I reject the grace and the mockery.
The queen thereby rejects the proposal made by Savitri.
Go forth once more
Mounting thy car go forth, O Savitri,
And travel once more through the peopled lands.
She bids Savitri to go once more in her chariot and travel through the lands.
Misleading call
Alas, in the green gladness of the woods
Thy heart has stooped to a misleading call.
She believes it is a misleading which Savitri has heard and her heart has made a choice.
Choose once again
Choose once again and leave this fated head,
Death is the gardener of this wonder-tree;
Love’s sweetness sleeps in his pale marble hand.
She asks Savitri to choose once again and leave Satyavan since his wonderful being is being nurtured by Death and hence the sweetness of love in his hands are soon going to turn pale.
Too bitter an end
Advancing in a honeyed line but closed,
A little joy would buy too bitter an end.
Though she may find joy in Satyavan but it is brief and will meet too bitter and end.
Plead not
Plead not thy choice, for death has made it vain.
She asks of Savitri not to plead anymore for her choice since death has made it meaningless.
A choice less rare
Thy youth and radiance were not born to lie
A casket void dropped on a careless soil;
A choice less rare may call a happier fate.”
The queen tries to dissuade Savitri by reminding her that her radiance and youth was not meant to suffer thus and live as if dead through the loss of her husband. It is better to choose a less rare being but one with whom she can meet a happier fate.
Closing Remarks
Thus the queen alarmed and filled with anguish because of the prophesy bids Savitri to leave Satyavan and choose someone else.
