Savitri, boek 4 t/m 6: The Book of Birth and Quest, The Book of Love, The Book of Fate

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SAVITRI, INHOUD (klik op de link om direct naar het betreffende boek te gaan)

1. The Book of Beginnings

2. The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds

3. The Book of the Divine Mother

4. The Book of Birth and Quest

5. The Book of Love

6. The Book of Fate

7. The Book of Yoga

8. The Book of Death

9. The Book of Eternal Night

10. The Book of the Double Twilight

11. The Book of Everlasting Day

12. Epilogue

Book Four: The Book of Birth and Quest

4.1. The Birth and Childhood of the Flame

020   Across the burning languor of the soil
021   Paced Summer with his pomp of violent noons
022   And stamped his tyranny of torrid light
023   And the blue seal of a great burnished sky.

025   Rain-tide burst in upon torn wings of heat,
026   Startled with lightnings air's unquiet drowse,
027   Lashed with life-giving streams the torpid soil,
028   Overcast with flare and sound and storm-winged dark
029   The star-defended doors of heaven's dim sleep,
030   Or from the gold eye of her paramour
031   Covered with packed cloud-veils the earth's brown face.

068   Earth's mood now changed; she lay in lulled repose,
069   The hours went by with slow contented tread:
070   A wide and tranquil air remembered peace,
071   Earth was the comrade of a happy sun.
. . .
082   Three thoughtful seasons passed with shining tread
083   And scanning one by one the pregnant hours
084   Watched for a flame that lurked in luminous depths,
085   The vigil of some mighty birth to come.

086   Autumn led in the glory of her moons
087   And dreamed in the splendour of her lotus pools

088   And Winter and Dew-time laid their calm cool hands
089   On Nature's bosom still in a half sleep
090   And deepened with hues of lax and mellow ease
091   The tranquil beauty of the waning year.

092   Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves
093   And caught the earth-bride in his eager clasp;
094   His advent was a fire of irised hues,
095   His arms were a circle of the arrival of joy.

139   In this high signal moment of the gods
140   Answering earth's yearning and her cry for bliss,
141   A greatness from our other countries came.
. . .
149   A spirit of its celestial source aware
. . .
151   Descended into earth's imperfect mould
152   And wept not fallen to mortality,
153   But looked on all with large and tranquil eyes.

199   Outlined by the pressure of this new descent
200   A lovelier body formed than earth had known.
201   As yet a prophecy only and a hint,
202   The glowing arc of a charmed unseen whole,
203   It came into the sky of mortal life
204   Bright like the crescent horn of a gold moon
205   Returning in a faint illumined eve.

215   But soon the link of soul with form grew sure;
216   Flooded was the dim cave with slow conscient light,
217   The seed grew into a delicate marvellous bud,
218   The bud disclosed a great and heavenly bloom.
219   At once she seemed to found a mightier race.
. . .
229   Her nature dwelt in a strong separate air
230   Like a strange bird with large rich-coloured breast
231   That sojourns on a secret fruited bough,
232   Lost in the emerald glory of the woods
233   Or flies above divine unreachable tops.

335   An image made of heaven's transparent light.
336   Its charm recalled things seen in vision's hours,
337   A golden bridge spanning a faery flood,
338   A moon-touched palm-tree single by a lake
339   Companion of the wide and glimmering peace,
340   A murmur as of leaves in Paradise
341   Moving when feet of the Immortals pass,
342   A fiery halo over sleeping hills,
343   A strange and starry head alone in Night.

4.2. The Growth of the Flame

001   A land of mountains and wide sun-beat plains
002   And giant rivers pacing to vast seas,
003   A field of creation and spiritual hush,
004   Silence swallowing life's acts into the deeps,
005   Of thought's transcendent climb and heavenward leap,
006   A brooding world of reverie and trance,
007   Filled with the mightiest works of God and man,
008   Where Nature seemed a dream of the Divine
009   And beauty and grace and grandeur had their home,
010   Harboured the childhood of the incarnate Flame.

057. Intense philosophies pointed earth to heaven
...
062. Sculpture and painting concentrated sense
063. Upon an inner vision's motionless verge,
...
067. The architecture of the Infinite
068. Discovered here its inward-musing shapes
069. Captured into wide breadths of soaring stone:
070. Music brought down celestial yearnings, song
071. Held the merged heart absorbed in rapturous depths,
...
073. The world-interpreting movements of the dance
074. Moulded idea and mood to a rhythmic sway

152   A friend and yet too great wholly to know,
153   She walked in their front towards a greater light,
154   Their leader and queen over their hearts and souls,
155   One close to their bosoms, yet divine and far.

205   They were moved by her towards great unknown things,
. . .
208   Some turned to her against their nature's bent;
209   Divided between wonder and revolt,
. . .
212   Impatient subjects, their tied longing hearts
213   Hugging the bonds close of which they most complained,
214   Murmured at a yoke they would have wept to lose,
215   The splendid yoke of her beauty and her love:

265   The Force in her drew earth's subhuman broods;
266   And to her spirit's large and free delight
267   She joined the ardent-hued magnificent lives
268   Of animal and bird and flower and tree.
269   They answered to her with the simple heart.

301   A key to a Light still kept in being's cave,
302   The sun-word of an ancient mystery's sense,
303   Her name ran murmuring on the lips of men

312   No equal heart came close to join her heart,
. . .
335   Midst those encircling lives her spirit dwelt,
336   Apart in herself until her hour of fate.

4.3. The Call to the Quest

001   A morn that seemed a new creation's front,
002   Bringing a greater sunlight, happier skies,
003   Came burdened with a beauty moved and strange
004   Out of the changeless origin of things.
. . .
014   King Aswapati listened through the ray
015   To other sounds than meet the sense-formed ear.

109   The Voice withdrew into its hidden skies.
110   But like a shining answer from the gods
111   Approached through sun-bright spaces Savitri.

165   An impromptu from the deeper sight within,
166   Thoughts rose in him that knew not their own scope.
167   Then to those large and brooding depths whence Love
168   Regarded him across the straits of mind,
169   He spoke in sentences from the unseen Heights.

239   Accustomed scenes were now an ended play:
240   Moving in muse amid familiar powers,
241   Touched by new magnitudes and fiery signs,
242   She turned to vastnesses not yet her own;
243   Allured her heart throbbed to unknown sweetnesses;
244   The secrets of an unseen world were close.

255   When the pale dawn slipped through Night's shadowy guard,
256   Vainly the new-born light desired her face;
257   The palace woke to its own emptiness;
258   The sovereign of its daily joys was far;
259   Her moonbeam feet tinged not the lucent floors:
260   The beauty and divinity were gone.
261   Delight had fled to search the spacious world.

4.4. The Quest

001   The world-ways opened before Savitri.
. . .
025   A guidance turned the dumb revolving wheels
026   And in the eager body of their speed
027   The dim-masked hooded godheads rode who move
028   Assigned to man immutably from his birth,
029   Receivers of the inner and outer law,
030   At once the agents of his spirit's will
031   And witnesses and executors of his fate.

079   Often from gilded dusk to argent dawn,
080   Where jewel-lamps flickered on frescoed walls
081   And the stone lattice stared at moonlit boughs,
082   Half-conscious of the tardy listening night
083   Dimly she glided between banks of sleep
084   At rest in the slumbering palaces of kings.

085   Hamlet and village saw the fate-wain pass,
086   Homes of a life bent to the soil it ploughs
087   For sustenance of its short and passing days
088   That, transient, keep their old repeated course,
089   Unchanging in the circle of a sky
090   Which alters not above our mortal toil.

091   Away from this thinking creature's burdened hours
092   To free and griefless spaces now she turned
. . .
094   Here was the childhood of primaeval earth,
. . .
097   Imperial acres of the eternal sower
098   And wind-stirred grass-lands winking in the sun:
099   Or mid green musing of woods and rough-browed hills,
100   In the grove's murmurous bee-air humming wild
101   Or past the long lapsing voice of silver floods
102   Like a swift hope journeying among its dreams
103   Hastened the chariot of the golden bride.

131   The bosom of our mother kept for us still
132   Her austere regions and her musing depths,
133   Her impersonal reaches lonely and inspired
134   And the mightinesses of her rapture haunts.
. . .
147   August, exulting in her Maker's eye,
148   She felt her nearness to him in earth's breast,
149   Conversed still with a Light behind the veil,
150   Still communed with Eternity beyond.

190   The seers attuned to the universal Will,
191   Content in Him who smiles behind earth's forms,
192   Abode ungrieved by the insistent days.
193   About them like green trees girdling a hill
194   Young grave disciples fashioned by their touch,
195   Trained to the simple act and conscious word,
196   Greatened within and grew to meet their heights.

259   As floats a sunbeam through a shady place,
260   The golden virgin in her carven car
261   Came gliding among meditation's seats.
. . .
277   Awake in candid dawn or darkness mooned,
278   To the still touch inclined the daughter of Flame
279   Drank in hushed splendour between tranquil lids
280   And felt the kinship of eternal calm.

281. But morn broke in reminding her of her quest
282. And from low rustic couch or mat she rose
283. And went impelled on her unfinished way
284. And followed the fateful orbit of her life

315   Still unaccomplished was the fateful quest;
316   Still she found not the one predestined face
317   For which she sought amid the sons of men.

Book Five: The Book of Love

5.1. The Destined Meeting-Place

001   But now the destined spot and hour were close;
002   Unknowing she had neared her nameless goal.
. . .
028   Pale waters ran like glimmering threads of pearl.
029   A sigh was straying among happy leaves;
030   Cool-perfumed with slow pleasure-burdened feet
031   Faint stumbling breezes faltered among flowers.
032   The white crane stood, a vivid motionless streak,
033   Peacock and parrot jewelled soil and tree,
034   The dove's soft moan enriched the enamoured air
035   And fire-winged wild-drakes swam in silvery pools.

067   A matted forest-head invaded heaven
068   As if a blue-throated ascetic peered
069   From the stone fastness of his mountain cell
070   Regarding the brief gladness of the days;
071   His vast extended spirit couched behind.

5.2. Satyavan

034   As might a soul on Nature's background limned
035   Stand out for a moment in a house of dream
036   Created by the ardent breath of life,
037   So he appeared against the forest verge
038   Inset twixt green relief and golden ray.
. . .
046   His look was a wide daybreak of the gods,
047   His head was a youthful Rishi's touched with light,
048   His body was a lover's and a king's.

085   At first her glance that took life's million shapes
086   Impartially to people its treasure-house
087   Along with sky and flower and hill and star,
088   Dwelt rather on the bright harmonious scene.
. . .
111   Her vision settled, caught and all was changed.
112   Her mind at first dwelt in ideal dreams,
. . .
115   And saw in him the genius of the spot,
116   A symbol figure standing mid earth's scenes,
117   A king of life outlined in delicate air.

118   Yet this was but a moment's reverie;
119   For suddenly her heart looked out at him,
120   The passionate seeing used thought cannot match,
121   And knew one nearer than its own close strings.
. . .
145   Hooves trampling fast, wheels largely stumbling ceased;
146   The chariot stood like an arrested wind.
147   And Satyavan looked out from his soul's doors
148   And felt the enchantment of her liquid voice
149   Fill his youth's purple ambience and endured
150   The haunting miracle of a perfect face.

151   Mastered by the honey of a strange flower-mouth,
152   Drawn to soul-spaces opening round a brow,
153   He turned to the vision like a sea to the moon
154   And suffered a dream of beauty and of change,
155   Discovered the aureole round a mortal's head,
156   Adored a new divinity in things.

164   Marvelling he came across the golden sward:
165   Gaze met close gaze and clung in sight's embrace.

203   There is a Power within that knows beyond
204   Our knowings; we are greater than our thoughts,
205   And sometimes earth unveils that vision here.
206   To live, to love are signs of infinite things,
207   Love is a glory from eternity's spheres.

5.3. Satyavan and Savitri

017   Thus Satyavan spoke first to Savitri:
. . .
023   How art thou named among the sons of men?
. . .
050   I have heard strange voices cross the ether's waves,
051   The Centaur's wizard song has thrilled my ear;
052   I have glimpsed the Apsaras bathing in the pools,
053   I have seen the wood-nymphs peering through the leaves;
054   The winds have shown to me their trampling lords,
055   I have beheld the princes of the Sun
056   Burning in thousand-pillared homes of light.
057   So now my mind could dream and my heart fear
. . .
060   Thou drov'st thy horses from the Thunderer's worlds.

100   Musing she answered, "I am Savitri,
101   Princess of Madra. Who art thou? What name
102   Musical on earth expresses thee to men?
103   What trunk of kings watered by fortunate streams
104   Has flowered at last upon one happy branch?

112   And Satyavan replied to Savitri:
113   "In days when yet his sight looked clear on life,
114   King Dyumatsena once, the Shalwa, reigned
. . .
122   Heaven's brilliant gods recalled their careless gifts,
123   Took from blank eyes their glad and helping ray
. . .
127   He sojourns in two solitudes, within
128   And in the solemn rustle of the woods.
129   Son of that king, I, Satyavan, have lived
130   Contented, for not yet of thee aware,
131   In my high-peopled loneliness of spirit

164   A visioned spell pursued my boyhood's hours,
. . .
173   The neighing pride of rapid life that roams
174   Wind-maned through our pastures, on my seeing mood
175   Cast shapes of swiftness; trooping spotted deer
176   Against the vesper sky became a song
177   Of evening to the silence of my soul.
178   I caught for some eternal eye the sudden
179   King-fisher flashing to a darkling pool;
180   A slow swan silvering the azure lake,
181   A shape of magic whiteness, sailed through dream;
. . .
183   Pranked butterflies, the conscious flowers of air,
. . .
187   The brilliant long-bills in their vivid dress,
188   The peacock scattering on the breeze his moons
189   Painted my memory like a frescoed wall.

209   I glimpsed the presence of the One in all.
210   But still there lacked the last transcendent power
. . .
216   I shall feel the World-Mother in thy golden limbs
217   And hear her wisdom in thy sacred voice.

223   "Speak more to me, speak more, O Satyavan,
224   Speak of thyself and all thou art within;
. . .
227   Speak till a light shall come into my heart
228   And my moved mortal mind shall understand
229   What all the deathless being in me feels.
230   It knows that thou art he my spirit has sought
231   Amidst earth's thronging visages and forms
232   Across the golden spaces of my life."

233   And Satyavan like a replying harp
234   To the insistent calling of a flute
235   Answered her questioning and let stream to her
236   His heart in many-coloured waves of speech:
237   "O golden princess, perfect Savitri,
. . .
309   Wilt thou not make this mortal bliss thy sphere?
310   Descend, O happiness, with thy moon-gold feet
311   Enrich earth's floors upon whose sleep we lie.

327   "O Satyavan, I have heard thee and I know;
328   I know that thou and only thou art he."
329   Then down she came from her high carven car
330   Descending with a soft and faltering haste;
. . .
335   Her gleaming feet upon the green-gold sward
336   Scattered a memory of wandering beams
337   And lightly pressed the unspoken desire of earth
338   Cherished in her too brief passing by the soil.

339   Then flitting like pale-brilliant moths her hands
340   Took from the sylvan verge's sunlit arms
341   A load of their jewel-faces' clustering swarms,
342   Companions of the spring-time and the breeze.
343   A candid garland set with simple forms
344   Her rapid fingers taught a flower song,
345   The stanzaed movement of a marriage hymn.

349   A sacrament of joy in treasuring palms
350   She brought, flower-symbol of her offered life,
351   Then with raised hands that trembled a little now
352   At the very closeness that her soul desired,
353   This bond of sweetness, their bright union's sign,
354   She laid on the bosom coveted by her love.

355   As if inclined before some gracious god
356   Who has out of his mist of greatness shone
357   To fill with beauty his adorer's hours,
358   She bowed and touched his feet with worshipping hands;
. . .
360   And made her body the room of his delight,
361   Her beating heart a remembrancer of bliss.

362. He bent to her and took into his own
363. Their married yearning joined like folded hopes;

364   As if a whole rich world suddenly possessed,
365   Wedded to all he had been, became himself,
366   An inexhaustible joy made his alone,
367   He gathered all Savitri into his clasp.

408. Then down the narrow path where their lives had met
409. He led and showed to her her future world,
410. Love's refuge and corner of happy solitude.
...
433. Once more she mounted on the carven car
434. And under the ardour of a fiery noon
435. Less bright than the splendour of her thoughts and dreams
436. She sped swift-reined, swift-hearted but still saw
437. In still lucidities of sight's inner world

Book Six: The Book of Fate

6.1. The Word of Fate

001   In silent bounds bordering the mortal's plane
002   Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
003   Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
004   Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.

077   As darts a lightning streak, a glory fell
078   Nearing until the rapt eyes of the sage
079   Looked out from luminous cloud and, strangely limned,
080   His face, a beautiful mask of antique joy,
081   Appearing in light descended where arose
082   King Aswapati's palace to the winds
083   In Madra, flowering up in delicate stone.

084. There welcomed him the sage and thoughtful king,
085. At his side a creature beautiful, passionate, wise,
086. Aspiring like a sacrificial flame
087. Skyward from its earth-seat through luminous air,
088. Queen-browed, the human mother of Savitri.

096   He sang to them of the lotus-heart of love
097   With all its thousand luminous buds of truth,
098   Which quivering sleeps veiled by apparent things.

107   Even as he sang and rapture stole through earth-time
108   And caught the heavens, came with a call of hooves,
109   As of her swift heart hastening, Savitri;
110   Her radiant tread glimmered across the floor.
. . .
118   She stood before her mighty father's throne
. . .
123   He flung on her his vast immortal look;
124   His inner gaze surrounded her with its light

160   What feet of gods, what ravishing flutes of heaven
161   Have thrilled high melodies round, from near and far
162   Approaching through the soft and revelling air,
163   Which still surprised thou hearest? They have fed
164   Thy silence on some red strange-ecstasied fruit
165   And thou hast trod the dim moon-peaks of bliss.
166   Reveal, O winged with light, whence thou hast flown
167   Hastening bright-hued through the green tangled earth,
168   Thy body rhythmical with the spring-bird's call.

214   But Aswapati answered to the seer;—
280   As grows the great and golden bounteous tree
281   Flowering by Alacananda's murmuring waves,
282   Where with enamoured speed the waters run
283   Lisping and babbling to the splendour of morn
284   And cling with lyric laughter round the knees
285   Of heaven's daughters dripping magic rain
286   Pearl-bright from moon-gold limbs and cloudy hair,
287   So are her dawns like jewelled leaves of light,
288   So casts she her felicity on men.

325   Virgin who comest perfected by joy,
326   Reveal the name thy sudden heart-beats learned.
327   Whom hast thou chosen, kingliest among men?"
328   And Savitri answered with her still calm voice
329   As one who speaks beneath the eyes of Fate:
330   "Father and king, I have carried out thy will.
331   One whom I sought I found in distant lands;
332   I have obeyed my heart, I have heard its call.
. . .
339   My father, I have chosen. This is done."

340   Astonished, all sat silent for a space.
341   Then Aswapati looked within and saw
342   A heavy shadow float above the name
343   Chased by a sudden and stupendous light;

391   But now the queen alarmed lifted her voice:
392   "O seer, thy bright arrival has been timed
393   To this high moment of a happy life;
. . .
512   Hide not from us our doom, if doom is ours.
513   This is the worst, an unknown face of Fate,
514   A terror ominous, mute, felt more than seen
515   Behind our seat by day, our couch by night,
516   A Fate lurking in the shadow of our hearts,
517   The anguish of the unseen that waits to strike.
518   To know is best, however hard to bear."

519   Then cried the sage piercing the mother's heart,
520   Forcing to steel the will of Savitri,
521   His words set free the spring of cosmic Fate.
. . .
531   "The truth thou hast claimed; I give to thee the truth.
586   Heaven's greatness came, but was too great to stay.
587   Twelve swift-winged months are given to him and her;
588   This day returning Satyavan must die."

590   But the queen cried: "Vain then can be heaven's grace!
. . .
596   Mounting thy car go forth, O Savitri,
597   And travel once more through the peopled lands.
. . .
605   Plead not thy choice, for death has made it vain.
. . .
609   But Savitri answered from her violent heart,-
. . .
611   "Once my heart chose and chooses not again.
612   The word I have spoken can never be erased,
613   It is written in the record book of God.

638   "O child, in the magnificence of thy soul
639   Dwelling on the border of a greater world
640   And dazzled by thy superhuman thoughts,
641   Thou lendst eternity to a mortal hope.
. . .
680   Thou who art human, think not like a god.
681   For man, below the god, above the brute,
682   Is given the calm reason as his guide;
. . .
698   Leave not thy goal to follow a beautiful face.

718   But Savitri replied with steadfast eyes:
. . .
748   If for a year, that year is all my life.
749   And yet I know this is not all my fate
750   Only to live and love awhile and die.
751   For I know now why my spirit came on earth
752   And who I am and who he is I love.
753   I have looked at him from my immortal Self,
754   I have seen God smile at me in Satyavan;
755   I have seen the Eternal in a human face."

6.2. The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain

190   Then after a silence Narad made reply:
191   Tuning his lips to earthly sound he spoke,
. . .
273   Implacable in the passion of their will,
274   Lifting the hammers of titanic toil
275   The demiurges of the universe work;
276   They shape with giant strokes their own; their sons
277   Are marked with their enormous stamp of fire.

298   The Eternal suffers in a human form,
299   He has signed salvation's testament with his blood:
300   He has opened the doors of his undying peace.
. . .
329   How shall he cure the ills he never felt?
. . .
335   He carries the suffering world in his own breast;

400   "Hard is the world-redeemer's heavy task;
. . .
489   He must enter the eternity of Night
490   And know God's darkness as he knows his Sun.
491   For this he must go down into the pit,
492   For this he must invade the dolorous Vasts.
493   Imperishable and wise and infinite,
494   He still must travel Hell the world to save.

527   Haste not towards Godhead on a dangerous road,
528   Open not thy doorways to a nameless Power,
529   Climb not to Godhead by the Titan's road.
530   Against the Law he pits his single will,
531   Across its way he throws his pride of might.
532   Heavenward he clambers on a stair of storms
533   Aspiring to live near the deathless sun.

603   Bear; thou shalt find at last thy road to bliss.
604   Bliss is the secret stuff of all that lives,
. . .
613   Indifference, pain and joy, a triple disguise,
614   Attire of the rapturous Dancer in the ways,
615   Withhold from thee the body of God's bliss.

620   "O mortal who complainst of death and fate,
. . .
623   Thou art thyself the author of thy pain.
624   Once in the immortal boundlessness of Self,
625   In a vast of Truth and Consciousness and Light
626   The soul looked out from its felicity.
. . .
630   Then, curious of a shadow thrown by Truth,
631   It strained towards some otherness of self,
632   It was drawn to an unknown Face peering through night.
. . .
653   As one drawn by the grandeur of the Void
654   The soul attracted leaned to the Abyss:

677   A huge descent began, a giant fall:
678   For what the spirit sees, creates a truth
679   And what the soul imagines is made a world.

689   Then Aswapati answered to the seer:
. . .
694   I deemed a mighty Power had come with her;
695   Is not that Power the high compeer of Fate?"
696   But Narad answered covering truth with truth:
. . .
856   A day may come when she must stand unhelped
857   On a dangerous brink of the world's doom and hers,
858   Carrying the world's future on her lonely breast,
859   Carrying the human hope in a heart left sole
860   To conquer or fail on a last desperate verge,

898   He spoke and ceased and left the earthly scene.
899   Away from the strife and suffering on our globe,
900   He turned towards his far-off blissful home.
901   A brilliant arrow pointing straight to heaven,
902   The luminous body of the ethereal seer
903   Assailed the purple glory of the noon
904   And disappeared like a receding star
905   Vanishing into the light of the Unseen.