Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

SUMMARY OF BOOK TEN

THE BOOK OF DOUBLE TWILIGHT

CANTO ONE

THE DREAM TWILIGHT OF THE IDEAL

IN the black dream there was no change nor even any hope of change, —all was darkness. It was "positive Non-Being's purposeless Vast." Savitri there was like "an ineffectual beam of suffering light". The will-to-be seemed there "the original sin" for which Savitri must atone. The greatest sin was to think that being "made of dust" she could equal heaven, to claim "to be a living fire of God", to harbour "the will to be immortal and divine". In that region of darkness "a great Negation was the Real's face.

"Prohibiting the vain process of Time."

Thus it seemed non-being must last for ever and Savitri had lived there "for ever empty of bliss." "But Maya is a veil of the Absolute"

"A Truth occult has made this mighty world:

The Eternal's wisdom and self-knowledge act

In ignorant Mind and in the body's steps.

The Inconscient is the Superconscients' sleep."

In life

"All here is a mystery of contraries:

Darkness a magic of self-hidden light,

Suffering some secret rapture's tragic mask

And death an instrument of perpetual life."

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Really speaking

"Death is a stair, a door, a stumbling stride

The soul must take to cross from birth to birth".

Although we are ignorant, "Night is not our beginning nor our end". We come to her from a supernal Light, "by Light we live and to Light we go." Savitri's being in the Darkness was like a "faint infiltration" that "drilled the blind deaf mass." That feeble beam "changed into a glimmering sight"

"That housed the phantom of an aureate Sun

Whose orb pupilled the eye of Nothingness."

Then the Inconscient grew conscious and Night began to think. The Darkness paled and drew apart on account of the attack of Light "till only a few black remnants stained that Ray."

Death "fled down a grey slope of Time."

There was now "a morning twilight of the gods" There is then a passion of new birth, coloured visions fly across the lids, thoughts fashion the ideal worlds. Savitri slipped into this twilight. She saw "vague fields", vague pastures, vague trees—a material world but not yet of our gross Matter. There were forms but subtly elusive. These "fugitive beings" and "elusive shapes" were "the natural inhabitants of that world." "But nothing there was fixed or stayed for long" and "beauty evaded settled line and form." But there was repetition of the same movement and that created "the sense of an enduring world". There was unearthly beauty, bliss and thrill that, though momentary, were far sweeter than any earth has known. The raptures of creation on earth—in life—last too long, their formations are absolute, they "win immortality by perfect form." They are too dear, too great, too meaningful.

"Here vision fled back from the sight alarmed,

And sound sought refuge from the ear's surprise".

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Everything in this fair realm was "heavenly strange." Savitri walked in this "illusion of a mystic space" feeling "bodiless touches," hearing sweet voices. There were repetitions of things but no fulfilment: "Thus all could last, yet nothing ever be." Satyavan seemed to her the centre of charm in this realm. Savitri, a comrade of the Ray and Mist and Flame, seemed only a "thought mid floating thoughts" and moved in this vague and beautiful world for a while. The spirit above saw everything and lived for its transcendent task.

CANTO TWO

THE GOSPEL OF DEATH AND VANITY OF THE IDEAL

An inexorable voice was heard:—

This vague world you have now seen is one from which thy "yearnings came". It is a dream-world and it is from there that the ideal is formed by the human being. But it is not based upon any Reality.

"The ideal dwells not in heaven, nor on the earth,

A bright delirium of man's ardour of hope

Drunk with the wine of its own phantasy."

It is "thy mortal longing" that "made for thee a soul". Love is nothing but "a passion of thy yearning cells," your mind only "dreams awhile that it has found its mate". It is the animal passion in you, "a beast of prey" and you dream that this beast "is immortal and a god." The effort on the part of man to persuade "the insensible Abyss" "to lend eternity to perishing things" is vain. Besides, the ideal cannot be realised in life; it lives only in the abstract world: it shines in man's heart "rejected by his life". Ideal is the "aerial statue of the nude Idea"; it stirs man to create an image of divine things in life. But only a coloured reflection falls on man's act—the ideal always fails to realise itself in life. Men "hide their littleness with the divine Name". Earth only is there. Even if Heaven and Truth exist they cannot come down to unhappy earth. Even "the Avatars have lived and died in vain":

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"Vain was the sage's thought, the prophet's voice;

In vain is seen the shining upward Way."

"Earth lies unchanged", "She loves her fall" and no Omnipotence can erase her mortal imperfections. This love you feel is nothing else but a sacred legend and immortal myth. It is only the physical yearning that passes and the world is as before. "A thrill in its yearning makes it seem divine", makes you feel as if it is "A cord tying thee to eternity". Love is brief and frail. "If Satyavan had lived, love would have died." You would have lost your love for him! It is true that love raises the human being to a divine height but even in the purest love "the snake is there and the worm in the heart of the rose." "A word, a moment's act can slay the god." "Love cannot live by heavenly food alone."

"Only on sap of earth can it survive." Love can be a victim of treason and wrath. Even "dull indifference" can replace its "fire", or there remains an "outward and uneasy union". Generally it ends by being a struggle between two egos who get disillusioned. Death saves you from this predicament and it also saves Satyavan. What is the use of calling him "back to the treacheries of earth" and "poor petty life of animal Man"? "Renounce,... thy passionate nature in the bosom profound of... Nothingness" and be at rest. Forget all human aspirations and be calm.

Savitri replied to the Dark Power: Your music is dangerous, your falsehood is mingled with sad strains of truth. But "my love is not a craving of the flesh";

"It came to me from God, to God returns." Even in the degraded forms of love, generally found in life, one finds "a whisper of divinity". One day I shall behold my great sweet world.

"Put off the dire disguises of the gods,

Unveil from terror and disrobe from sin."

We have met and known each other since the world began.

Savitri then commanded Death "Advance,... Beyond the phantom beauty of this world"

"For of its citizens I am not one.

I cherish God the Fire, not God the Dream."

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But Death once more replied to her:—Passionate words have no content of knowledge in them. "Vain is thy longing to build heaven on earth." Mind, persuades the human being to ascend to higher levels but this "Mind...walks lamely on the earth," it cannot control the tumultuous senses. Mind creates the idea of your soul. But body and life are subjected to laws of matter. "If Matter fails, all crumbling cracks and falls." But what is Matter is not known. It is "an appearance and a symbol and a nought". It appears fixed but that is only the "cover of a captive's motion's swirl". Matter is "a stable-seeming movement without change," and yet the "change k arrives and the last change is death". If you see the stuff of which you and the world are made then Inconscient will be found to be the foundation. By some movement within it consciousness I began till mind could watch its acts and "imagine a soul within." When there was only unconsciousness I could create this world by Necessity and by Nature. From ether and fire, atom and gas, the universe was created. Man was created by the chemical plasm. Then Thought came and spoiled the harmony. Mind that is "seeking ignorance" wants to find soul, a god.

"But where is room for soul or place for God

In the brute immensity of a machine?" .

Your consciousness, interposed between the upper and the lower Void "reflects the world around".

"In the distorting mirror of Ignorance", you are asking for immortality but for imperfect man it will be a punishment, an eternal pain. Wisdom, knowledge, love in spite of their appearance to the contrary have no basis in anything except Matter,—the Inconscient. If they are from the higher regions they have no significance for earth. All that man is and does is a dream. Everything that man is and does depends upon Matter—and "these children of Matter into Matter die." Even this Matter is nothing but Energy and energy means motion in Nothingness. Ideal's unsubstantial colours cannot be painted on "earth's vermillion blur." "The Ideal is a malady of thy mind"—and like all human things the ideal must share the human imperfection. Accept, therefore, life as is given to you, submit to Fate, suffer what you

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have to, then at last my long calm night will silence your heart in everlasting sleep.

CANTO THREE

THE DEBATE OF THE LOVE AND DEATH

Savitri answered Death: You have "woven the ignorant Mind into a screen." You are a sophist and take delight in "the sorrow of the world". "A lying reality is falsehood's crown and a perverted truth her richest gem." Thou speakest Truth "but Truth that slays. I answer to thee with the Truth that saves". The Divine, a traveller, made of Matter's world his starting-point: God covered his face in Matter, "infinity wore a boundless zero's form, eternity became a blank spiritual Vast". "The Timeless took its ground in emptiness" so "that the spirit might adventure into Time." The spirit built a Thought in Nothingness. Matter was made the body of the Bodiless and slumbering Life breathed in Matter. Mind lay asleep in subconscient Life and became active in conscious Life. The waking mind gave rise to the Thinker: Man became a reasoning animal: he measured the universe, opposed his fate, conquered and used the laws. He became master of his environment. Now he hopes to become a demi god. He now "sees the vast descending might of God."

"0 Death, thou lookst on an unfinished world", it is not sure of its road and therefore thou "sayest God is not and all is vain". But man is an infant today, shall he never grow? "In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks". So, in man's imperfect state the Divine is hidden.

"In God concealed the world began to be,

Tardily it travels towards manifest God;

Our imperfection towards perfection toils":

"the infinite holds the finite in its arms", "Time travels towards revealed eternity". We feel the presence of the Divine in all. The Sun is a blaze of his glory—the sky is his glory. The stars, the trees, the blue sea, the rivulet are all murmurs "from infinitesimal dust." This vast universe is His play and ''yet no play but the deep scheme of a transcendent Wisdom finding "ways to meet her Lord

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in the shadow and the Night." In the world

"His knowledge he disguised as Ignorance,

His Good he sowed in Evil's monstrous bed,

Made error a door by which Truth could enter in,

His plant of bliss watered with Sorrow's tears."

Through all the vicissitudes man has moved towards the Divine: All blundered and straggled towards the one Divine." Man began with very imperfect idea of divinity and there was plenty of mixtures of animality in his divinity. Wisdom, virtue and such other things have also failed to be without faults. Reason has sounded the shallow depths and caught small fish but the great truths escape her as they live in the depths. Man's mortal vision peers with ignorant eyes: His knowledge leans on error, he worships false gods, or is a fanatic, or he doubts every truth he finds, "a sceptic facing Light with adamant No", or cynic stamping out God in man.

In spite of all these the "Light is there." It slowly grows. Then larger dawns arrive, knowledge progresses in man. From beyond Mind visionary sight, inspirations come to man. A spirit within "hears the Word to which our hearts were deaf." "Thus all is raised to meet a dazzling Sun".

The mask of death "has covered the Eternal's face" and "The Bliss that made the world has fallen asleep",—it forgot itself completely and so Death and Ignorance govern the mortal world. The bliss is still there in Nature, in the charm of the earth, though the divine Inhabitant is veiled. It is the creatrix Bliss that has become sorrow:

"She comes to our hearts and bodies and our lives".

"Wearing a hard and cruel mask of pain".

Man takes a perverse delight in suffering and grief. So much has man become ignorant that even Saints and sages have dreaded this Bliss, which is "God's sweetest sign." Puritanical outlook has advocated the avoidance of pleasure. And "yet every creature hunts for happiness," it works hard to have "some fragment or some broken shard of bliss". Man sacrifices even "eternity.. .for a moment's bliss".

A sweet delight supports all being—a hidden "Bliss is at the root

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of things". The objects of this universe—"are carved cups of World Delight"—the Sun, the moon, the winds, stars, the birds, trees and flowers, all express this delight. "Even in this labour and dolour of Ignorance" "in spite of death and evil circumstance", "a joy to be" persists. This joy pervades all actions of man—good or bad. There is "a taste in tears and torture of broken hearts"—man derives per- verse pleasure in these experiences. "In life's nectar of sweetness and its bitter wine" this delight lingers. From the outward and the sensual man probes deeper and in thought and art finds delight. But the "perfect crown" of wisdom and joy is beyond the earth and is "meant for delivered earth".

Immortal bliss at last climbs to the summits of consciousness above mind and there like a "great heaven-bird on a motionless sea is poised her winged ardour of creative joy on the still deep of the Eternal's peace." It is for this great delight that the world is created, —for this the spirit descended into the Inconscient. "Our earth starts from mud and ends in sky." When the transfiguration comes then "all is new-felt in God", and then Night and death would end, because "when unity is won, when strife is lost"

"And all is known and all is clasped by Love

Who would turn back to ignorance and pain?

Savitri said: I have already "triumphed over thee," 0 Death, within;

"My whole being is filled with Love".

"My love eternal sits throned on God's calm;

For Love must soar beyond the very heavens

"It must change its human ways to ways divine."

"Love human must be transformed and become divine.

"...not for my heart's sweet poignancy

Nor for my happy body's bliss alone

I have claimed from thee the living Satyavan,

But for his work and mine, our sacred charge."

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"For I the Woman am the force of God,

He the Eternal's delegate sole in man.

My will is greater than thy law, O Death;

"Our love is the heavenly seal of the Supreme."

"For Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven,

Love is the far Transcendents' angel here;

Love is man's lien on the Absolute."

Death replied: You have hired mind to make for you a fine cover for your passion. But it is no use adding magic colours to the drab realities of life which are physical and material. How can "two-legged worm, man, be divine?

"Put off mind-painted masks:

The animal be, the worm that Nature meant."

Savitri replied: "Yes, I am human. Yet shall man by me,... Trample thee down to reach the immortal heights",—"my humanity is a mask of God".

Death cried out: You are living in imagination; how can you force two eternal enemies to join? For example: "Where Matter is all, there Spirit is a dream"

"If all are the Spirit, Matter is a lie,

"The Real with the unreal cannot mate.

He who would turn to God must leave the world;

and even

"Sages exploring the world-ocean's vasts,

Have found extinction the sole harbour safe."

Savitri replied "my heart is wiser than the Reason's thoughts", —"it sees and feels the one Heart beat in all." "My heart's strength can carry the grief of the universe" "and never falter from its luminous track", "its white tremendous orbit through God's peace."

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Death asked Savitri to show her strength and freedom from his laws. But Savitri answered she would find joys that were common to her and Satyavan.

Death asked Savitri to demand anything for her own self which he would grant. But restoration of Satyavan was against hard laws. But Savitri insisted on her only choice: "Nothing I claim but Satyavan alone." Death then promised Savitri: "Whatever once the living Satyavan desired in his heart for Savitri" that I give. But Savitri refused the offer and also refused to return to 'earth".

Death replied: Do you think that all joy depends upon one man? One easily forgets grief in life and the object of love changes "like waves to a swimmer upon infinite seas". But Savitri insisted on her choice which was the result of her feeling "eternal truth in transient things." Death asked Savitri to return to earth and try:

You will soon find other men equally lovable. Mortal being cannot dwell glad alone. Satyavan will then become only a memory. That is life—"A constant stream that never is the same."

Savitri replied: I and Satyavan have loved each other from eternity. The secrets of the gods are plain to me,—you will not be able to deceive me. Everything,—even life and death,—is only fuel for my unceasing fire. I shall certainly reach the goal and get back Satyavan.

Then her words spread into infinite space and became precursors. of a future change in humanity. Savitri called back her thoughts and concentrated all her force within. The three journeyed onward "companioned by the glimmering mists"! But everything began to flee faster before Savitri's clearness of soul.

CANTO FOUR

THE DREAM TWILIGHT OF THE EARTHLY REAL

A SLOPE that sank downward came and the ideal air was lost, thought fell towards lower levels, to some hard and crude reality. The atmosphere became duller in colour; Savitri felt heavy and she saw minarets and towers, toiling multitudes "A savage din of labour" and "monotonous hum of thoughts and acts that ever were the same." She also saw fragments—"phantoms of human thought

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and baffled hopes," "philosophies and disciplines and laws", "constructions of the Titan and the worm." "Revelation and delivering words, emptied of their mission and their strength to save", voices of prophets, and creeds, "ideals, systems, sciences, poems, crafts", —each that claimed to be eternal in its hour—went by her. There were ascetics, lonely seers on mountain summits or on river banks seeking heaven's rest or spirit's peace. There were sages who "in bodies motionless" sat. Perhaps that was also a dream. All that had been in the past was there

"Because of joy in the anguish of pursuit

"The rolling cycles passed and came again"

"Brought the same toils"

"Forms ever new and ever old"

—"the long appalling revolutions of the world."

The voice arose once more: behold these figures and these motions and see how hope which man harbours is an "incurable malady," "where Nature changes not, man cannot change". Man has .got to obey Nature. The human race is moving in "ever wheeling cycles". Mind is limited, cramped, even when it can fly man "sinks back to his native soil." Prayers are vain, even when he calls the incommunicable gohead to be the lover of his lovely soul he is imparting his own will to the Immobile. "Hope not to call God down into his life", "there is no house for him in hurrying Time". There is no aim in Matter's world, there is "only a will to be". The lives of men, his works, his creeds that cannot save themselves perishing "in the strangling hands of the years", philosophies that solve no problem, sciences "omnipotent in vain"—that cannot tell what the things are or "why they came", politics and revolutions convulsing mankind "only to paint in new colours an old face"—"where leads the march, whither the pilgrimage?"

"If Mind is all, renounce the hope of bliss

If mind is all, renounce the hope of Truth

For Mind can never touch the body of Truth

"Mind is a tissue woven of light and shade

Where right and wrong have sewn their mingled parts,"

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It is only by renouncing life and mind that Self can be attained. If there is a God he is indifferent to man's destiny. He does not require man's love. Do not dream of changing this world and its eternal law of ignorance and pain. If there is heaven where there is no grief you should seek joy there after leaving the earth. "If thou art Spirit and Nature is thy robe" then cast off thy garb, turn only to God,—"forgetting Love, forgetting Satyavan".

Savitri answered Death: You can offer your boons to tired spirits, "hearts that could not bear the wounds of Time". "Let those who were tied to body and to mind" tear off those bonds. "...Thy boons are great since thou art He".

But how shall I who house the mighty Mother's violent force seek such a peace? The world is

"A language mispronounced, misspelt, yet true".

"The world is not cut off from Truth and God".

"Man's soul crosses through thee to Paradise". Heaven's sun and its light force their way through death and night. "How sayst thou Truth can never light the human mind" when from the meaningless Void creation arose, from a bodiless Force Matter was born, and green delight could break into emerald leaves, "and Thought seize the grey matter of the brain?" Why should not unknown powers emerge from Nature?

"Even now hints of a luminous Truth like stars arise" in the ignorant mind of man. If the door of the inner chamber of man "is even a little ajar" what can prevent "God from stealing in"? "Already God is near, the Truth is close". "I live in the glory of the Infinite...The Ineffable is now my household mate," "But standing on Eternity's luminous brink I have discovered that the world was He": Then Savitri makes dear to Death her mission:

"I am a deputy of the aspiring world,

My spirit's liberty I ask for all."

Death then spoke but its voice was that of one oppressed. "Disdainful, weary and compassionate" its sound seemed like life's. But it was life "Toiling for ever and achieving nought." Life has played long "with Fate and Chance and Time" and has assured

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itself of the game's vanity, it is "crushed by its load of ignorance and doubt". As knowledge increases so do ignorance and doubt. The earth-mind therefore sinks in despair. But could one say that nothing has been done? Some great thing has been done, some Light, some Power "delivered from the huge Inconscient's grasp" has come to stay.

The voice said to Savitri: "Because thou hast the wisdom that transcends

"Both veil of forms and the contempt of forms,

Arise delivered by the seeing gods."

The spirits who have "too much love" are violators of God. The wise are tranquil, the great hills that rise towards unreached sky are silent. But "how all shakes when the gods tread too near!" "If strength from heaven surprised the imperfect earth" time would stumble. Gods keep their power veiled. "Be still and tardy in the slow wise world", respect the established laws.

Savitri replied "if changeless Law is all" then vain is the hope of the soul. The world moves on to the new and the unknown. If constantly the restraint was not overcome in life there would be no meaning in the great travail. The law, fixed and immutable, is good for the animal but not for man. If I am Divine then "I claim from Tune my will's eternity,

"God from his moments."

Death replied: Why should the Divine stoop to these petty works of transient earth? Did you tread "the gods beneath thy feet only to win poor shreds of earthly life"?

Savitri replied "I run where his sweet and dreadful voice commands, "and I am driven by the reins of God." "Wherefore did he build my mortal form" "if not to achieve, to flower in me, to love". "Easy the heavens were to build for God." "Earth was his difficult matter". It is greatness to create Gods there on earth. What kind of liberty has the soul if it cannot kiss the bonds which the Lover winds round it? Free soul really "laughs in his rich constraints, most bound, most free".

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Death replied: whatever may be the Divinity that you are the iron rampart with which gods fence their camp in space cannot be broken by your "heart's ephemeral passion." "Even God himself obeys the Laws he made; the Law abides and never can it change". You have. seen a Light which none else has seen and you know that it is Truth, But what is Truth? Who can find her form amid so many sense-images, guesses of the mind, and incertitudes of knowledge? Which is the voice of Truth "amid the thousand cries" "that cross the listening brain and cheat the soul?" The two elements, —one positive and the other negative,—are constantly at work in the world: e.g. man is at once animal and god—the aspiring animal, the frustrate God. Man cannot become a God, cannot depend on ideas and when he tries to stand on reason he finds that reason stands upon a plank of doubt. Show me the body of the living Truth and I will obey and worship her; then I will give thee back thy Satyavan. "No magic Truth can bring the dead to Life".

When Savitri spoke her "mortality disappeared" and her Goddess-self grew visible: 0 Death, thou too art God and yet not He, but only his black shadow on the path

"As leaving the Night he takes the upward Way

And drags with him its clinging inconscient Force."

"All contraries are aspects of God's face".

Darkness below, a fathomless Light above,

"In Light are joined, but sundered by severing Mind". But they are two contraries needed for his great world-task. God's offence against human reason is this: that being Absolute he lodges in the relative world of Time; being omnipotent, he sports with chance and Fate; being spirit, he becomes Matter—he is animal, human and divine. As the Universal he is all,—as Transcendent he is none; and yet "There is a purpose in each stumble and fall." Even though to the outer view it seems that Matter is all and man's being is only a bubble on the ocean of Time still "the soul grows concealed within its house." Man studies life and thinks about its goal. "At last he wakes into spiritual mind."—There, in the spiritual mind—out of the narrow scope of finite thought—man glimpses eternity, touches the infinite and feels the universe as his

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larger self—and "in the heart's cave speaks secretly with God." A few have risen to the higher "air and bathe in its immense intuitive Ray,"—they live on the plane of Intuition. On the summits of Mind there are altitudes exposed to the lustre of Infinity. Man can visit those planes but as yet he cannot live there. There is Cosmic Thought of which man's mind is only a portion. But this is not the highest height possible to man. The consciousness can climb still higher and there "all becomes a blaze of sight,"—one sees the Truth. One can even rise to Revelation's sun-bright eyes. One hears the Word,—the voice of Inspiration. One can even ascend higher into the cosmic empire of the Overmind.

"Time's buffer state bordering Eternity", From there each God builds his own nature's world. There "all Time is one body. Space is a single book". The transcendent Mother sits above this Overmind holding the eternal Child upon her knees—the growing Divinity in the world. It is from there that the glory sometimes seen on earth comes and the perfection born from eternity.

"Calls to it the perfection born in Time."

The immortal Supermind lives above in its Truth-realm. There on the Supramental planes every movement is Truth—inspired and then it is possible for the soul of man to "sip the honey wine of Eternity" in the moments. The Transcendent becomes Many and the Immobile universal stands behind each daily act.

But who can show thee Truth's glorious face? Human words can only shadow her. If you could touch the supreme Truth you would "grow suddenly wise and cease to be"

"If our souls could see and love and clasp God's Truth,

Its infinite radiance would seize our hearts,

Our being in God's image be remade

And earthly life become the life divine."

Death made its last reply to Savitri:—

If Truth is transcendent of life what bridge can cross the gulf between her and the world she has made? who can bring Truth

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down to men? Have you got that strength? You have knowledge and Light but have you the Power—''the strength to conquer Time and Death?" Truth and knowledge are an ideal dream.

"If Knowledge brings not power to change the world,

If Might comes not to give to Truth her right.

"Reveal thy power, lay bare thy spirit's force

Then will I give back to thee Satyavan."

or if you are the supreme Mother show me her face. "Let death- less eyes look into the eyes of Death". Then thy dead can return to life and earth feel near the secret body of God.

Savitri looked at Death, and answered not.

"A mighty transformation came on her :

A halo of indwelling Deity,

The Immortal's lustre... Overflowing made the air a

luminous sea.

In a flaming moment of apocalypse

The Incarnation thrust aside its veil".

The Power descended into the centres of the body. She waited for the Word to come from the Infinite:

"I hail thee almighty and victorious Death"

"O Void! that makest room for all to be,"

"Consuming the cold remnants of the suns"

"Thou art my shadow and my instrument."

It is you who "...force the soul of man to struggle for Light."

"Live, Death, awhile, be still my instrument."

But now,...stand aside, and "Release the soul of the world called Satyavan".

Death was unwilling to obey her command and so he stood against Savitri.

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"His being like a huge fort of darkness towered,

Around it her life grew, an ocean's siege.

"Awhile the Shade survived".

Then

"A pressure of intolerable force

Weighed on his unbowed head and stubborn breast;

Light like a burning tongue licked up his thoughts

"He called to his strength, but it refused his call

His body was eaten by light".

The Shadow then disappeared vanishing into the Void.

"And Satyavan and Savitri were alone."

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