Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

      In a present ignorant of forgotten bonds

      These spirits met upon the roads of Time.

      Yet in the heart their secret conscious selves

      At once aware grew of each other warned

      By the first call of a delightful voice

      And a first vision of the destined face.

      As when being cries to being from its depths

      Behind the screen of the external sense

      And strives to find the heart-disclosing word,

      The passionate speech revealing the soul’s need,

      But the mind’s ignorance veils the inner sight,

      Only a little breaks through our earth-made bounds,

      So now they met in that momentous hour,

      So utter the recognition in the deeps,

      The remembrance lost, the oneness felt and missed.

      Thus Satyavan spoke first to Savitri:

      “O thou who com’st to me out of Time’s silences,

      Yet thy voice has wakened my heart to an unknown bliss,

      Immortal or mortal only in thy frame,

      For more than earth speaks to me from thy soul

      And more than earth surrounds me in thy gaze,

      How art thou named among the sons of men?

      Whence hast thou dawned filling my spirit’s days,

      Brighter than summer, brighter than my flowers,

      Into the lonely borders of my life,

      O sunlight moulded like a golden maid?

      I know that mighty gods are friends of earth.

      Amid the pageantries of day and dusk,

      Long have I travelled with my pilgrim soul

      Moved by the marvel of familiar things.

      Earth could not hide from me the powers she veils:

      Even though moving mid an earthly scene

      And the common surfaces of terrestrial things,

      My vision saw unblinded by her forms;

      The Godhead looked at me from familiar scenes.

      I witnessed the virgin bridals of the dawn

      Behind the glowing curtains of the sky

      Or vying in joy with the bright morning’s steps

      I paced along the slumbrous coasts of noon,

      Or the gold desert of the sunlight crossed

      Traversing great wastes of splendour and of fire,

      Or met the moon gliding amazed through heaven

      In the uncertain wideness of the night,

      Or the stars marched on their long sentinel routes

      Pointing their spears through the infinitudes:

      The day and dusk revealed to me hidden shapes;

      Figures have come to me from secret shores

      And happy faces looked from ray and flame.

      I have heard strange voices cross the ether’s waves,

      The Centaur’s wizard song has thrilled my ear;

      I have glimpsed the Apsaras bathing in the pools,

      I have seen the wood-nymphs peering through the leaves;

      The winds have shown to me their trampling lords,

      I have beheld the princes of the Sun

      Burning in thousand-pillared homes of light.

      So now my mind could dream and my heart fear

      That from some wonder-couch beyond our air

      Risen in a wide morning of the gods

      Thou drov’st thy horses from the Thunderer’s worlds.

      Although to heaven thy beauty seems allied,

      Much rather would my thoughts rejoice to know

      That mortal sweetness smiles between thy lids

      And thy heart can beat beneath a human gaze

      And thy aureate bosom quiver with a look

      And its tumult answer to an earth-born voice.

      If our time-vexed affections thou canst feel,

      Earth’s ease of simple things can satisfy,

      If thy glance can dwell content on earthly soil,

      And this celestial summary of delight,

      Thy golden body, dally with fatigue

      Oppressing with its grace our terrain, while

      The frail sweet passing taste of earthly food

      Delays thee and the torrent’s leaping wine,

      Descend. Let thy journey cease, come down to us.

      Close is my father’s creepered hermitage

      Screened by the tall ranks of these silent kings,

      Sung to by voices of the hue-robed choirs

      Whose chants repeat transcribed in music’s notes

      The passionate coloured lettering of the boughs

      And fill the hours with their melodious cry.

      Amid the welcome-hum of many bees

      Invade our honied kingdom of the woods;

      There let me lead thee into an opulent life.

      Bare, simple is the sylvan hermit-life;

      Yet is it clad with the jewelry of earth.

      Wild winds run – visitors midst the swaying tops,

      Through the calm days heaven’s sentinels of peace

      Couched on a purple robe of sky above

      Look down on a rich secrecy and hush

      And the chambered nuptial waters chant within.

      Enormous, whispering, many-formed around

      High forest gods have taken in their arms

      The human hour, a guest of their centuried pomps.

      Apparelled are the morns in gold and green,

      Sunlight and shadow tapestry the walls

      To make a resting chamber fit for thee.”

      Awhile she paused as if hearing still his voice,

      Unwilling to break the charm, then slowly spoke.

      Musing she answered, “I am Savitri,

      Princess of Madra. Who art thou? What name

      Musical on earth expresses thee to men?

      What trunk of kings watered by fortunate streams

      Has flowered at last upon one happy branch?

      Why is thy dwelling in the pathless wood

      Far from the deeds thy glorious youth demands,

      Haunt of the anchorites and earth’s wilder broods,

      Where only with thy witness self thou roamst

      In Nature’s green unhuman loneliness

      Surrounded