forest to get some wood and fruits.  For the first time she asked to go with him.  “The way is too difficult for you,” said he, but she persisted; and her heart was consumed by the flames of sadness.  He called her attention, as they walked on, to the limpid rivers and noble trees decked with flowers of many colors, but she had eyes only for him, following his every movement; for she looked on him as a dead man from that hour.  He was filling his basket with fruits when suddenly he was seized with violent headache and longing for sleep.  She took his head on her lap and awaited his last moment.

All at once she saw a man, in red attire, of fearful aspect, with a rope in his hand.  And she said:  “Who are you?” “You,” he replied, “are a woman faithful to your husband and of good deeds, therefore will I answer you.  I am Yama, and I have come to take away your husband, whose life has reached its goal.”  And with a mighty jerk he drew from the husband’s body his spirit, the size of a thumb, and forthwith the breath of life departed from the body.  Having carefully tied the soul, Yama departed toward the south.  Savitri, tortured by anguish, followed him.  “Turn back, Savitri,” he said; “you owe your husband nothing further, and you have gone as far as you can go.”  “Wherever my husband goes or is taken, there I must go; that is an eternal duty.”  Thereupon Yama offered to grant any favor she might ask—­except the life of her husband.  “Restore the sight of the blind king, my father-in-law,” she said; and he answered:  “It is done already.”  He offered a second favor and she said:  “Restore his kingdom to my father-in-law;” and it was granted, as was also the third wish:  “Grant one hundred sons to my father, who has none.”  Her fourth wish, too, he agreed to:  that she herself might have a hundred sons; and as he made the fifth and last wish unconditional, she said: 

“Let Satyavant return to life; for, bereft of him, I desire not happiness; bereft of him I desire not heaven; I desire not to live bereft of him.  A hundred sons you have promised me, yet you take away my husband?  I desire this as a favor; let Satyavant live!”

“So be it!” answered the god of death as he untied the string.

“Your husband is released to you, blessed one, pride of your race.  Sound and well you shall take him home, live with him four hundred years, beget one hundred sons, and all of them shall be mighty kings.”

With these words he went his way.  Life returned to the body of Satyavant, and his first feeling was distress lest his parents grieve over his absence.  Thinking him too weak to walk, Savitri wanted to sleep in the forest, surrounded by a fire to keep off wild beasts, but he replied: 

“My father and mother are distressed even in the daytime when I am away.  Without them I could not live.  As long as they live I live only for them.  Rather than let anything happen to them, I give up my own life, you woman with the beautiful hips; truly I shall kill myself sooner.”

So she helped him to rise, and they returned that very night, to the great joy of their parents and friends; and all the promises of Yama were fulfilled.