That One Verse-5

Raimundo Panikkar’s translation[i]:

A crosswise line cut Being from Nonbeing
What was described above it, what below?
Bearers of seed there were and mighty forces
Thrust from below and forward move above.

John Muir’s translation[ii]:

The kindling ray that shot across the dark and drear abyss--
Was it beneath? or high aloft?  What bard can answer this?
There fecundating powers were found, and mighty forces strove--
A self-supporting mass beneath, and energy above.

A. L. Basham’s translation[iii]:

And they have stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.

Max Muller’s translation:

Comes this spark from earth,
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty power arose -
Nature below, and Power and Will above.

Ralph T.H. Griffith’s translation:

Transversely was their severing line extended:
what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces,
free action here and energy up yonder

Putting It Together:

This verse is about the separation of the cosmos from its source.

There was then a separation between truth (Sanskrit: sat) and untruth (Sanskrit: asat), being and becoming, unchanging and the changing, existence and nonexistence, spirit and mater, something and nothing, things created and the uncreated, that which is with and that which is not. With separation appeared space manifesting That One above with This Diversity below as a result of desire in the cosmic mind letting loose a storm of powerful generative forces that kept multiplying.