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Poets of the Tamil Anthologies
Asian Poems of Love and War
By George L. Hart III PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1979 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06406-2
CHAPTER 1
Ainkurunuru
Ainkurunuru 24
Spotted crabs whose mothers die bearing them
and crocodiles that eat their young
live in his town.
Has he come now?
Why does he embrace women
so their gold bangles jingle,
use up their loveliness,
and leave?
Marutam
Orampokiyar
Ainkurunuru 35
It used to be more radiant
than the color of the soft peeled stalk
of a waterlily in the pond of our town,
but now
my dark skin has become pale.
Marutam
Orampokiyar
Ainkurunuru 74
Her bright ornaments of fresh gold gently radiant,
she climbed the marutam tree on the bank
and plunged into the water,
and her cool, fragrant hair
was as splendid as a peacock descending from the sky
Marutam
Orampokiyar
Ainkurunuru 84
Even if it comes to her ears,
her anger is beyond words.
What, then, if she sees with her eyes:
like a cool pond in the winter month of Tai
played in by women with flower-fragrant hair,
your chest belongs to whores
who kiss and bathe in it.
Marutam
Orampokiyar
Ainkurunuru 101
Look there, mother.
Cutting the long vines of the green atampu
as it goes up and down
and crushing dark waterlilies,
the chariot has come,
driven by the man from the seashore
who is remedy for the grief
that has come to your daughter's flowerlike eyes
Neytal
Ammuvanar
Ainkurunuru 113
Yesterday, friend, some people of this town said
that I am the woman of him
whose bay has high waves that break the white sand.
Mother heard and asked,
"Is it you?"
and I answered very softly,
"Yes."
Neytal
Ammuvanar
Ainkurunuru 146
My black loveliness is sweet
for the man from a bay
where ripening clusters of buds
opening on the ñalal bush on the dune
smell fragrant.
Neytal
Ammuvanar
Ainkurunuru 177
Even though they have done no wrong,
they will surely tremble
who have known the arms
of her who is like Tonti city,
redolent with the fragrant flowers of nightshade
on tall dunes of heaped sand
shifting under rolling waves.
Neytal
Ammuvanar
Ainkurunuru 197
Her bangles jingling,
she stood kicking at a crab,
her head lowered,
her face hidden by her hair.
But as soon as evening with its loneliness has gone,
she will give me her breasts
with all their loveliness.
Neytal
Ammuvanar
Ainkurunuru 203
Listen, friend,
sweeter than milk mixed with the honey from our garden
is the muddy water
that animals drink and leave
in leaf-covered holes in his land.
Kuriñci
Kapilar
Ainkurunuru 206
Look there, friend!
He stands like a sentinel of this rainy hill,
his glistening, garland-like sword wet with drops,
his big anklets covered with moss,
his striped belt drenched by the cold.
Kuriñci
Kapilar
[The heroine's friend tells her that her lover waits to meet her outside at night.]
Ainkurunuru 208
Mother, listen:
the deep holes that forest men dig for tubers
are filled with golden venkai flowers in his land.
Whenever his high mountain, colored blue-sapphire, disappeared in the evening,
her long eyes like cut flowers
filled with gold.
Kuriñci
Kapilar
[Venkai flowers are white, with a small tip of yellow. They do not last long, but fall leaving a lovely whitish-yellow carpet beneath the tree. In Tamil, the venkai is often compared to a tiger because of the similarity in color. The gold covering the heroine's eyes is paleness.]
Ainkuruniiru 295
My heart has gone with him.
Will it come back,
or will it stay with him
where it wants to be?
On his mountain,
peacocks flee from the torches of hill men
and terrify little birds in the stubble of the grain field,
running like girls playing ball.
Kuriñci
Kapilar
[Since the grain has been cut, the heroine no longer goes out to guard it from birds and cannot meet her lover as she keeps watch over the field.]
Ainkurunuru 299
Even the dark waterlily
with its mouth opening wide
as it blooms in the fresh spring
on the slope of the hill man
cannot bloom
like the eyes of the mountain girl
with a swaying walk and gleaming, fine hair.
Even the peacock
cannot be as lovely
as she.
Kuriñci
Kapilar
Ainkurunuru 320
He has gone into a fearful wilderness
where roads are forked
and where on thorny-trunked red cotton trees
bunches of large bright flowers
are caught by the roaring, fiery wind
and drop on the black earth
like the fire that falls with thunder.
He has given me a sickness
that will not go away.
Palai
Otalantaiyar
Ainkurunuru 331
Friend, the way he went is cruel, they say.
In that hard mountain land
bunches of white flowers unfurl
and hang on black-branched mara trees,
smelling so sweet
that travelers remember those they have left at home
Palai
Otalantaiyar
Ainkurunuru 341
He does not come,
but the season is at hand
when the cuckoo calls in a sweet voice
and tiny rivulets of water
tremble by black sand.
Palai
Otalantaiyar
Ainkurunuru 388
If you sit in the striped shade of the black-trunked ya tree
until the hot rage of the blazing sun has calmed
and then cross over the little hill,
you will see the wasteland
the youth crossed into with a conquering spear
with the girl whose body is like gold,
whose bangles are dense on her arms.
Palai
Otalantaiyar
[This poem is addressed to the foster mother of the heroine, who has eloped with her lover.]
Ainkurunuru 393
You grow thin grieving because she left,
and, your eyes filled with tears,
you speak out against the injustice of the world.
But see,
your daughter has come back to comfort your troubled heart
with the brave youth
who carries a conquering spear.
Palai
Otalantaiyar
[This poem is addressed to the mother of the heroine, who eloped and is now returning.]
Ainkurunuru 405
Like the red flame shining in the bowl of a lamp,
she has become the light of her house,
for she bore his son
whose land is ornamented with meadows
grown lovely with flowers in the pattering rain.
Mullai
Peyanar
Ainkurunuru 411
With drops splattering
as they fall from the loud-voiced clouds,
the rains have started on the lovely meadows.
We will play in the new water
that brings desire.
You whose hair is long and dark, come quickly
Mullai
Peyanar
Ainkurunuru 431
The way your lover went
is beautiful.
On large hills with lovely colors,
peacocks have forms
colored blue sapphire.
Mullai
Peyanar
[The friend consoles the heroine, saying that the land her lover entered to find wealth is not a dangerous wilderness, but a land of fertility.]
Ainkurunuru 437
The way your lover went
is beautiful.
In the cool rain and hail,
jasmine blooms white.
Mullai
Peyanar
[See the notes on Ainkurunuru 431.]
Ainkurunuru 476
The sky covered with clouds and lightning roars
resplendent with the monsoon.
Greenjasmine creepers blossom with the season
and herders with many cattle
weave them into garlands of flowers and leaves.
Tell me, unfeeling bard,
does the land where he has gone
have such loveless evenings?
Mullai
Peyanar
[The hero, absent on business, has sent his bard to assure the heroine that he has not forgotten her and will return.]
Ainkurunuru 479
Tell me, bard who make all your words so sweet.
I have crossed many lands
and now every day
the merciless northwind with its unrelenting cold
mocks my loneliness.
Tell what she,
her eyes cold flowers,
said for me.
Mullai
Peyanar
[The bard, sent by the heroine, comes with a message from her to her husband, who is away from home.]
CHAPTER 2
Kuruntokai
Kuruntokai 1
Making the field red with his killing
he crushes demons.
He has red-shafted arrows,
red-tusked elephants,
whirling battle anklets.
This hill belongs to Murugan
and it is thick with clusters of blood-flowered kantal.
Tipput Tolar
[The hero, wishing to make love to his woman, has brought a gift of red kantal flowers, whose acceptance means that she will have him. In this poem, she refuses his offering.]
Kuruntokai 3
Larger than earth,
higher than sky,
harder to measure than the waters
is my love for him
whose land has hillsides of black-stalked kuriñci flowers
that yield rich honey.
Tevakkulattar
[Swaminathaier remarks, "They say that this [kuriñci] blooms once in twelve years, that the honey that bees make from its flowers is quite delicious, and that a tribe called the Totuvar [the Todas] who live in the Nilgiris reckon their ages by counting the number of times this plant has bloomed from birth."]
Kuruntokai 6
The night is half gone.
Without words,
people are calm and quiet.
Its hate gone,
this vast world also sleeps.
Only I
do not sleep.
Patumanar
[A woman grieves when her lover is away from her.]
Kuruntokai 7
The bowman has battle rings on his legs
and the bangled girl wears anklets on her soft feet.
They seem good people. Who are they?
They must be desperate
to approach the bamboo-thick wasteland
where white pods of vakai rattle as they strike together,
blown by the wind,
like the drums when Aryans dance on tightropes.
Perumpatumanar
[Vakai is also called "the woman's tongue" because its dry pods rattle incessantly in the lightest breeze. The couple described in the poem is eloping. The last line refers to North Indians, who would come to the south and make money by performing on tightropes.]
Kuruntokai 16
Has he forgotten me, friend?
Like the scraping sound
when thieves turn against their nails
iron-tipped arrows to make them ready,
a red-legged lizard calls its mate
in the wilderness
filled with lovely-stemmed kalli
where he has gone.
Palaipatiya Perunkatunko
[Normally, the calling of lizards was considered auspicious. Kalli, or milk-hedge, is a plant found in barren places.]
Kuruntokai 25
There was no one there,
only that man
who is like a thief.
If he lies, what can I do?
With little green legs like millet stalks,
a heron searched for eels in the running water
when he took me.
Kapilar
Kuruntokai 28
Shall I attack these people, shall I strike them?
I do not know.
Or shall I find some reason and cry out
to this city that sleeps
not knowing my suffering
while the moving wind swirls
and pulls me to and fro.
Auvaiyar
[This poem is spoken by the heroine.]
Kuruntokai 40
My mother and yours,
what were they to each other?
My father and yours,
how were they kin?
I and you,
how do we know each other?
And yet
like water that has rained on red fields,
our hearts in their love
have mixed together.
Cempulappeyanirar
[The poet's name means "he of water that has rained on fields." It is the custom in Tamilnad to marry one's cross-cousin.].
Kuruntokai 41
When my lover is near,
I am filled with joy, I exult
like a city in festival.
But like a lonely house left by its people,
a house in a little jungle village of pleasant homes
with a squirrel playing in its yard,
I grieve alone, friend,
when he is gone.
Anilatumunrilar
[The poet's name means "he of the squirrel playing in the yard."]
Kuruntokai 42
Even if desire should cease,
man from where a great midnight rain beats down
with thunder and lightning
and makes a waterfall resound through a cave,
will the bond wear away
that links me to you?
Kapilar
Kuruntokai 44
My feet will not walk further.
My eyes
looking and looking
have lost their clearness.
Surely more than the stars in the wide dark sky
are strangers in this world.
Velli Vitiyar
[This poem is uttered by the foster mother, who searches for her eloped daughter in the wilderness.]
Kuruntokai 47
Flowers have fallen from black-stalked venkai trees
onto round stones
so they seem tiger cubs in the forest
where he comes at night
to do what he should not.
Better that you were not here,
O long white light of the moon.
Netuvennilavinar
[The heroine speaks of her lover, who is coming to meet her at night. The poet's name means "he of the long white light of the moon." Venkai flowers are colored like tiger skins.]
Kuruntokai 54
I am here.
My loveliness has perished there
with the man of forests,
where a wild elephant,
frightened by the sound of slings of the millet guards,
lets loose a green stalk of bamboo
so it springs up
like a pole catching a fish.
Minerituntilar
[The poet's name means "he of the pole springing up." The point of this poem appears to be that the hero was enjoying the heroine, just as the elephant was grazing on the green bamboo stalk. But then, frightened by the talk that began, he suddenly abandoned her, just as the elephant leaves the bamboo when startled by the noise of the slings.]
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Poets of the Tamil Anthologies by George L. Hart III. Copyright © 1979 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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