On her behalf her friend refuses the flowers offered by her lover:2
In our mountain land
where Lord Murugan3 rides upon an elephant
whose tusks are dipped in gore,
armlets swinging loose
his long arrows dyed bright crimson
with the blood of demon warriors
lying dead and vanquished
upon the reddened field,
the kantal with its blood red clusters
is common enough.
(1)
In praise of her fragrant hair:
Fair winged bee
(2)
She said:
Wider than the earth
(3)
She said to her friend:
My heart aches
(4)
The lover has gone to seek his fortune, promising to return, but her eyes are unable to believe what her heart knows. She said to her friend:
Is this what love does, my friend?
(5)
She said:
In the darkest depths of night
(6)
Those who saw them said:
He's carrying a bow
(7)
His mistress said:
In our house he speaks fine words
(8)
Her friend speaks to the husband. She will surely forgive your infidelity, for that is her nature. Her friend said:
Like a flower which no one wears
(9)
Her friend said:
Concealing his cruelty
(10)
She said:
Every day that passes
(11)
Her distress is caused not by her lover's departure, but by the thought of the dangers he faces on his way. She said to her friend:
They say
(12)
She speaks to her friend after her lover's departure. She said:
I lay with him there on the cool rock
(13)
Mounting a horse of palmyra leaves he rides it through the village to proclaim his love, carrying her picture. He said:
I shall win my fair lady -
(14)
Her foster mother speaks to her natural mother, telling her that her daughter has left to marry her secret lover. The foster mother said:
My friend,
(15)
Her friend said:
He has gone away, my dear
(16)
Stung by his lover's refusal to meet him, he said to her friend:
When love's pain becomes unbearable
(17)
Her friend said to the lover:
Lord of the mountain side
(18)
The lover speaks to his heart. He said:
Desolate
(19)
She said:
you who spend your life
in search of nectar,
do not try to please me
but tell me the truth
as you have learned it
about my lady's hair,
she of the fine close set teeth
and peacock's noble mien,
she who is bound to me
and I to her, by an ancient love,
tell me,
is there any flower you know
whose perfume is as fragrant?
higher than the heavens
harder to fathom than the ocean itself
is the love of my lover
from the mountain country4
where bees build their great honeycombs
gathering nectar from the blossoms
of the black-stemmed kurinci.
My heart aches
to hear it said that my lover is unworthy,
he whose nature has the power
to staunch tears so hot
they seem to scald my very eyelids -
Oh how my heart aches.
Believing that he has gone for ever -
my Lord of the sea shores
where the heron tarries
dozing in the warm shallows
in the cool shade of a punnai tree
which the breaking waves
cover in glistening buds -
the many-petalled lotuses
of my kohl darkened eyes
have become strangers to sleep.
when all have surrendered
to sleep's sweet embrace
desisting from their slander,
and the broad earth itself slumbers
bearing me malice no longer
I alone can find no rest.
and wearing a warrior's ankle rings.
Her arms are full of bracelets
and her delicate feet
are adorned with tinkling anklets.
Such a noble pair - who could they be?
They deserve any help they can get...
setting off like that into this vast wilderness
of dense bamboo thickets
where the wind whips through
the dry white pods on the vagai trees
with an ominous rattle
like the drums of roving acrobats.
my lover from the land
where a mango tree at the field's edge
drops its sweet ripe fruit
into a nearby pool
to be gobbled up by freshwater shark -
but at home
like a shadow doll
its arms and legs
rising and falling
at the puppeteer's behest
he does what suits his child's mother.
left to wither
in a casket with a finely wrought clasp
her body is wasting away
thanks to her lover
from the cool shores where the dark backwaters
teem with shoals of fish
and where water lilies
rising high on tall stalks
above their green pads
sway back and forth
as the flood-tide rushes in
like the eyes of girls
bathing in the village tank.
For all that, your dusky maiden
will feel your shame
and conceal your cruelty within her heart
in your presence, as she did in mine
just like a mother would, for such is her nature.
and putting him to shame
she will come out to greet
her lover from the land
where ploughmen bend down
the slender branches of the kanci tree
covered in sweet smelling blossoms
so that green pollen showers down
from their thick clusters
which resemble green moong gram.
She is like a mother
putting his pleasure before all else.
these bright bangles, cut from conch shells
become looser and looser.
And here I stay, all alone
my unsleeping eyes awash with tears.
But there is a remedy -
leave with me now, my heart
let us go to where he is, and be happy
in the land which is a battlefield to the Vatukar clan
where the girls wear chaplets of tulsi leaves
where the many spears of Lord Katti hold sway
where they may not even talk like us -
I've thought of a way to get there.
that the road he follows
splits into many side paths
giving the robber clans good cause
to climb those boulders
pitted like termite hills
and hot as anvils
on which they sharpen and hone
the points of their deadly arrows
But they don't care about that -
the noisy gossip mongers in our village -
they're only interested in spreading their slander.
somewhere in the country where he lives
amidst that landscape of low jagged outcrops
washed clean by the heavy rains
so that they remind me of elephants
when the mahouts have bathed them
rinsing away the mud.
And if the fair lotus blossoms of my eyes
have grown dull and faded
my friend,
it is on account of the pain he has caused me.
she whose words are few
as if her soft pink tongue
bathed in honeyed sweetness
feared the sharpness
of her even white teeth -
and yes, when I have won her
everyone in the village will know
and some will shout out
as I pass by in the street
'So he's that fine lady's lover'
but the shame of it will soon pass.
Like the solemn oaths of the Kosars
gathered from the four villages
in their meeting place
under an ancient banyan tree
the love of your young maiden
whose forearms are heavy with bangles
for that young man
who wears beautiful warrior anklets
and carries a white spear
with a red blade
has proved to be true.
To the rattle of drums and the sound of the conch
he is taking her for his own.
into that desert of kalli scrub,
and yet
when he hears the red-legged lizard
calling to its mate
with a sound
as if robbers were twanging
the fine points
of their iron tipped arrows
with a fingernail
to make them straight and true
How can he not think of you?
a man will do strange things -
ride a palmyra branch
as if it were a horse
wear upon his head
in place of flowers
a garland of tightly folded
erukka buds
expose himself to laughter and ridicule
in the village street -
who knows what he might not do?
where jack-fruit trees,
whose branches sprout
right from the roots,
grow amidst hedges of bamboo!
Her life's thread is very fine
but her love is very great
like a huge jackfruit
suspended on its tiny branch.
Be wise enough to know
when her love is ripe -
after all
who else could know it, if not you?
like those lute playing bards
when they lost their patron Yevvi
and flowers of gold
adorned their heads no longer,
weep for your downfall, my heart.
for she whose thick, heavy braids
smell like the night-scented jasmine
which grows over the tree in the yard
is no longer what she was, to us.
If they are the wise
who leave to seek their fortune
ignoring love, forgetting compassion,
then they may have their wisdom.
For our part, my friend
we shall be content to remain fools.
Notes
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