topics: |  poetry | translation |

At the end of the Afterword to the Interior Landscape, Ramanujan writes:

These poems are not just the earliest evidence of the Tamil
genius. The Tamils, in all their 2,000 years of literary activity,
wrote nothing better.

Surprisingly, this robust literature had been largely forgotten even in
Tamilnadu till the end of the 19th c.

As critic Indira Viswanathan Peterson

Poems of Love and War is a major achievement, representing
the  work  of  fifteen  years;  each  poem  has  been  honed  to
perfection, like the Tamil warrior of Auvaiyar's poem, "who is
like a chariot wheel /  made thoughtfully over a month /  by a
carpenter /  who tosses  off eight chariots /  in a day." (Poems
of  Love  and  War, p.  137); or  like  the  rich  honey  of  the
mountain kuriici,  which blooms only twelve years after it has
been planted.

Kapilar : What She Said

			p.17

	Only the thief was there, no one else.
	And if he should lie, what can I do?
	There was only
	a thin-legged heron standing
	on legs yellow as millet stems
	and looking
                    for lampreys
		    in the running water
		    when he took me.

	                    [Kuruntokai 25]

Uloccanar : What Her Girl Friend Said

		(the lover within earshot, behind a fence)
						p.41

	On the new sand
	where fishermen,

		their big nets
		ripped apart by an angry sea,

	dry their great hauls of fish

	in a humming neighborhood
	of meat smells,

	a laurel tree blossoms
	all at once in bright clusters
	fragrant as a festival,

	but this unfair town
	is noisy with gossip.

	And what with an unfair Mother too
	keeping strict watch over us,

	will our love just perish here
	in sallow patches,


		this love for our man
		of the seashore

		where petals
		loosened by the traffic of birds
		mix with the mud of the backwaters,

		where the big-maned chariot horses galloping there
		by the waves of the sea?

			[Narrinai 63]

Ilankiranar : What He Said

	to his heart arguing against further ambition and travel
							p.57

A hen-eagle broods, sick
in the great branches
lifted to the sky,

in a neem tree
with cracked trunk and dotted shade

    where unschooled children
    scratch their squares
    on a rock
    flat as a touchstone
    and play marbles with gooseberries
    in that wilderness
    with fierce little settlements
    of marauders,
            the bow their only plow,

and as evening comes creeping in,
sapping my strength, what can I do
but think of her,

who is sweet as a deed
long wished for and done,

standing there
in this hour of memories
in front of a house lamp

blazing?

			[Narrinai 3]

Mallanar : What the Servants Said to him, as he returned home

						p.72

In encampments,

powerful elephants have fought the war,
the thunder of drums
resounds on the battleground,
the king has raised his victory banners.

Herds of cows and calves
come leaping into the forest
as herdsmen raise flutes
to their lips.

Your henchmen go rushing ahead,
the charioteer reins hard
to keep on the path
the fast-paced steeds with flying manes,

and when you return, my lord,

	wounds praised by poets,
	garlands on your chest,
	wearing cool fragrant sandal,
	smooth powders,

and enter
your house in triumphant joy,

where will it go, where
will it find a place,
                     that pallor
on the brow of our lady,
with eyes, lined with kohl,
   darker than blue-dark flowers?

			Maturaittamilkkuttan Katuvan Mallanar
			[Akananuru 354]

What Her Girl Friend Asked

	and what she replied regarding his return
						p.92

"From the long fronds
of a deserted talipot tree
with clusters thick and hard
like an old date-palm's

a male bird calls to its mate,
and the listening tiger
roars in echo

on those difficult roads
where hot winds blow --

	but then your lover who went there
	has returned,
	has hugged you sweetly ever since
	and you've lain together
	inseparably
	in one place.

	and yet
	why do you look like a ruin,
	why do you grieve, my girl?"

So you ask, friend.
It could look like that to someone
who doesn't know.

What's the use
of longing faithfully
for his strong chest

	that's now like the cold beaches
	of Tonti city
	famous in the mouths of many?

When love is gone,
What's copulation worth?

			Anon.
			Narrinai 174

Marippittiyar: A Charmer Turned Ascetic

			p.174

We've seen him before
in a house
spaced as in a picture,

with small-bangled women,
mirror images
of the goddess on the hill:

this charmer,
how he made them all lovesick
till their ornaments came loose.

	Now he bathes
	among bamboos
	in the tall hill's waterfalls,

	lights red fires
	with wood
	that wild elephants bring,

	and dries the twists of hair
	that hang down his back.

			Marippittiyar (or Marpittiyar)
			Purananurur 251