TIRUKKURAL, Mysticism, reading, forums, Numerology, Sun Signs, Divination

Posts: 4397 · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:06 am

3.2.13. The Reading of the Signs

1271
Thou hid'st it, yet thine eye, disdaining all restraint,
Something, I know not, what, would utter of complaint.
Though you would conceal (your feelings), your painted eyes would not, for, transgressing (their bounds), they tell (me) something.

1272
The simple one whose beauty fills mine eye, whose shoulders curve
Like bambu stem, hath all a woman's modest sweet reserve.
Unusually great is the female simplicity of your maid whose beauty fills my eyes and whose shoulders resemble the bamboo.

1273
As through the crystal beads is seen the thread on which they 're strung
So in her beauty gleams some thought cannot find a tongue.
There is something that is implied in the beauty of this woman, like the thread that is visible in a garland of gems.

1274
As fragrance in the opening bud, some secret lies
Concealed in budding smile of this dear damsel's eyes.
There is something in the unmatured smile of this maid like the fragrance that is contained in an unblossomed bud.

1275
The secret wiles of her with thronging armlets decked,
Are medicines by which my raising grief is checked.
The well-meant departure of her whose bangles are tight-fitting contains a remedy that can cure my great sorrow.

1276
While lovingly embracing me, his heart is only grieved:
It makes me think that I again shall live of love bereaved.
The embrace that fills me with comfort and gladness is capable of enduring (my former) sorrow and meditating on his want of love.

1277
My severance from the lord of this cool shore,
My very armlets told me long before.
My bracelets have understood before me the (mental) separation of him who rules the cool seashore.

1278
My loved one left me, was it yesterday?
Days seven my pallid body wastes away!
It was but yesterday my lover departed (from me); and it is seven days since my complexion turned sallow.

1279
She viewed her tender arms, she viewed the armlets from them slid;
She viewed her feet: all this the lady did.
She looked at her bracelets, her tender shoulders, and her feet; this was what she did there (significantly).

1280
To show by eye the pain of love, and for relief to pray,
Is womanhood's most womanly device, men say.
To express their love-sickness by their eyes and resort to begging bespeaks more than ordinary female excellence.

3.2.14. Desire for Reunion

1281
Gladness at the thought, rejoicing at the sight,
Not palm-tree wine, but love, yields such delight.
To please by thought and cheer by sight is peculiar, not to liquor but lust.

1282
When as palmyra tall, fulness of perfect love we gain,
Distrust can find no place small as the millet grain.
If women have a lust that exceeds even the measure of the palmyra fruit, they will not desire (to feign) dislike even as much as the millet.

1283
Although his will his only law, he lightly value me,
My heart knows no repose unless my lord I see.
Though my eyes disregard me and do what is pleasing to my husband, still will they not be satisfied unless they see him.

1284
My friend, I went prepared to show a cool disdain;
My heart, forgetting all, could not its love restrain.
O my friend! I was prepared to feign displeasure but my mind forgetting it was ready to embrace him.

1285
The eye sees not the rod that paints it; nor can I
See any fault, when I behold my husband nigh.
Like the eyes which see not the pencil that paints it, I cannot see my husband's fault (just) when I meet him.

1286
When him I see, to all his faults I 'm blind;
But when I see him not, nothing but faults I find.
When I see my husband, I do not see any faults; but when I do not see him, I do not see anything but faults.

1287
As those of rescue sure, who plunge into the stream,
So did I anger feign, though it must falsehood seem?
Like those who leap into a stream which they know will carry them off, why should a wife feign dislike which she knows cannot hold out long?

1288
Though shameful ill it works, dear is the palm-tree wine
To drunkards; traitor, so to me that breast of thine!
O you rogue! your breast is to me what liquor is to those who rejoice in it, though it only gives them an unpleasant disgrace.

1289
Love is tender as an opening flower. In season due
To gain its perfect bliss is rapture known to few.
Sexual delight is more delicate than a flower, and few are those who understand its real nature.

1290
Her eye, as I drew nigh one day, with anger shone:
By love o'erpowered, her tenderness surpassed my own.
She once feigned dislike in her eyes, but the warmth of her embrace exceeded my own.

3.2.15. Expostulation with Oneself

1291
You see his heart is his alone
O heart, why not be all my own?
O my soul! although you have seen how his soul stands by him, how is it you do not stand by me?

1292
'Tis plain, my heart, that he 's estranged from thee;
Why go to him as though he were not enemy?
O my soul! although you have known him who does not love me, still do you go to him, saying "he will not be displeased."

1293
'The ruined have no friends, 'they say; and so, my heart,
To follow him, at thy desire, from me thou dost depart.
O my soul! do you follow him at pleasure under the belief that the ruined have no friends?

1294
'See, thou first show offended pride, and then submit,' I bade;
Henceforth such council who will share with thee my heart?
O my soul! you would not first seem sulky and then enjoy (him); who then would in future consult you about such things?

1295
I fear I shall not gain, I fear to lose him when I gain;
And thus my heart endures unceasing pain.
My soul fears when it is without him; it also fears when it is with him; it is subject to incessant sorrow.

1296
My heart consumes me when I ponder lone,
And all my lover's cruelty bemoan.
My mind has been (here) in order to eat me up (as it were) whenever I think of him in my solitude.

1297
Fall'n 'neath the sway of this ignoble foolish heart,
Which will not him forget, I have forgotten shame.
I have even forgotten my modesty, having been caught in my foolish mind which is not dignified enough to forget him.

1298
If I contemn him, then disgrace awaits me evermore;
My soul that seeks to live his virtues numbers o'er.
My soul which clings to life thinks only of his (own) gain in the belief that it would be disgraceful for it to despise him.

1299
And who will aid me in my hour of grief,
If my own heart comes not to my relief?
Who would help me out of one's distress, when one's own soul refuses help to one?

1300
A trifle is unfriendliness by aliens shown,
When our own heart itself is not our own!
It is hardly possible for strangers to behave like relations, when one's own soul acts like a stranger.