English

Patirruppattu 13

Fish leaping
in fields of cattle;

easy unplowed sowing
where the wild boar has rooted;

big-eyed buffalo herds
stopped by fences of lilies
flowering in sugarcane beds;

ancient cows bending their heads
over water flowers
scattered by the busy dancers
swaying with lifted hands;

queen's-flower trees full of bird cries,
the rustle of coconut trees,
canals from flowering pools
in countries
with cities sung in song:

Purananuru 349

The king scrapes the sweat
off his brow
with the blade of his spear
and says terrible things.
The girl's father
rants as well
and will not speak softly.

This is their natural way of speaking.

And come to think of it,
this lovely girl,

sharp teeth, cool eyes
streaked with red,
skin the color
of young mango leaf,

this goddess,

like a fire
sparked by the wood itself,

will devastate

Purananuru 305

Waist thin as the purslane creeper,
gait heavy as with grief,

the young brahman came at night
and entered the fortress quickly.

The words he spoke
were few,

and the ladders, the wooden bolts,
came down,

and the war bells
were loosened

from the flanks
of the veteran elephants.

Purananuru 312

To bring forth and rear a son is my duty.
To make him noble is the father's.
To make spears for him is the blacksmith's.
To show him good ways is the king's.

And to bear
a bright sword and do battle,
to butcher enemy elephants,
and come back:

that is the young man's duty.

Purananuru 86

You stand against the pillar
of my hut and ask:
Where is your son?

I don't really know.
This womb was once
a lair
for that tiger.

You can see him now
only on battlefields.

Purananuru 295

There, in the very middle
of battle-camps
that heaved like the seas,

pointing at the enemy
the tongues of lances,
new-forged and whetted,

urging soldiers forward
with himself at the head
in a skirmish of arrow and spear,

cleaving through
an oncoming wave of foes,
forcing a clearing,

he had fallen
in that space
between armies,
his body hacked to pieces:

when she saw him there

Purananuru 278

The old woman's shoulders
were dry, unfleshed,
with outstanding veins;
her low belly
was like a lotus pad.

When people said
her son had taken fright,
had turned his back on battle
and died,

she raged
and shouted,

" If he really broke down
in the thick of battle,
I'll slash these breasts
that gave him suck, "

and went there,
sword in hand.

Turning over body after fallen body,

Purananuru 277

The old woman's hair
was white, feather
of the fisher heron.

Her delight

when she heard
that her son fell in battle
felling an elephant,

was greater
than at his birth,

and her tears
were more than the scatter of drops
hanging from all the great swaying bamboos
after the rains
on the Bamboo Mountains.

Purananuru 276

That dignified old woman,

with white hair
that has given up
all fragrant things,

and withered breasts
with nipples like eyes
crinkled as the ironwood seed,

she has a much-loved son who, all alone,

like a drop of curd
flicked by a childish milkmaid's
fingernail
curdling a whole pitcher of milk,

brought grief
to an army of enemies.

Purananuru 273

The horse did not come back,
his horse did not come back.
All the other horses have come back.

The horse
of our good man,

who was father in our house
to a little son
with a tuft of hair
like a plume on a steed,

it did not come back.

Has it fallen now,
his horse
that bore him through battle,

has it fallen
like the great tree
standing at the meeting place
of two rivers?