rends the still solemness of the countryside. The heroine waits anxiously for the return of her lord, for he had promised to return ere the setting in of the seasonal rains.

She seeks comfort in every little sign of the coming season such as in the cry of the peacock, the flowering of the mullai creeper, and the lowering skies and the clouds emptying themselves of their fresh showers. The delay in the hero's return causes her the utmost pain. Her anxious waiting, her consoling herself, or her being consoled by her companions, her brave bearing-up of the sorrows of separation, these form the topics when the lady is the chief subject of the mullai class of poems. If she is not virtuous in her patient waiting, she would be far from being lady-like and of noble birth.¹⁴

As for the hero, it would be unmanly for him to return to his heroine without having fulfilled the mission on which he went, even if that costs him the pangs of separation and additional suffering at the thought of what his lady-love might be undergoing because he has not returned. He accomplishes his task, and once his task is accomplished, he hastens with all the haste at his command to her who will be waiting with eyes bedewed with tears. Often the hero's sentiments are expressed in the form of exhortations to his charioteer to urge on the horses and drive speedily that he might reach the embraces of his beloved before nightfall. In one of the smaller poems, a chief desires to hasten to his beloved before the time he has announced for his return. But the rains set in. Hence he compares his haste to that of a farmer who possesses but one ox. Before the land dries, he must take time by the forelock and plough his entire field, while the man with many pairs of oxen may plough his fields at leisure.¹⁵

The season that should form the background of this class of poems is the season of the annual rains. The first rains in the Tamil country are heralded by lowering skies, by terrific claps of thunder and sheet lightning. The first shower is often not a drizzle but a torrential downpour that within an hour or two changes the entire aspect of Nature, which through the

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   ¹⁴Nar; 266; Cf, Akam; 144, 224, 284; Nar; 248, 266.

   ¹⁵Kur; 121; Cf. ibid., 131, 237, 323.