enables the heroine to see even the marks of his misconduct such as his withered garlands, and the sandal paste originating from a second person.46 Nature as it is found in the early hours of the morning in the riverine plains is often depicted in the marutam poems. The lotuses and water-lilies, the chirp of the birds, the storks and water-fowls, the fresh-water fishes enter largely into the marutam's world of imagery. The buffalo, irresponsible and unfeeling brute as it looks, and the bee that goes from flower to flower forsaking once it has drunk of its honey, are alluded to as figures of the hero in his search for unlawful pleasures. It is in these poems that the allegory abounds, for the subject is one that requires delicate handling. The heroine and her maid do not express their anger and regret in plain language, and therefore, the allegory "serves as the medium for concealed and apparently refined expression of their grievance at the chief's misconduct."47 The Ainkuṛunuuṛu, for instance, in the first hundred poems, treats of love in its marutam aspect. Nearly each poem has a concealed and allegorical meaning in which such objects as a special species of the bamboo-reed, the fresh water crab, the crocodile and the buffalo, enter into the world of imagery. They are allegorically compared with the hero or they are the objects which serve as similes for the expression of his conduct, good or bad. The heroine in soliloquy says: Let us bear with patience the injustice of the chief about whose water-ford the bamboo reeds flower like the sugar-cane. |
The meaning is that the chief is one who gives the same consideration to courtezans as he would to virtuous womanhood. The bamboo reed resembles the sugar-cane; its flowers are of the same colour and kind but it does yield the sap that the sugar-cane does. The bamboo reed signifies the courtezan; the sugar-cane the wife.48 Another poem in which the companion strives to convince ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 46Lectures on Aink (Tm), p. 2 ft. 47 See Lectures on Kalittokai (Tm) Ibid. 48Aink; 11 ff; Nar; 20, 250, 360. |