collection for Ancient India. Some of this poetry reminds one of the Chinese poetry translated by Arthur Waley, or the tanka poems translated from the Japanese. These ancient love poems of the Orient do not seem to state their emotions so openly as comparable Greek or Latin poetry, but prefer to convey their meanings through suggestion and association. There is a certain reserve which poetry expects of lovers in love, partly because, I suppose, no language could approximate with any fairness the intense and complex emotions of persons involved in various love situations, and partly because lovers half reveal and half conceal their innermost thoughts. Here again, the woman in these situations is even less communicative than man, and expresses her thought through half-phrases and innuendos, leaving to her hearers the onus of interpreting her almost undisclosed thoughts. Suggestion, therefore, is a characteristic feature common to the ancient love poetry of the Orient, and the Tamil poets exploit it to a full measure.

Situational Poems

The composition of the love poetry because it is situational seems to attempt at good psychological studies of human behaviour, especially of the psychology of women in love. The poet imagines himself to be the man or woman in love, or the companion, or nurse of the beloved, and composes poetry apt for such situations. In this drama, the great and frequent themes are the meetings of lovers, often of persons who become lovers at first sight, their trysts thereafter unknown to their parents, the aiding and abetting which the friend or the nurse gives them, and the physical changes like sallowness and loss of appetite, and the mental anguish which separated lovers experience.

The young man plays the part he has played for centuries in his role of postponing the day of finally committing himself in marriage before the elders and the public, while the young lady waits with characteristic patience and lives in continued hope that he will not belie his promises.

Love in the post-marital stage, with the happiness which children bring and the hospitality for which marriage invariably offers opportunities, as well as the trials, misunderstandings and infidelities, are also themes which are included under love poetry. Often there are bitter reflections on the 'common' women in cities who are a menace to fidelity and cause distress and break up homes.

The poet writing love poetry might write from his personal experience of love, might indeed address his poem to his own love, but he does not disclose his identity. Convention forbids him to do