so. The poetry therefore is not impersonal-it is very personal, but remains anonymous regarding authorship and identity of the persons whose situations are being sung. Here is a poem which expresses the wonder of a lover that he should have had the experience of love at first sight with some one so far removed: My mother and yours, what strangers they,
My father and yours, how worlds apart,
You and I ne'er met ere now
Yet like monsoon floods which mix on red soil
Kindred hearts each other have found. (Kur. 40.)1 |
A young man goes chasing a stag or an elephant along with his companions. Having lost the elephant's track, he halts, and espies something like a divine form in the distance. How is he to decide whether it is a human or divine form? The bees frequent the garlands worn by that being, but the bees never frequent objects with which they are not familiar; it seems to have ornaments, but celestials wear no ornaments; it seems to smell the flowers in its hands, but, mark you, the celestials breathe not; there is movement in its eyelids, but the gods never bat an eyelid, their eyes being eternally vigilant; further, the being seems to be restless, and sways about at the sight of an unusual form, his own. This can be no goddess-she is a creature of flesh and blood. Having convinced himself that it is a human being, and a damsel at that, he makes the further movements necessary to demonstrate his attraction for her. Dramatic Elements The classical love poems in Tamil are like single scenes of a long and drawn out dramatic whole. Situations are isolated, and the isolated themes are described. A number of these situational poems successively arranged may even provide the continued matter for a dance-drama or an opera. Various participants of these love situations are featured in different moods in these poems. The male lover is always a noble specimen of his kind, brave and daring and adventurous. But, as it seems to his beloved, he is always wishing farewell, ever abandoning her to loneliness in his quest for fame and glory, or wealth and learning: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1The translations are from the short Anthology of Four Hundred Poems known as Kuruntokai. |