The Kural or the Maxims of Tiruvalluvar/Chapter 113

by Thiruvalluvar

CHAPTER 113

THE GLORIFICATION OF LOVE

HE

1121. Even as honey and milk mingled together is the dew on the lips of this fair one with the subdued speech.

1122. How great is the love between the body and the soul? Even so great is my love for this artless one.

1123. O thou Image in the pupil of mine eye ! Leave and give room to the fair one that I love, for there is no other abode that is worthy of her.

1124. It is as life when she is near: but it is as very death when she leaveth my side.

1125. The virtues of this maiden of the fair and battling eyes I certainly can remember, provided first I can forget them : but how to forget them I know not!

SHE

1126. He will not go from my eyes, neither will he be hurt when I wink: so subtle is the form of my beloved.^[1]

1127. My beloved dwelleth ever within my eyes: so I do not paint them even lest I lose sight of him even for an instant.^[2]

1128. My beloved is ever in my heart: so I eat not hot food lest it burn him there.

1129. I wink not for fear that I should lose sight of him even for that instant : and for this the village folk charge him with cruelty.^[3]

1130. He dwelleth lovingly within my bosom and is never away from thence : and yet the village folk declare that he hath abandoned me, and call him cruel.

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1. The fancy is that the lover is seated in her very eye.
2. For eyes close automatically when being painted.
3. Wrongly thinking that he has abandoned her and attributing her sleeplessness to it.