Classic Poem

Purananuru 389

" When, in summer,
the fruit of the palm dries
and becomes stone,

when the fruit of the forest neem
shrivels,

when watering places crack their beds,
and unadapting fish, white as silver,
swim south and leave behind
a fish famine,

dear young warrior,

put me among those you remember
on such days, "

said my lord once,
and gave me gifts,
my lord of lasting glory.

He's now where no one can reach him.
Yet if one could go,
he's not the kind who'd be hard to see.

He, old king Atinunkan,
would catch the young
of jungle elephants
and make the soft-browed
mother beast grieve.
He'd tie them up in the public places
of his good city
which had a whole hill
in the middle of it.
Like him,

my lord of Venkatam
where waterfalls
fall through rock,

you, Nallermutiya,
who do not rise at once to run
wherever your heart goes,

you too must give
good things to hunger's households,
give
and give till misery ends.

May your women,
their mounds of love wide and soft,
may they never hear
in the long yards of your house

the funeral drums of grief.