Wealth Without Benefit
On wealth hoarded without enjoyment, generosity, or public benefit and on the emptiness of possession that never becomes human use.
Ten verses, nine of them about the same man, and not one of them describing him twice. 1001 calls him dead while he is standing there. 1005 says he is poor with the crores still in the house. 1006 makes the wealth itself the disease. What moves between them is where the verse is standing: inside the man, beside the person he did not answer, or out in the street looking at the thing from a distance.
That last position repays attention. 1008 puts a poison tree in the middle of a town and in fruit, and Parimelazhagar supplies the detail that makes it bite — அணியனாய், near. The man is not remote and neither is the tree; what has stopped is anybody expecting anything of him. 1007 says such wealth comes to nothing at all. 1009 says the opposite about where it ends up: the benefit does happen, it happens to somebody else, and the last word of the couplet is who.
Then the boundary, because a chapter about hoarding is easily misread as a chapter about spending. 1009 settles it. Beside cutting off affection and never once looking at virtue, it charges தன் செற்று — afflicting yourself by going without what you want. Self-denial is on the indictment here, not in the remedy. And the tenth verse turns to the other man entirely, where Parimelazhagar is exact about what is small in his hardship: நிற்கும் காலம், the time it lasts.
AI draft · pending review
10 of 10 narratives drafted · all Tamil, Pope & Parimelazhagar sourced
வைத்தான் வாய்சான்ற பெரும்பொரு ளஃதுண்ணான்
செத்தான் செயக்கிடந்த தில்.
“Who fills his house with ample store, enjoying none, / Is dead. Nought with the useless heap is done.”
பொருளானா மெல்லாமென் றீயா திவறு
மருளானா மாணாப் பிறப்பு.
“Who giving nought, opines from wealth all blessing springs, / Degraded birth that doting miser's folly brings.”
ஈட்ட மிவறி யிசைவேண்டா வாடவர்
தோற்ற நிலக்குப் பொறை.
“Who lust to heap up wealth, but glory hold not dear, / It burthens earth when on the stage of being they appear.”
எச்சமென் றென்னெண்ணுங் கொல்லோ வொருவரா
னச்சப் படாஅ தவன்.
“Whom no one loves, when he shall pass away, / What doth he look to leave behind, I pray?”
கொடுப்பதூஉந் துய்ப்பதூஉ மில்லார்க் கடுக்கிய
கோடியுண் டாயினு மில்.
“Amid accumulated millions they are poor, / Who nothing give and nought enjoy of all they store.”
ஏதம் பெருஞ்செல்வந் தான்றுவ்வான் றக்கார்க்கொன்
றீத லியல்பிலா தான்.
“Their ample wealth is misery to men of churlish heart, / Who nought themselves enjoy, and nought to worthy men impart.”
அற்றார்க்கொன் றாற்றாதான் செல்வ மிகநலம்
பெற்றா டமியண்மூத் தற்று.
“Like woman fair in lonelihood who aged grows, / Is wealth of him on needy men who nought bestows.”
நச்சப் படாஅதவன் செல்வ நடுவூரு
ணச்சு மரம்பழுத் தற்று.
“When he whom no man loves exults in great prosperity, / 'Tis as when fruits in midmost of the town some poisonous tree.”
அன்பொரீஇத் தற்செற் றறநோக்கா தீட்டிய
வொண்பொருள் கொள்வார் பிறர்.
“Who love abandon, self-afflict, and virtue's way forsake / To heap up glittering wealth, their hoards shall others take.”
சீருடைச் செல்வர் சிறுதுனி மாரி
வறங்கூர்ந் தனைய துடைத்து.
“'Tis as when rain-cloud in the heaven grows dry, / When generous wealthy man endures brief poverty.”