The Distress of Her Beauty
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koṭumpuruvaṅ kōṭā maṟaippi ṉaṭuṅkañar / ceyyala maṉṉivaḷ kaṇ.
He blames her eyebrows: if they had stayed straight and screened her eyes, that look could never have reached him and left him shaking. The wound came through a gap something small could have closed.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“If cruel eye-brow's bow, Unbent, would veil those glances now; / The shafts that wound this trembling heart Her eyes no more would dart.”
“It is only when her eyebrows will cease to bend and will veil her looks that her eyes will cease to cause me the pangs that make me tremble.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
கொடும் புருவம் கோடா மறைப்பின்= பிரியா நட்பாய கொடும் புருவங்கள்தாம் செப்பம் உடையவாய் விலக்கினவாயின்; இவள் கண் நடுங்கு அஞர் செய்யல= அவற்றைக் கடந்து, இவள் கண்கள் எனக்கு நடுங்கும் துயரைச் செய்யமாட்டா.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar explains: the curved eyebrows are the eyes' inseparable friends; if instead they had stood upright and blocked the way, then her eyes could not have crossed past those eyebrows to inflict on him the sorrow that makes him tremble.