Setting Reserve Aside
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kaṭalaṉṉa kāma muḻantu maṭalēṟāp / peṇṇiṟ peruntakka til.
The feeling is as vast as the sea, and she carries it without turning it into a public spectacle. Nothing in this world is worth more than that kind of strength.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“There's nought of greater worth than woman's long-enduring soul, / Who, vexed by love like ocean waves, climbs not the 'horse of palm'.”
“Nothing is grander than the woman who refuseth to ride the palm-stalk even when the passion of her heart is deep as the ocean.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
கடல் அன்ன காமம் உழந்தும் மடல் ஏறாப் பெண்ணின்= கடல்போலக் கரையற்ற காமநோயினை அனுபவித்தும், மடல் ஊர்தலைச்செய்யாது ஆற்றியிருக்கும் பெண்பிறப்புபோல; பெருந்தக்கது இல்= மிக்க தகுதியினை உடைய பிறப்பு உலகத்தில் இல்லை.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Riding the madal was the old custom by which a man who could no longer bear his love-sickness mounted a horse made of palmyra stalks and made his love known to the whole town. On this couplet, Parimelazhagar explains that no birth in the world carries greater worth than the birth of a woman, who suffers a love-sickness as shoreless as the sea and yet endures it without ever riding the madal.