Pining and Complaint
.
Tap an underlined Tamil word to explore its sound, meaning, and use.
tuppi ṉevaṉāvar maṟko ṟuyarvaravu / naṭpiṉu ḷāṟṟu pavar.
They can bring sorrow into a friendship, which exists to give pleasure. What will they be, then, where hostility is the whole point of it?
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“Who work us woe in friendship's trustful hour, / What will they prove when angry tempests lower?”
“What will they not do when they are enemies, those who suffer one to pine away when they are friends?”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
நட்பினுள் துயர் வரவு ஆற்றுபவர்= இன்பம் செய்தற்குரிய நட்பின்கண்ணே துன்ப வரவினைச் செய்யவல்லவர்; துப்பின் எவன் ஆவர் கொல்= துன்பம் செய்தற்கு உரிய பகைமைக்கண் என்செய்வர் கொலோ?
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Friendship, Parimelazhagar says, is the sphere whose business is to give pleasure. These are people capable of bringing sorrow into that. What then, he asks, will they do in enmity, where causing pain is the whole purpose? The question is left standing and no answer is supplied. What a person does in a place where such behaviour has no business shows the range of what they are capable of.