Eyes Worn Out with Grief
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paṭalāṟṟā paita luḻakkuṅ kaṭalāṟṟāk / kāmanōy ceytaveṉ kaṇ.
The eyes that made me a love-grief the sea is not big enough to hold are churning in it now, and cannot close.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“The eye that wrought me more than sea could hold of woes, / Is suffering pangs that banish all repose.”
“My Eyes which have brought on me this anguish vaster than the ocean, now pine away with grief and cannot even lay themselves to sleep.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
கடல் ஆற்றாக் காமநோய் செய்த என்கண்= எனக்குக்கடலும் சிறிதாகும்வண்ணம் பெரிதாய காமநோயைச் செய்த என்கண்கள்; படல் ஆற்றாப் பைதல் உழக்கும்= அத்தீவினையாற் தாமும் துயில்கிலவாய்த் துன்பத்தையும் உழவாநின்றன.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
The woman is speaking about her own eyes. Parimelazhagar reads the couplet as saying that they made her a love-grief so large that the sea, set beside it, becomes small. By that same bad work, he goes on, they can no longer sleep, and are being tossed about in the trouble themselves. The ones that made it are the ones now inside it. What the couplet holds up is the gap between the size of the act and the size of what came of it.