The Solitary Anguish
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vīḻvāri ṉiṉcoṟ peṟāa tulakattu / vāḻvāriṉ vaṉkaṇā ril.
Not one kind word reaches them from the person they love, and still they go on living. There is nobody in this world harder-hearted than they are.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“Who hear from lover's lips no pleasant word from day to day, / Yet in the world live out their life,- no braver souls than they!”
“None in the world are so hard-hearted as women who continue to live on even when they receive no kind messages from their beloved.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
வீழ்வாரின் இன்சொல் பெறாது வாழ்வாரின்= தம்மால் விரும்பப்படும் காதலர் திறத்துநின்று ஓர் இன்சொல்லளவும் பெறாதே பிரிவாற்றி உயிர்வாழ்கின்ற மகளிர்போல; வன்கணார் உலகத்து இல்= வன்கண்மையுடையார் இவ்வுலகத்து இல்லை, எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar reads it as a comparison made from inside. Women who stand in relation to the lover they desire and receive not so much as one kind word, and who bear the separation and go on living — there are none in this world, he says, so possessed of hardness as they are. The remark is made about herself. The verse does not offer endurance as a credit; it enters the ability to endure as the charge. It is bitter enough to say that if life continues under such a want, the reason must be a want of pity.