Sad Remembrance
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Tap an underlined Tamil word to explore its sound, meaning, and use.
maṟṟiyā ṉeṉṉuḷēṉ maṉṉō vavaroṭiyā / ṉuṟṟanā ḷuḷḷa vuḷēṉ.
How else would I be alive at all? I live because I hold within me the days I lived with him.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“How live I yet? I live to ponder o'er / The days of bliss with him that are no more.”
“It is but the recollection of our union that keepeth me alive yet: what else of life is there in me?”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
யான் அவரோடு உற்றநாள் உள்ள உளேன்= யான் அவரோடு புணர்ந்தஞான்றை இன்பத்தை நினைதலான் இத்துன்ப வெள்ளத்தும் உயிர்வாழ்கின்றேன்; மற்று யான் என்னுளேன்= அது இன்றாயின், வேறு எத்தால் உயிர்வாழ்வேன், எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar reads the verse from inside a flood: even in this flood of grief, she says, I stay alive — and the reason is that I keep thinking of the joy of the days I was united with him. That remembering is the one thing holding her up. Were it absent, she asks, by what else would I live? — and folded inside the question is its own answer: by nothing.