Reserve Overcome
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kāmak kaṇicci yuṭaikku niṟaiyeṉṉu / nāṇuttāḻ vīḻtta katavu.
The axe that is desire breaks the door called self-command, for all that the bolt of shame was drawn across it.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“Of womanly reserve love's axe breaks through the door, / Barred by the bolt of shame before.”
“The door that is bolted with the bolt of modesty will yet yield to the axe of an overpowering love.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
நாணுத்தாழ் வீழ்த்த நிறை என்னும் கதவு= நாணாகிய தாழினைக் கோத்த நிறையென்னும் கதவினை; காமக் கணிச்சி உடைக்கும்= காமவேட்கையாகிய கணிச்சி முறியாநின்றது, இனி அவை நிற்றலும் இல்லை, யான் ஆற்றலும் இல்லை,; எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar reads the couplet as a report from inside the house. The reserve a woman keeps is a door, he says, and the bolt run across that door is her sense of shame; that is what has been holding it shut. Standing against it is desire, and the word for it is an axe — the heavy kind carried to something that is meant to be broken open. The door is breaking now, he says, and he lets her finish the thought in her own words: they will not stand any longer, and I have no strength left to hold them.