Reserve Overcome
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nāṇeṉa voṉṟō vaṟiyalaṅ kāmattāṟ / pēṇiyār peṭpa ceyiṉ.
When the one we had cherished comes and does, out of desire, the very things we wanted, we no longer know that a thing called reserve exists.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“No sense of shame my gladdened mind shall prove, / When he returns my longing heart to bless with love.”
“If the beloved but favour us with his love, we at once forget all our reserve.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
பேணியார் காமத்தான் பெட்ப செயின்= நம்மால் விரும்பப்பட்டவர் வந்து, காமத்தால் நாம் விரும்பியவற்றைச் செய்யுமளவின்; நாண் என ஒன்றோ அறியலம்= நாண் என்று ஒன்றையும் அறியமாட்டேமாய் இருந்தேம், எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar takes the second line first, because it is the condition. The one we had cherished comes, he says, and does out of desire the very things we had wanted; that is the whole of the condition, and both halves of it matter. Then he gives the result, and he gives it in the past tense: we were people who did not know a single thing called reserve. He does not write that we set it aside or that we lost the struggle with it. He writes that we did not know it, which is a report on what was in the mind at that hour rather than an account of a decision.