Longing for the Beloved
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varukamaṟkoṇka ṉorunāṭ parukuvaṉ / paitaṉō yellāṅ keṭa.
Let him come home, my lord of the shore, for one single day; I shall drink him in, and every part of this wasting sickness will be destroyed.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“O let my spouse but come again to me one day! / I'll drink that nectar: wasting grief shall flee away.”
“Let my spouse but return home: and then in one day I shall drink the nectar of his presence and bid farewell to this wasting disease.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
கொண்கன் ஒருநாள் வருக= இத்துணைநாளும் வாராக் கொண்கன் ஒருநாள் என்கண் வருவானாக; பைதல் நோய் எல்லாம் கெடப் பருகுவன்= வந்தால் பையுளைச் செய்கின்ற இந்நோய் எல்லாம் கெட அவ்வமிழ்தத்தை வாயில் களைந்தானும் பருகக் கடவேன், எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar begins by supplying what the couplet only implies: this is a man who has not come for all these many days. The wish is then exact. Let him come to me one day. He treats the drinking as conditional on that arrival, and he names what is drunk with a word the couplet never uses, amiḻtam, the nectar of the gods, adding that she will not leave any of it undrunk. The sickness is glossed as the one that keeps making paiyuḷ, the ache; and the last word of the couplet is her purpose in drinking, not a prediction. She does not say the sickness will fade. She says she will drink so that it is destroyed.