Longing for the Beloved
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viṉaikalantu veṉṟīka vēntaṉ maṉaikalantu / mālai yayarkam viruntu.
Let the king close with the work of war and win it; and let me reach my own house and keep the evening as a guest, with my wife beside me.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“O would my king would fight, o'ercome, devide the spoil; / At home, to-night, the banquet spread should crown the toil.”
“May the prince begin the battle at once and triumph! And may I return in the evening and feast at home with my loved one!”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
வேந்தன் வினை கலந்து வென்று ஈக= வேந்தன் வினைசெய்தலைப் புரிந்து வெல்வானாக; மனைகலந்து மாலை விருந்து அயர்கம்= யாமும் மனைவியைச் சென்று கூடி ஆண்தை மாலைப்பொழுதிற்கு விருந்து அயர்வோமாக, எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar keeps the two halves as two separate wishes and marks who each belongs to. The first is the king's: let him take up the doing of the war and be victorious. The second is the speaker's own, and the commentator supplies the pronoun the couplet leaves out, saying we for the man who is away. Let us also go and join our wife, he writes, and hold a feast for the evening hour. Two things in his reading are worth noticing. He makes the joining an act of going, so the speaker is still at a distance while he says this. And he keeps the evening as the one being feasted rather than the occasion of the feast, exactly as the couplet has it.