Sulking
.
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nīru niḻala tiṉitē pulaviyum / vīḻunar kaṇṇē yiṉitu.
Water, which life cannot do without, is sweet only in the shade; and sulking, which love cannot do without, is sweet only with those who love you.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“Water is pleasant in the cooling shade; / So coolness for a time with those we love.”
“Water is pleasant only in shady groves: and pettishness hath a charm only in one who loveth ardently.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
நீரும் நிழலதே இனிது= உயிர்க்கு இன்றியமையாத நீரும் நிழலின்கண்ணே இனிதாவது, ஏனை வெயிலின்கண்ணது ஆகாது; புலவியும் வீழுநர்கண்ணே இனிது= அது போலக் கலவிக்கு இன்றியமையாத புலவியும், அன்புடையார்கண்ணே இனிதாவது, ஏனை அன்பிலார்கண் ஆகாது, எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar gives the two halves the same shape. Of the first: water, which life cannot do without, is sweet in the shade, and what is out in the sun is not. Of the second: so too the sulk, which union cannot do without, is sweet with those who have love, and with those who have none it is not. Three things are worth noticing. He calls both things இன்றியமையாத, indispensable — nothing here counsels doing without water or without sulking. He supplies, twice, the negative half that the couplet leaves unspoken, and the word he uses for it is ஆகாது: it does not come to be, not it comes to be less. And where the printed line has நிழலது இனிதே he writes நிழலின்கண்ணே இனிதாவது, moving the restriction onto the place so that both halves restrict in the same way. The water is the same water and the sulk is the same sulk. What changes is only where it lands.