The Subtleties of Sulking
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Tap an underlined Tamil word to explore its sound, meaning, and use.
tummuc ceṟuppa vaḻutā ṇumaruḷḷa / lemmai maṟaittirō veṉṟu.
A sneeze came on me and I pressed it down. She wept even so, asking whether I was hiding from her that my own people were thinking of me.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“And so next time I checked my sneeze; She forthwith wept and cried, / (That woman difficult to please), 'Your thoughts from me you hide'.”
“I repressed my sneeze: and then aiso she wept saying, Thou wantest to conceal from me that some of thy friends are thinking on thee!”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
தும்முச் செறுப்ப= எனக்குத் தும்மல் தோன்றியவழி யாருள்ளித் தும்மினீர் என்று புலத்தலை அஞ்சி, அதனை யான் அடக்கினேன், அங்ஙனம் அடக்கவும்; நுமர் உள்ளல் எம்மை மறைத்திரோ என்று அழுதாள்= நுமர் நும்மை நினைத்தலை எம்மை மறைக்கல் உற்றீரோ என்று சொல்லிப் புலந்து அழுதாள், எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar splits the couplet in two. In the first piece he explains that a sneeze came on the man and he held it down, because he remembered her earlier complaint, 'thinking of whom did you sneeze?' The motive is the commentator's addition; the couplet itself states no reason. His phrase அங்ஙனம் அடக்கவும் — 'and even having held it down so' — is what joins the two lines: the suppression changed nothing. In the second piece he expands her words as 'are you trying to hide from me that your own people are thinking of you?' and says she wept them. He also settles what kind of weeping it is: புலந்து அழுதாள், she wept in sulk, which is the subject this chapter is named for.