The Subtleties of Sulking
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niṉaittiruntu nōkkiṉuṅ kāyu maṉaittunīr / yāruḷḷi nōkkiṉī reṉṟu.
Even when I gave up speaking and doing, and only sat thinking of her and looking at her, she flares up: 'You looked at all of me — having whom in mind?'
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“I silent sat, but thought the more, And gazed on her. Then she / Cried out, 'While thus you eye me o'er, Tell me whose form you see'.”
“Even if I look in rapture on her own charms, she will chide saying, To whose limbs now art thou comparing mine?”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
நினைத்து இருந்து நோக்கினும் காயும்= என் சொற்களும் செயல்களும் பற்றித் தான் வெகுடலான், அவற்றை ஒழிந்திருந்து, தன் அவயவங்களது ஒப்பின்மையை நினைந்து அவற்றையே நோக்கினும், என்னை வெகுளாநிற்கும்; அனைத்தும் நீர் நோக்கினீர் யார் உள்ளி என்று= என் அவயவம் அனைத்தும் நோக்கினீர், அவற்றது ஒப்புமையான் எம்மகளிரை நினைந்து என்று சொல்லி, எ-று.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar breaks the couplet into two pieces. On the first, நினைத்து இருந்து நோக்கினும் காயும், he begins by explaining why the man is doing nothing at all: she had been growing angry over his words and his acts, so he gave up both. What he does after that subtraction is sit still, think that her features have no equal anywhere, and look at nothing but those. Even that, the commentator says, makes her angry with him. On the second piece he supplies her sentence: 'You looked over every one of my features — thinking, by their likeness, of which of those women?' Read together, the two halves show one thing. What he surrendered was speech and action only; the looking remained, and it is from how complete the looking was that she infers a comparison. What he was thinking was that she has no likeness. What she charges him with is likeness.