Regional Literature in Translation: University of Madras Revised Syllabus: BA English [Sem 2]

Is Poetry Always Worth When it’s Old?

1

Is poetry worthy when it’s old?

And is it worthless, then, because it’s new?

Reader, decide yourself if this be true:

Fools suspend judgement, waiting to be told.

Kalidasa

2

If learned critics publicly deride

My verse, well, let them. Not for them I wrought.

One day a man shall live to share my thought:

For time is endless and the world is wide.

Bhavabhuti

Of what use is the poet’s poem,

            Of what use is the bowman’s dart,

Unless another’s senses reel

            When it sticks quivering in the heart?

4

Scoundrels without the wit to fit

A word or two of verse together

Are daunted not a whit to sit

In judgement on the abstruse poetry of another.

Such men will listen with attentive mind,

Alert to see how many faults they find.

And if they’re vexed because they fail to grasp the sense

Of works conceived for readers of intelligence,

They naturally do not blame their foolishness:

A girl who’s less than perfect always blames the dress.

                          5

A man lives long who lives a hundred years:

Yet half is sleep, and half the rest again

Old age and childhood. For the rest, a man

Lives close companion to disease and tears,

Losing his love, working for other men.

Where can joy find a space in this short span?

                       6

‘Do not go’, I could say but this is inauspicious.

‘All right, go’ is a loveless thing to say.

‘stay with me’ is imperious. ‘Do as you wish’ suggests

Cold indifference. And if I say ‘I’ll die

When you are gone’, you might or might not believe me.

Teach me, my husband, what I ought to say

When you go away.

                              

                                                            Bhartrbari

 Translated from Sanskrit by John Brough

குறுந்தொகை 3,  இயற்றியவர்- தேவகுலத்தார்,  குறிஞ்சி திணை  –  தலைவி சொன்னது
நிலத்தினும் பெரிதே வானினும் உயர்ந்தன்று
நீரினும் ஆரளவின்றே – சாரல்
கருங்கோற் குறிஞ்சிப் பூக் கொண்டு
பெருந்தேன் இழைக்கும் நாடனொடு நட்பே.

Kurunthokai 3, Poet Thevakulathār, Kurinji thinai – What She said

Bigger than earth, certainly,
higher than the sky,
more unfathomable than the waters
is this love for this man

of the mountain slopes
where bees make rich honey
from the flowers of the kurinci
that has such black stalks.

Tevakulattar

Kuruntokai 3

What She Said

             To her girl friend

In his country,

Summer west wind blows

Flute music

Through bright beetle-holes in the waving bamboos.

The sweet sound of waterfalls is continuous,

Dense as drums.

The urgent lowing voices of a herd of stags

Are oboes,

The bees on the flowering slopes

Become lutes.

Excited by such teeming voices,

An audience of female monkeys

Watches in wonder

The peacock in the bamboo hill

Sway and strut

like a dancer

making an entrance

on a festival stage

    

        He had a garland on his chest,

        A strong bow in his grip,

        Arrow already chosen,

        And he asked which way

        The elephant went

        With an arrow buried in its side.

       

        He stood at the edge 

        Of a ripe-eared millet field.

       

        But, among all the people

        Who saw him standing there,

        Why is it

        That I alone

lie in bed

in this harsh night,

eyes streaming,

arms growing lean?

Kapilar

Akananuru 82.

Gitanjali

1

THOU hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest

again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable1.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, andstill thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

2

WHEN thou commandest me to sing it seems that my heart would break with pride; and I look to thy face, and tears come to my eyes.

All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet harmony ⎯ and my

adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its flight across the sea.

I know thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only as a singer I come before thy presence.

I touch by the edge of the far spreading wing of my song thy feet which I could never to reach.

Drunk with the joy of singing I forget myself and call thee friend who art my lord.

3

I KNOW not how thou singest, my master! I ever listen in silent amazement.

The light of thy music illumines the world. The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky.

The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles and rushes on.

My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of thy music, my master!

Ineffable: too great or intense to be expressed in words; unutterable

4

LIFE of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.

And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.

5

I ASK for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will

finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work

becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

To-day the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.

Rabindranath Tagore

Six Rubaiyaats

Mirza Arif

If an old tree-trunk sends out a tender sprout,
Will one who knows give it a different name?
The old order has just been pruned, no more,
An idiot may, perhaps, call it democracy.

Bullets chase a poor fellow; bread eludes his grasp,
Even in freedom helpless, hapless he
Sheeplike  must submit to one who kills.
Butcher alone has changed; the cut is as it used to be.

Will Hail, hail and public audiences aught avail?
Will mere bits of raw thread ever dam the wounds?
As long as the knife-blade reaches not the abscess-root
Will the commissions remedy the nation's cancer, ah?

The minister's doggie frolics up the sofa sets,
Some kiss it; some others embrace it.
Behold the labourer, ah, still with the rope on his
             shoulder, furrows on his brow,
Belly sunk in, heart aburn, liver heating up.

A cool capitalist you, 0 Chinar!
Green you look in spring, turn bloody in autumn.
The empty-bellied poor you lull to steep.
What fire, then, is it that consumes you within?
This, the Hindus day; that, the Afghans. O!
Different arc the days of Bhagavan and Rahman,
Blessed indeed the day when people say our own day has come.
Arif aspires to see the day of Man adawn.