Classic Poem

Patirruppattu 77

You might ask,

" This Porai, so fierce in war,
how big
are his armies, really? "

Listen,
new travelers on the road!

As the enemy mob scampers and flees
and kings die on the field,

I've no body count
of those who kill as they fall,
and falling,
dance the victory dance
with lifted hands.

I've no count of the well-made chariots
that run all over them,
wheel-rims hardly worn,

nor of the horses, the men,
numberless,
I've not counted them.

And those elephants of his,
they cannot be pegged down,
they twist goads out of shape,

they stamp even on the moving shadows
of circling eagles,
and stampede like the cattle
of the Konkars
with pickax troops
on a wasteland of pebbles,
they really move, those elephants in his army:

I see them but I cannot count them.