Classic Poem

“In Muciri with its drums, where the ocean roars,
where the paddy traded for fish and stacked high
on the boats makes boats and houses look the same
and the sacks of pepper raised up beside them
make the houses look the same as the tumultuous
shore and the golden wares brought by the ships
are carried to land in the servicing boats,
Kuttuvan its king to whom toddy is no more
valuable than water, who wears a shining garland, gives out gifts
of goods from the mountains along with goods from the sea
to those who have come to him. Even if you humbly bring
and bestow as much fine and copious wealth as that city possesses,
she will not marry someone who is unworthy of her.” So says
her father and will not grant her hand. Think! Will the tall city
suffer where sighing kites sleep on the middle wall of the fort,
the roads hard to conquer are filled with weapons,
but ladders have been thrown up by men who have come to force their way in!