If the white dew must vanish,
let it vanish:
even if it stayed
no one would care
to make it a string of gems. The man thought her reply was callous, but his feelings for her only increased.

Patirruppattu 60

His armies love massacre,
he loves war,
yet gifts
flow from him ceaselessly.

Come, dear singers,
let's go and see him in Naravu

where, on trees
no ax can fell,
fruits ripen, unharmed
by swarms of bees,
egg-shaped, ready
for the weary traveler
in fields of steady, unfailing harvests;

Ainkurunuru 24

In his country,

spotted crabs
born in their mother's death
grow up with crocodiles
that devour their young.

Why is he here now?

And why does he
take those women,

a jangle of gold bangles
as they make love,

only to leave them?

Embracing this woman
who wants him as he wants her,

senses tuned all along
to the aphrodisiac
skill of his minstrel's lute,

he enjoys his love:
this man of soft meadows,
jasmine meadows.

His heart swells
as he looks at his love,
now his wife,
and at his little son
named for a famous father —
his smile toothless,
his feet unsteady,
as he rolls
his tiny chariots of war.

Saying to himself,
" The white wild jasmine is in flower,
the climbing jasmine is in bud,
the forest has taken on the beauty
of the rains,
and if my love sees it
she will grieve, "

our lover has come back,
not giving himself anymore
to tasks of war,

so that your troubled beauty

As the cassias blossom
in small chains,
long red anthills send forth winged ants,
the animals have no appetite,

the season of rains
is on,
my dear girl,
and your man
who was in love with battle
has remembered

and come home.

Because peacocks moved like you
and jasmine opened
like your brow
and the does had scared looks like you,

my girl,

thinking of you, your lovely brow,
I've come
faster than the rains.

Kuruntokai 27

Like milk
not drunk by the calf,
not held in a pail,

a good cow's sweet milk
spilled on the ground,

it's of no use to me,
unused by my man:

my mound of love,
my beauty
dark as mango leaf,

just waiting
to be devoured
by pallor.

Narrinai 63

On the new sand
where fishermen,
their big nets
ripped apart by an angry sea,
dry their great hauls of fish

in a humming neighborhood
of meat smells,

a laurel tree blossoms
all at once in bright clusters
fragrant as a festival,

but this unfair town
is noisy with gossip.

And what with an unfair Mother too
keeping strict watch over us,

will our love just perish here
in sallow patches,