The Love-Laden

(Rendered from Tamil by S. Rangaswami, M.A.)

(The following renderings of a Decad from Kural(1211-1220) speak of the dreams of a love-laden young lady in the height of ecstasy, to whom dreams seem to be more real than waking life, so that she longs to be left undisturbed for ever in her really blessed state in which there can be no parting from the happy vision. There is an undertone of deeper pathos and unravelled suggestive significance in this ‘Nayika-bhava’,–for the lover of God also desires the same state of blessedness to be conferred upon him when he communes with the Lord, notwithstanding all that the world might say or think of him.)

I2II      How shall I entertain thee, Sweet! my Dream!
Come on love’s errand to me with a joyous gleam?
I2I2      Would my eyes were asleep! so might I fly
To love’s sweet arms, and show how frail’s life-tie.
I2I3      Awake I see him not; and yet his form
Unfolds itself in dream, lending life its charm.
I2I4      Dreams kindle my love, so might I seek and find
The lover who strays away from waking mind.
I2I5      Love’s dear embrace was sweet when it did last;
So is it in dreams when I hold him fast.
I2I6      Were there but no waking,–my love, meseems,
Would scarce depart from my sweet, pleasant dreams.
I2I7      The Cruel one shuns me while I’m awake;
Why doth he haunt my dreams–my heart to break?
I2I8      Asleep I dreamt that on his shoulders I lay;
Awake–to my inmost heart he has stol’n the way.
I2I9      Him they reproach if he comes not; but then,
They see him not through their dream’s wondrous ken.
I220     They blame him if from me He parted be; –
They know not that in dreams he dwells with me.