Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/165

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These verses were sung with such deep pathos, that Kovilan who was all attention and intoxicated with the thrilling music of her voice suspected that Mâthavi had set her heart on another man, and wild with jealousy, he quitted her abruptly, observing that it was very late, and went away followed by his attendants. Mathavi, who was grieved at the strange conduct of her lover, returned home immediately in her carriage.

It was early summer now, a season in which Love reigns supreme in the Tamil-land. The southern breezes which set in at this season carried his messages throughout Love’s chosen realm: and the cuckoo which warbled in every flowery grove acted as his trumpeter. Mathavi who was unhappy owing to the absence of her lover, went up to her summer bed room, in the upper storey of her mansion, and seated on a couch tried to console herself with the charms of music. She took the lute in her hand and essayed to sing, but such was the agitation of her mind that she could not hum more than a few words. She began to, play on the lute, and struck a mournful tune; and even in this she failed. Longing to meet Kovilan, she took the thin bud of the Piththikai, and dipping it in red cotton paint, wrote a missive to her lover on the fragrant petal of a flower of the wild- pine. “Mild summer,” she wrote, “who turns the thoughts of all living creatures to Love, is now the prince regent. The silvery moon who appears at sunset frowns at lovers who are parted from each other. And the great monarch Love will not

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