Tirukural/Chapter 132

Kural - 1311 From thy regard all womankind Enjoys an equal grace; O thou of wandering fickle mind, I shrink from thine embrace! You are given to prostitution; all those who are born as womankind enjoy you with their eyes in an ordinary way. I will not embrace you.

Kural - 1312 One day we silent sulked; he sneezed: The reason well I knew; He thought that I, to speak well pleased, Would say, 'Long life to you!' When I continued to be sulky he sneezed and thought I would (then) wish him a long life.

Kural - 1313 I wreathed with flowers one day my brow, The angry tempest lowers; She cries, 'Pray, for what woman now Do you put on your flowers?' Even if I were adorned with a garland of branch-flowers, she would say I did so to show it to another woman.

Kural - 1314 'I love you more than all beside,' 'T was thus I gently spoke; 'What all, what all?' she instant cried; And all her anger woke. When I said I loved her more than any other woman, she said "more than others, yes, more than others," and remained sulky.

Kural - 1315 'While here I live, I leave you not,' I said to calm her fears. She cried, 'There, then, I read your thought'; And straight dissolved in tears. When I said I would never part from her in this life her eyes were filled with tears.

Kural - 1316 'Each day I called to mind your charms,' 'O, then, you had forgot,' She cried, and then her opened arms, Forthwith embraced me not. When I said I had remembered her, she said I had forgotten her and relaxing her embrace, began to feign dislike.

Kural - 1317 She hailed me when I sneezed one day; But straight with anger seized, She cried; 'Who was the woman, pray, Thinking of whom you sneezed?' When I sneezed she blessed me, but at once changed (her mind) and wept, asking, "At the thought of whom did you sneeze?"

Kural - 1318 And so next time I checked my sneeze; She forthwith wept and cried, (That woman difficult to please), 'Your thoughts from me you hide'. When I suppressed my sneezing, she wept saying, "I suppose you (did so) to hide from me your own people's remembrance of you".

Kural - 1319 I then began to soothe and coax, To calm her jealous mind; 'I see', quoth she, 'to other folks How you are wondrous kind' Even when I try to remove her dislike, she is displeased and says, "This is the way you behave towards (other women)."

Kural - 1320 I silent sat, but thought the more, And gazed on her. Then she Cried out, 'While thus you eye me o'er, Tell me whose form you see'. Even when I look on her contemplating (her beauty), she is displeased and says, "With whose thought have you (thus) looked on my person?"