Tirukural/Chapter 8

Kural-71 And is there bar that can even love restrain? The tiny tear shall make the lover's secret plain. Is there any fastening that can shut in love ? Tears of the affectionate will publish the love that is within.

Kural-72 The loveless to themselves belong alone; The loving men are others' to the very bone. Those who are destitute of love appropriate all they have to themselves; but those who possess love consider even their bones to belong to others.

Kural-73 Of precious soul with body's flesh and bone, The union yields one fruit, the life of love alone. They say that the union of soul and body in man is the fruit of the union of love and virtue (in a former birth).

Kural-74 From love fond yearning springs for union sweet of minds; And that the bond of rare excelling friendship binds. Love begets desire: and that (desire) begets the immeasureable excellence of friendship.

Kural-75 Sweetness on earth and rarest bliss above, These are the fruits of tranquil life of love. They say that the felicity which those who, after enjoying the pleasure (of the conjugal state) in this world, obtain in heaven is the result of their domestic state imbued with love.

Kural-76 The unwise deem love virtue only can sustain, It also helps the man who evil would restrain. The ignorant say that love is an ally to virtue only, but it is also a help to get out of vice.

Kural-77 As sun's fierce ray dries up the boneless things, So loveless beings virtue's power to nothing brings. Virtue will burn up the soul which is without love, even as the sun burns up the creature which is without bone, i.e. worms.

Kural-78 The loveless soul, the very joys of life may know, When flowers, in barren soil, on sapless trees, shall blow. The domestic state of that man whose mind is without love is like the flourishing of a withered tree upon the parched desert.

Kural-79 Though every outward part complete, the body's fitly framed; What good, when soul within, of love devoid, lies halt and maimed? Of what avail are all the external members (of the body) to those who are destitute of love, the internal member.

Kural-80 Bodies of loveless men are bony framework clad with skin; Then is the body seat of life, when love resides within. That body alone which is inspired with love contains a living soul: if void of it, (the body) is bone overlaid with skin.