Master Valluvan, the Long-Misunderstood Tamil Mentor - Part Three
Part Three
Whether or not relations with the uncultured enamour
Do not seek to succour what should sour
What does it matter if you gain or lose inferiors
Who feather their own nests and leave you in a mess
Those who look to the benefit that accrues from friendship
And those who covet largesse are thick as thieves
Better be content to walk alone than surround yourself
With friends who’d ditch you like wild stallions in battle
It’s better to sever than solder vile ties
With the petty-minded who’d fail you in need
By far it’d serve you better to be snubbed by the wise
Than be warmed by the company of narrow-minded fools
It’s infinitely more useful to bear your enemies’ scorn
Than court raucous revellers who’d warm you up with guffaws
Friends who’d proffer help remonstrate and find fault
Might as well shun them with scarcely a farewell
Friends who please by word and yet act otherwise
Crop up as a rude shock even in dreams
Turn away from the friend who snuggles up in private
While he seeks to denounce you in a public place
[Tirukkural, Chapter 82: “Evil Friendship”]
No-one contests your calligraphic diamond cutter’s skills
Nor your codifier rôle of existing customs beliefs
of kingly comportment
of the wife’s place
of manner of securing friendships
of the obtention and dispensation of education
of the seductions in the dainty maiden’s coyness
Nor of your infinite wisdom of the times
Nor of your observation of the passing of life about you
Nor alas! of your inveterate nay obsessive need to pontificate
in what is evident to the even half-baked
PERHAPS
What mattered was to get the lesson through
even one in ten was well worth the while
if remembered by the unfortunate by birth
Who never traversed the threshold of class and caste
Who never even buckled exceeding numbers on their toes
To you the ten-by-tens by one-hundred-and-thirty
perhaps you planned a florilège
in old age
by weeding out for posterity’s privileged classes
the few quoted over and over
katka kasadara katka karrapin
nitka athatkut thaka
thiiyinaal suddapun ullaarum araathe
naavinaal sudta vadu
(Continued in Part Four)
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