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(10th c.) is remarkably similar to the Tamil.Like a wave that when the keen wind blowsDashes itself against the rocks —It is my own heart onlyThat I shatter in the torments of love. 12“Floodwaters” and “waves” spending themselves on therocks represent, on the one hand, the violent aspect ofwater that devours everything in its path and, on theother, uncontrolled powers. Tormented by love, thespeakers in both poems have lost control of themselves;their lives hang by a thread. Desolation is writ large onthe faces of both poems.Classical Tamil prosody developed independentlyof Sanskrit and is based on totally different principles,the most important of which is the acai (< acaital, “tomove, stir”), a metrical unit that comprises one or moresyllables (eluttu). It is unique to Tamil and is not knownto Sanskrit prosody. There are two types of acais: the nerand the nirai. The neracai is a simple metrical unit ofone syllable, long or short (CV[C] ¯ or CV[C]). The niraiacaiis a compound metrical unit of two short syllables,or of one short syllable followed by a long syllable(CVCV[C] or CVCV[C]). ¯ It therefore follows that theneracai may be long or short and that the first of the twosyllables of the niraiacai is always short. However, ashort syllable is considered long if it occurs alone, or if itis the final syllable in a foot. Also, if the first syllable ina foot is short, the one following it is considered short,even if it has a long vowel. A ner is represented here bythe symbol ( – ) and a nirai, by the symbol ( = ).A combination of two or more metrical units givesus the cir, “foot.” Usually, four feet make up a line (ati)of poetry. A foot, as a rule, comprises only one word orwords that are closely related. Thus, word boundary andprosodic boundary tend to coincide. It is the line of fourfeet that predominates in three of the four standardmeters: aciriyam, venpa, and kali. Thus, a line in theaciriyam meter has four feet or eight acais. A fourthmeter, the vanci, differs from the other three in that itsfoot comprises three acais instead of two. The normalvanci line has two feet, or six acais.Besides acai, the other important principle ofTamil prosody is totai, the stringing together of metricalunits into feet and lines. The devices commonly used forthe purpose are etukai, initial rhyme; iyaipu, final rhyme;and monai, alliteration. Rhyme in Tamil is at the beginningof the line: the second syllables in each of two ormore lines are identical. Final rhyme is the exception inˆˆˆˆclassical Tamil poetry. As regards alliteration, the letterthat begins each line should begin at least one other footin the same line. It is enough, however, if one of its classbegins one of the other feet. For vowels, the classes are(1) a, a, ai, au; (2) i, i, e, e; and (3) u, u, o, o. Totai isthus the art of knitting together lines to compose a song(pattutotuttal). Totuttal and yattal are other words used inthis connection. They are similar to the Greek wordrhapsoidein, “to rhapsodize,” that is, “to stitch songstogether.”While the number of acais in a foot is fixed at two,three, or four, the number of syllables in a foot varies.This is because the acai varies from one to two syllables.The rhythm (ocai) of Tamil poetry arises from the successionof acais, unlike that of English poetry, which isdetermined by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.There is, nevertheless, a strong impression ofstress despite the uneven number of syllables in a line.The ear recognizes four beats per line that usually fall inthe first acai of each foot.Each of the four Tamil meters has its own distinctiverhythm: akaval, “calling,” for aciriyam; ceppal,“saying,” for venpa; tunkal, “swinging,” for vanci; andtullal, “tripping,” for kali. These terms describe how theverses in the four meters sound to the ear when recited.Akaval, as the aciriyam meter was known earlier, is theoldest Tamil meter. It originated with the akavunans andakavanmakals, men and women of a specific clan whotold the future. Thus, akaval is a “prophetic utterance.”As in the case of the Greek hexameter, the connectionbetween meter and ritual existed in Tamil society as well.Aciriyam, with its strong impression of stress, was themeter of bardic poetry. It was recited to the accompanimentof a lute (yal), and this is clearly suggested by theterm akaval to indicate the rhythm that is characteristicof this meter.Talai, “linking,” indicates the mode by which the endof one foot is linked to the beginning of another to forma line. Lines are bound together to form a stanza orverse-form (pa) of which there are four types: aciriyappa,venpa, vancippa, and kalippa. Aciriyappa, the verseformin the aciriyam meter, is the staple of classicalTamil poetry. Each line comprises four feet of the typeknown as iyarcir, “natural foot,” which is of four kinds:ner ner ( – – ), nirai ner ( =– ), nirai nirai ( = = ), and nernirai ( –= ). Each of these feet has a mnemonic (vaypatu)named after a tree: tema, sweet mango ( – – ); pulima,sour mango ( =– ); karuvilam, wood apple ( = = ); andkuvilam, bael ( –= ). A scansion of the poem “A Trail ofFoam” would look like this.Translation Review 63
tema temankani tema tema- - - - = - - - -ner ner ner ner nirai ner ner ner ner1. kaman tankumati yenpor tamakkaruvilam tema karuvilam pulima= = - - = = = -nirai nirai ner ner nirai nirai nirai ner2. tariyalar kollo vanaimatu kaiyarkoltema kuvilam tema tema- - - = - - - -ner ner ner nirai ner ner ner ner3. yamen katalark kane mayirkaruvilam karuvilam karuvilam pulima= = = = = = = -nirai nirai nirai nirai nirai nirai nirai ner4. cerituni perukiya neñcamotu perunirkpulima karuvilam tema= - = = - -nirai ner nirai nirai ner ner5. kalporu cirunurai polatema tema tema pulima- - - - - - = -ner ner ner ner ner ner nirai ner6. mella mella villa kutumeNote the second-syllable rhymes (etukai) in lines 1(“man”) and 3 (“men”) and in lines 2 (“ri”) and 4 (“ri”).Tamil poetry favors second-syllable rhyme rather thanend rhyme. Note also the extensive use of alliteration(monai) throughout the poem: “ta” in line 1; “ko” in line2; “ka” in line 3; “pe” in line 4; and “me” in line 6. Therepetition of sounds, both horizontally and vertically,helps to create a seamless metrical grid that is impossibleto reproduce in English. I have instead used free versewith end-stopped lines to represent the tone of the Tamilpoem. The ancient Tamil poets composed for recitation.It is important to keep the auditory dimension of thepoem in mind while translating. And that is preciselywhat I have tried to do in my translation where the lastline, “minute by minute I too waste away,” mimics theauditory and emotional overtones of the last line of theoriginal, “mella mella villa kutume,” which really tugs atthe reader’s heartstrings. The Tamil poem of six linesexpands to eight lines in English. Such is the inflationarynature of poetic translation.Here is a poem, “The Tiger,” by Kavarpentu, oneof the few women poets represented in the Purananuru(Four Hundred Heroic Songs, 1st–3rd c. CE), comprising400 poems of five to twenty-five lines each on heroicthemes such as war and kingship.cirri narrun parri ninmakanyantula novena vinavuti yenmakanyantula nayinu mariye norumpulicerntu pokiya kallalai polainra vayiro vituvetonruvan mato porkkalat tane 13Where is your son? you ask,leaning against the fine pillar of my house.I don’t really know where he is.This womb that bore him is now a desolate cavea tiger once prowled about.Go, look for him on the battlefield.We overhear a woman talking with pride about her son.The poem is built on a series of binary oppositions.Elements from the inner and outer worlds are sharplycontrasted: son/tiger, womb/cave, house/battlefield. Thefirst pair is the most striking component of this montage.Her son is a tiger in his fierceness and courage. His naturalhabitat, like that of the predatory beast, is the openair. In fact, the battlefield is where he is most at home.He is a warrior. Her pride in this fact shines throughevery word she utters. There is also the poignancy of herseparation from him felt in the very core of her being —her womb. The pillars support her house. But her onlypillar of strength is her son, who is no longer with her.Her reticence belies her pain. But then social conventionsoblige her to restrain her feelings. Nevertheless, thepoem bursts at the seams with eloquence. Notice howunobtrusively the outside world enters her home andturns it upside down, erasing the difference, at least forher, between the two. Her only home is wherever her sonis. And, for the present, it happens to be the battlefield.The original poems do not have titles. I have providedthe titles for the translations.SanskritThe word “Sanskrit” means “perfected” or “refined.” Thelanguage was standardized from the spoken language byabout 500 BCE. It is an inflecting language like Greekand Latin, that is, a word is inflected by adding affixes orby different types of internal change. It has, for instance,64 Translation Review
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TRANSLATION REVIEWNo. 66, 2003TABLE
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NOT GETTING IT RIGHTBy David Ferry[
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Page 17 and 18: FROM DEAN TO DEANTREPRENEUR: THE AC
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Page 40 and 41: only to then qualify, rebut, or exp
Page 42 and 43: ON THE CATHAY TOUR WITH ELIOT WEINB
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Page 50 and 51: Facing SnowEnough new ghosts to mou
Page 52 and 53: likely a tea the speaker had been d
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Page 56 and 57: METHOD OR MAESTRI: TWO APPROACHES T
Page 58 and 59: agreement than dissent. The authors
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Page 72 and 73: THE MEXICAN POET HOMERO ARIDJISBy R
Page 74 and 75: THE ART OF WARSUN-TZUEdited, Transl
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Page 80 and 81: Street of Lost FootstepsBy Lyonel T
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