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tom of adding commentaries, or literal explanations (too often quite necessary) to each stanza. It has come to be a
matter of course that the verse is hardly, if at all, intelli-
gible without its traditional interpretation. Consider in this light the really magnificent Nithi-merri-vilakam (#90% florésis) the latest great product of the Tamil Muse ! There are many verses, (somewhat looked down upon, we imagine), which show what Tamil could do, if she aroused hereself and came down to speak to the masses. Latin literature had to descend from Lucretius and Virgil and Horace, to Apuleius, and the unknown author of the Pervigílíum Veneris, and to the great Ghristian poets of the middle ages, and to the Troubadours; before Dante,_who is really a Latin poet, and has revolutionised the European world,— was possible. Whether simplicity of diction, limitation of Sandhi, separation of words, a freer system of rhythm, and a general adaptation of thought, are possible to the Tamil poets of the future, is not for us to say, Take the following very simple English lines:—
“I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed; But let me rather forbear
For she'll say 'twas a barbarous, deed; For he ne'er could be frue, she averr'd,
Who would rob a poor bird of its young ; And I lov'd her the more when I heard,
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.” These lines are not high poetry, of course; but we should like to see Tamil verse with the same ring and general effectiveness, -
But it is time to stop. The writer asks indulgence for his versions. He never imagined himself a poet. The Tamil verses cannot fail to be admired, while both they and the echoes.hope for a kindly aud considerate criticism.
INDIAN INSTITUTE, FORD) G. U. Popo
11th July, 1901.
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