Feminine Poems - Vidya
Veluri, Rao (rveluri@SMTPGATE.ANL.GOV)
Fri, 26 Apr 96 16:02:25 CST
Hello friends:
Does any one know about Vidya, one of the earliest women poets?
Andrew Schelling, a sanskrit scholar and a translator(a good one with
fine tastes, I should add!) considers her as 'the most notable poet of
bold and untamable temper,' and whose poetry could stand with
the 'best poetry from ancient Greece, China or Japan.' He also assumes
that she was from the South, for the mere reason that the 'strict
influence,' the brahmins exerted on the women in regard to learning
sanskrit was least felt in the South, unlike in the North!!
As an atonement to my past sins against 'aucityaM' or appropriateness
in my choice of classical sanskrit poetry of yore, I post the
following few pieces of Vidya, translated by Andrew Schelling!!
________________
Neighbor, please
keep an eye on my house
for a moment.
The baby's father
finds our well-water
tasteless, and refuses
to drink it. I'd better
go, though alone
down to the river,
though the thick
tamala trees and stands
of broken cane
are likely to
scratch my breasts.
__________________
Dense downhanging branches,
shade on the riverbank,
dew on the wind --
O Murala river--
clear sand,
whistiling waterbirds,
who made your
willows such refuge,
a married woman could
come here for love,
undetected......
___________
What wealth,
that you can chatter
about a night spent
with your lover--
the teasings,
smiles, whispered words--
even his special smell.
Because O my friends I swear--
from the moment
my lover's hand touched
my skirt, I remember
nothing at all.
_______________
One for the road from the laakshaNika tome, the dhvanyaalOka!!
Get away
from the riverbank, boy!
Why do you
stare while, I'm bathing?
This is no place
to frequent
if you live in fear
of your wife.
_____________
Thought for the weekend:
"The woman and the man
Guilty of adultery or fornication,
Flog each of them with a hundred stripes."
From the Holy Koran, Surah 24:2
_____________________________________________________________________
Regards.
--Venkateswara Rao Veluri