Night

rātrau vāribharālasāmbudaravodgvignenā jātāśruṇāpānthenātmaviyogaduḥkhapiśunaṃ gītaṃ tathotkaṇṭhayāāstāṃ jīvitahāriṇaḥ pravasanālāpasya saṃkīrtanaṃmānasyāpi jalāñjaliḥ sarabhasaṃ lokena datto yathā

• rātrau. in the night

• vāri-bhara-ālasa-ambuda-ravaudvignena. (bv. cmpd.) by him (the traveler) stricken by thunder from the cloud, slow and weighted with rain

• jātāśruṇā. (bv. cmpd.) he with rising tears

• pānthena. traveler

• ātma-viyoga. own separation

• duḥkha. grief

• piśunaṃ. (adj. with song) telling, disclosing

• gītaṃ. song

• tathā. in this way

• utkaṇṭhayā. grieving (literally, lifting the throat)

• āstāṃ. must be (with traveling)

• jīvita-hāriṇaḥ. life destroying

• pravasana. living far-off, traveling

• ālāpasya. talk

• samkīrtanaṃ. praise, glory, boasting

• mānasya. pride

• api. then

• jalāñjaliḥ. water or funerary offering (here: respect, observance; meta phorically, silence)

• sarabhasaṃ. quickly

• lokena. by the people

• datto. (is) given

• yathā. thus

Nightturbulent overhead cloudsand a ripple of thunder.The travelerstung with tearssings of a faraway girl.Oh travelingis a kind of death,the village people hear it,lower their headsand suddenly quit theirproud talesof adventure.

You could gather hundreds of Indian poems, sculptures, murals, and paintings that depict a person singing or playing music: love songs, work songs, ballads, folk lyrics—all carrying a subtle message for the listener or viewer. In particular the poets were sensitive to songs of heartbreak or separation from a beloved. Picture the villagers—many of them having returned home just ahead of the monsoons—seated by an evening fire, outdoing one another with accounts of their adventures in faraway places, when a song of grief cuts the night.

Travel in Old India was a necessity, but with the onset of the monsoon season, traders, merchants, soldiers, and pilgrims returned home to wait out the rainy months. This is the time in India when rain swells the rivers, roads get washed out, and travel becomes arduous or perilous. But monsoon season is also when Earth puts forth sweet blossoms, fresh grass emerges, and animal and bird life seems to waken. The poets regarded it as the time when, after long journeys home, humans make love to the sound of rainfall in the refreshing nights. To be caught on the road when the rains begin is the gravest misfortune. The villagers—hearing the traveler sing—give up glorifying travel, which steals one’s life, and make a funerary offering (jalāñjali) to their own boastful stories.

Here, the anonymous poet pays quiet tribute to the origins of poetry which lie in folksong. India has a long-held belief that village life and its repertoire of songs provide the best source for poetry. In their earliest verse collections, urban or courtly cultures cast a wistful, admiring look at the lives of rural or hunting people. Ethnopoetics. You find this tribute to origins in China’s Book of Songs, Japan’s Manyōshū, and in The Greek Anthology; Shakespeare; Coleridge and Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads; Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience; García Lorca’s Gypsy Ballads; and Lorine Niedecker’s New Goose. Each poet wrote from his or her own folk tradition.

I wonder if the speaker in this poem isn’t a traveler, himself caught on the road as the clouds thicken.