Tirukural – Chapter 72
Chapter 72: Judging the Audience
Verse 719
Two elders have gathered under a shade-giving tree to speak to a learned gathering. One inattentive young visitor raises his hand to ask them to repeat themselves, and they decline.
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Weaver’s Wisdom
Verse 711
Pure men of studied eloquence should study
an audience before speaking deliberate words.
Verse 712
Let good men who know the orator’s art knowingly await
the right moment to articulate their good knowledge.
Verse 713
Failing to assess an audience before venturing to speak
is to be unaware of the way of words and remain ineffective.
Verse 714
Be brilliant before brilliant men; but assume
the dullness of pale mortar before dullards.
Verse 715
Of all good things, the best is the polite reserve
that refrains from speaking first when with elders and superiors.
Verse 716
To blunder before perceptive, erudite men
is like slipping and falling from a very high place.
Verse 717
A learned man’s learning shines the brightest
among luminaries capable of critiquing his language.
Verse 718
Speaking to an audience of thinking men
is like watering a bed of growing plants.
Verse 719
Those who speak good things to good and learned gatherings
should never repeat them to ignorant groups, even forgetfully.
Verse 720
Expounding to a throng of unfit men
is like pouring sweet nectar into an open gutter.
One Response to “Tirukural – Chapter 72”
From Our Gurus' Teachings
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January 25th, 2022 at 12:04 am
“AUM”!.