Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

Part One. Translations from Sanskrit
Section Four. Bhartrihari. The Century of Life

On Wisdom

Poets and Princes

Unhonoured in a State when poets dwell

Whose fames range wider than its strong-winged birds,

Whose utterance is for grace adorable

Of chosen speech and art of noble words,

Whose wisdom hundreds come to hear and tell;

The world that nation’s chief for dullness blames,

For poets without wealth are rich and kings:

When values low depreciate costly things,

’Tis the appraiser’s shame and not the gem’s.