Anula

Bewitched, I, Anula, deceiving with my eyes,
pleasuring the body like the very cow of desire,
bearing the sorrow-fires at the end of each lovemaking,
the pair of eyes now blurred amid the pages of the Four-Dynasty chronicles

On the lake shore, like a lightning-flower, I bloomed as a bud,
my chastity broken at the hands of an aged sinner,
my suffering body soaked through with sorrowing blood,
and the poison-vessels of the pains I bore were all mixed into it,
look at them, these pains that wound my heart

Beyond the palace gates, roaming many villages and districts,
with a body bathed in fever, I went seeking love,
ruining every caste-custom, I, the lamp of the dynasty,
and, gaining no love at all, I burned upon the funeral pyre,
look at them, these pains that wound my heart

A dark, dramatic song written as a monologue in the voice of Queen Anula, the notorious figure of the Mahavamsa, ancient Sri Lanka’s first reigning queen, remembered for taking, and poisoning, a series of husbands and lovers. Here she speaks for herself: bewitched and bewitching, deceiving with her eyes, pleasuring the body like the cow of desire, and bearing the sorrow-fires that came at the end of each union, her eyes now blurred among the pages of the old dynastic chronicles that condemned her.

The song reframes the villain as a wronged woman. On the lakeshore she bloomed like a bud, a lightning-flower, until her chastity was broken at the hands of an aged sinner; her suffering body was soaked in sorrowing blood, and the poison-vessels of everything she endured were mixed into her. Look, she says, at these pains that wound my heart, the poison history remembers her for is recast as the poison first done to her.

The last verse is her doomed search. Beyond the palace gates she roamed villages and districts, feverish, seeking love; ruining every caste-custom, she, the lamp of the dynasty, broke every rule for it, and still, gaining no love at all, she burned upon the funeral pyre. Look at these pains that wound my heart. Sung by Malini Shyaradee, composed by Tharindu Damsara to words by Hansi Sandamali, it is a bold, sympathetic reimagining of one of history’s condemned women, giving the poisoner queen a voice, and a grief, of her own.