Wessanthara Biso Lyrics by Namal Udugama

Vessantara’s queen, I cannot give you away in this play
Your beauty and grace intoxicate me like sweet wine
The queen’s loveliness is like a golden full moon
Without it, what worth is the throne?
Vessantara’s queen, I cannot give you away in this play

(Like a rainbow over the mountain mist
She appears in the theatre pavilion
Through the three watches of the night, in this performance
Joyful cries of delight rise up…//)

Vessantara’s queen, I cannot give you away in this play
Your beauty and grace intoxicate me like sweet wine

(Leaving behind the riches of the royal palace
Just as you walked with me down the long, distant road
Through saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth), fulfilling the perfections
Come bound to me in love, my queen…//)

Vessantara’s queen, I cannot give you away in this play
Your beauty and grace intoxicate me like sweet wine
The queen’s loveliness is like a golden full moon
Without it, what worth is the throne?
Vessantara’s queen, I cannot give you away in this play
Your beauty and grace intoxicate me like sweet wine

This song comes straight out of the world of the nadagama, the old Sinhala folk theatre that villagers once gathered to watch all through the night. The story being staged is one every Buddhist in Sri Lanka knows by heart: the Vessantara Jataka, the tale of Prince Vessantara, who gave away everything he owned, his wealth, his elephant, even his children and his wife, as the ultimate act of generosity on his path to becoming the Buddha. The voice here is the prince himself, or rather the actor playing him on the stage, speaking to Maddi, his devoted queen.

The line that anchors the whole song, repeated again and again, is his refusal: “I cannot give you away in this play.” It carries a gentle ache, because anyone watching knows that in the actual story he does give her away. So this is the human heart of the legend, the moment a husband looks at the wife he loves and says he cannot bear to part with her. He praises her beauty in the old, classical way: her loveliness is like a golden full moon, and in Sinhala song the full moon is the standing image of calm, complete beauty, light that fills the night softly. Her grace, he says, intoxicates him like sweet wine, and without her even the throne and the riches of the palace mean nothing.

The middle verses lift the song out of pure romance into something more tender and devotional. He remembers how she left the comforts of the royal palace and walked beside him into exile, down the long and lonely road, never abandoning him. Then he reaches across many lifetimes: through saṃsāra, the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, she has stood by his side as he fulfilled the perfections (the great virtues a Bodhisattva must perfect before becoming a Buddha). His plea, “come bound to me in love, my queen,” is not just for this life but for every life to come.

What stays with you is how the song folds two kinds of love into one. There is the husband who simply cannot let his wife go, and there is the deeper Buddhist devotion of two souls travelling together through countless rebirths toward enlightenment. Set against the glow of lamps and the all-night chants of the nadagama, it turns an ancient sacred story into something warm and very human, a man telling the woman he loves that no throne, no act of merit, is worth giving her up.