Madura Wasanthe Lyrics by Athula AdikariSamitha Mudunkotuwa

In the sweet spring, flowers bloom in delicate patterns
Across the four horizons, your image blossoms
My princess, in this season of spring
flower upon flower, tender vines
In the sweet spring, flowers open in delicate patterns
Across the four horizons, messages of love are heard
My prince, I am that spring
in this springtime I am right beside you
In the sweet spring, flowers bloom in delicate patterns

A swarm of butterflies kisses the rainbow-colored flowers
adorning the garden
From flower to flower they softly murmur
whispering under their breath
What is it they are saying to one another?

In the sweet spring, flowers bloom in delicate patterns…

Among the kiyambu vines, the sandal mark on your brow
shines and glitters bright
Will it smudge against my lips, my love, my princess?
On this lovely morning
let us deck ourselves out in the city of love

In the sweet spring, flowers bloom in delicate patterns…

In the sweet spring, flowers bloom in delicate patterns
In the sweet spring, flowers open in delicate patterns
Across the four horizons, your image blossoms
Across the four horizons, messages of love are heard

A young man and a young woman sing this one back and forth to each other, the way new lovers do when everything around them suddenly feels like it was made for them. It is spring, the season of flowers, and the two of them keep handing the same picture back and forth: he tells her that the whole world is blooming with her face, and she answers that she herself is that spring he is feeling.

The song works almost entirely through the imagery of a garden in bloom. In Sinhala song, spring (wasanthe) is the season of new love, when flowers open and the air fills with fragrance, so when he says flowers are blossoming in delicate patterns across the four horizons and that her image is blooming in every one of them, he means his love has spread until he sees her everywhere he looks. She turns it around gently: she is not just inside the spring, she is the spring, and it is right here beside him. That is the heart of the duet, two people insisting the other is the source of all this beauty.

The middle verses decode into small, tender pictures. He watches butterflies moving from one rainbow-colored flower to the next, leaning in close and seeming to whisper to each blossom, and he wonders aloud what secret they are passing along, a playful way of saying the whole garden is gossiping about love the way he is. Then he notices the chandana thilakaya, the dot of sandalwood paste worn on the forehead, set among the kiyambu creepers framing her face, and teases that it might smudge off onto his lips if he kisses her. It is a soft, flirtatious image, and it tells you how close they already are.

By the end the two voices fold into each other, his lines and hers alternating, and the song leaves you with the simple, happy feeling it began with. There is no ache here, no separation, just a couple in the first bloom of love who have decided that the spring outside and the love between them are the same thing.