यन्न शक्नोमि तस्याऽर्थे यदि दुःखं करोम्यहम् । तदमारितमृत्योर्मे युक्तं प्रत्यहरोदनम् ॥ २२ ॥
yanna śaknōmi tasyā’rthē yadi duḥkhaṁ karōmyaham | tadamāritamṛtyōrmē yuktaṁ pratyaharōdanam || 22 ||
Translation
If I grieve over what I cannot do, then, since I have not slain death, I ought to weep every day.
Word by word
- yan
- (yat) what
- na
- not
- śaknōmi
- I can do
- tasya
- that
- arthē
- over
- yadi
- if
- duḥkhaṁ
- grieve
- karōmy
- (karomi) I do
- aham
- I
- tad
- (tat) then
- amārita
- not slain
- mṛtyōr
- (mṛtyoḥ) death
- mē
- for me
- yuktaṁ
- right
- pratyaha
- every day
- rōdanam
- weeping
Meaning
A reductio, and a dry one. Grief over the impossible has no natural stopping place. Death is the one thing no one has got the better of, so if helplessness were a reason to weep, a person should be weeping daily, from birth. The commentary spells it out: since death has not been destroyed and will surely kill us, let us sit down and cry each day. No one does, and the absurdity shows the mistake. We have all quietly made our peace with the largest impossibility of all, and we get up and live. The same good sense can be applied to the smaller ones. The verse is a light touch that has real force: it can be said to oneself, with a smile, in the middle of a bad day.