Listening (By St. Thiruvalluvar) Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

411. The wealth of all wealth is listening by ears.
That wealth is the chief of all wealth.
412. When there is no food for the ears to listen
Spare a little to the stomach.
413. Those who have the wealth of listening in this earth
Match the gods who have the food of oblations.
414. The learning, the unlettered get from the wise
Lends support when they suffer from fatigue.
415. The oral words of the righteous
Serve as the staff in a slippery road.
416. However so little, listen to good words.
That will fetch to one great dignity.
417. Those who listen to the words of enquiry
Though misunderstood, don’t speak senseless words.
418. The ears not pierced by queries of works of virtue
Though hearing, equal the deaf ears.
419. Those who heard not the better counsels of discourse
Will seldom speak words of etiquette.
420. What does it matter if those brutishmen
who know oral taste but the aural one, live or die?