88 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (bill. 28 



This mele comes to us stamped with the liall-mark of antiquity. 

 It is a poem of mythology, but with what story it connects itself, the 

 author knows not. 



The translation here given makes no profession of absolute, verbal 

 literalness. One can not transfer a metaphor bodily, head and horns, 

 from one speech to another. The European had to invent a new 

 name for the boomerang or accept the name by which the Australian 

 called it. The Frenchman, struggling with the English language, 

 told a lady he was gangrened,' he meant lie Avas mortified. The cry 

 for literalism is the cry for an impossibility ; to put the chicken back 

 into its shell, to return to the bows and arrows of the stone age. 



To make the application to the mele in question : the word hu-olo- 

 olo^ for example, which is translated in several different ways in the 

 poem, is of such generic and comprehensive meaning that one word 

 fails to express its meaning. It is, by the way, not a word to be 

 found in any dictionary. The author had to grope his way to its 

 meaning by following the trail of some Hawaiian pathfinder who, 

 after beating about the bush, finally had to acknowledge that the 

 path had become so much overgrown since he last went that way 

 that he could not find it. 



The Arabs have a hundred or more words meaning sword — dif- 

 ferent kinds of swords. To them our word sword is very unspecific. 

 Talk to an Arab of a sword— you may exhaust the list of special 

 forms that our poor vocabulary compasses, straight sword, broad- 

 sword, saber, scimitar, yataghan, rapier, and what not, and yet not 

 hit the mark of his definition. 



Mele 



Haku'i ka iiahi o ka lua, pa i ka lani ; 



Ha'aha'a Hawaii, nioku o Keawe i lianan ia. 



Kiekie ke one o Malama ia Lohian, 



I a'e 'a mai e ke alii o Kahiki, 

 5 Nana i liele kai nli, kai ele, 



Kai popolo-hii'a a Kane, 



Ka wa i po'i ai lie Kai-a-ka-hina-lii, 



Kai nu'u, kai lewa. 



Hoopua o Kane i ka la'i : 

 10 Pa uli-biwa mai la ka nka o ke ahi a Laka, 



Oia wahine kihene lehua o Hopoe, 



Pu'e aku o na hala, 



Ka hala o Panaewa, 



O Panaewa nui, niokn lehua ; 

 15 Ohia kupu ha-o'e-o'e ; 



Lehua ula, i wili ia e ke ahi. 



A po, e ! 



Po Puna, po Hilo ! 

 Po i ka uahi o ku'u aina. 

 20 Ola ia kini ! 



Ke a mai la ke ahi ! 



