MUNDARI POETRY, MUSIC AND DANCES. 109 



Okoe kajite miru ! gurejanae miru ? 

 Chimae bakanrate kare ! raurejan ? 



By whose words, my dear ! has it been felled, my dear ? 

 By whose talk, my dear ! is it down, my dear ? 



In the fourth stanza his plaint grows pathetic as may be judged from the answer 

 he gives to his own question. 



He complains that it is one of his listener's own friends who, by his words, has 

 wrought all this desolation. To the interrogatives Okoe and Chimae, two synonyms for 

 friend are substituted with the possessive affix m thy : 



Gatim kajite miru ! gurejanaea miru ! 

 Sangam bakanrate kare ! raurejan ! 



By the words of thine own friend, my dear, it (the cotton tree) is felled ! 

 By the talk of thine own companion, it (the plantain tree) is down. 



In the fifth and last stanza he solaces himself with the only consolation which real 

 love can find at all in such a case, by saying that the maiden whose loss he bewails has 

 found a husband who is rich and kind enough to make her happy. But he says so in 

 the terms of the simile adopted in the beginning : 



Toaleka otereo miru ! gurejanaea miru ; 

 Daileka madire kare ! raurejan. 



It (the cotton tree) was felled unto a ground (as sweet) as milk, 

 It (the plantain tree) fell unto a manured field as rich as curds. 



Synonyms go on increasing in number from stanza to stanza, until in the last 

 stanza every word of the second line is a synonymous variant to a corresponding word 

 in the first. 



The whole song is the plaint of a young Munda over the marriage with another man 

 of the maiden he had set his heart on. The following is a real if poorly rendered English 

 equivalent : — 



The maiden I loved was fair and bright like the majestic cotton tree in bloom on 

 the mountain side, and graceful as the plantain tree in the valley. Her loss robs my 

 life of its joy even as the felling of the cotton tree robs the hill side of its brightest 

 ornament, even as the fall of the plantain tree robs the valley of its greatest charm. 

 And it is a friend of mine and cousin (and hence a good companion of my own) who by 

 marrying her has brought this desolation on me. However, as I loved her truly, I 

 may at least comfort myself with the thought that she has found a husband who can 

 offer her a comfortable home. 1 



J There is a variant to this song which in two additional stanzas describes the life of the two trees and enters into the 

 details of their flowering. In the first stanza the word jengedi jenged is replaced by a jingle descriptive of the trunk of 

 the cotton tree, viz., lenqen-leng, i.e., tall and straight. 



Burura' edelo miru lengen-lengea miru 

 Berara' kadalo kare kere bore kare. 



