270 JOURNAL j E.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. II., PART II. 



<5D q esq e)i@>2D3D3 gd'Sd' essad'os^aS 



I do indeed esteem him as a clever writer : but what is there 

 free from fault ? For do not you see even in the lotus 

 (nelumbium speciosum), whose glowing flower is so sweet, that 

 its stalk is full of thorns ? 



The metre and construction of the last are founded upon 

 the rule called Malini* In this species of poetry, as in 

 the above stanza, every line must not only contain the 

 same number of short and long or al sounds,! but those 

 several sounds must uniformly correspond in all the four 

 lines. Thus each of the lines in the above selection 

 contains fifteen sounds, of which seven are either long or 

 al and eight short ; and they are uniform. 



t tribrach tribrach molossus baccbic baccbic 



It must however be borne in mind that in this species 

 of poetry the last sound or syllable must always be long 

 or al. This distinguishes the Elu sloka from the real 

 Sinhalese poetry, which may end with either a short or 

 long sound, and need only have, except in one or two 



* The rule of Mdlini versification is the following : — 



" Two na-gana tribrachs, one ma-gana molossus, and two sa-gana 

 bacchic, with a pause before and after the eighth letter, comprise the 

 malina versification." The very rule will serve as an example. 



f In Sinhalese prosody a long letter is equal in quantity to an 

 al consonant, together with the vowel by whose assistance that 

 letter is sounded ; vide infra. 



