A NANING RECITAL. 
29 
In lines with four beats, such as 
. . . .Turun ka-laut ka-Bandar Rohan, 
Tempat peralm yang silang-sali, 
Tempat dayong yang leniang-lentong . . . . 
there is observable a certain superficial resemblance to the four- 
foot trochaic metre, most familiar in the song of Hiawatha — 
... .She was thinking of a hunter. 
Young and tall, and very handsome, 
Who one morning in the Spring-time 
Came to buy her father's arrows. . . . 
and the resemblance has led translators to adopt this rather mono- 
tonous metre for their versions of Malay metrical romances and 
Teromba. It is, however, clear that the Malay verse is not ‘metri- 
cal ’ (in the sense of resolvable into ‘ feet ’ that scan), but accentual. 
As such it may be compared with an only slightly less primitive 
form of composition — the old English accented and alliterative 
verse, such as Beowulf : 
....Wallowing waters, coldest of weathers, 
Night waning wan, while wind from the North,. 
Battle-grim blew on us; rough were the billows. . . . 
or Piers Plowman : 
. . . .Deeth can dryvynge after, and al to duste passhed 
Kynges and kynghtes, kdysers and popes, 
Manye a lovely ladye and lernmans of knyghtes 
Swowned and swelled for sorwe of hise dyntes. 
Apart from the alliterative principle, and the far greater majesty 
of the English verse, there is a similarity of rhythm in the two- 
forms. Just as the emphatic words in the Malay lines are marked 
by beat of the rebana, so were the accented and alliterated syllables 
of the English verses marked by a stroke of the harp. And it may 
be remarked in passing that although the Malay verse is primarily 
accentual there are evident traces in it of both the intermediate 
ornaments between vers libres and perfect rhyme, viz. assonance 
and alliteration. Both may be seen in the lines already quoted: 
Tempat sialang berlantak besi, 
Tempat kemuntong membilang bunq kur. 
The whole system of Malay prosody — including pantun structure — 
deserves more examination than it has yet received. The Jelebu 
Sayings, recorded by Mr. A. Caldecott in Journal No. 78, 
are particularly worthy of close study in this respect; so too are 
the metrical passages interpolated by Raja Haji Yahya (‘ an in- 
corrigible rhymester,’ as Hr. Winstedt calls him) in the various 
Hikayat edited by Dr. Winstedt and published in the Malay Litera- 
ture Series. 
Trengganu. 
July , 1919. 
R. A. Soc., No. 83, 1921. 
