HIKAYAT HANG TUAH. 
117 
pride like a “bulb crushed by the weight of its bloom' ” (rosak 
bawang di-timpa jatnbak-nya) . Hang Tuah replies with the pro- 
verb “ Better death with honour than life with shame, so that one 
may enter heaven.” ( Baik mati dengan nama yang baik ; jangan 
hidup dengan nama yang jaliat, supaya masok slturga jemah ). 
Hang Jebat asks Hang Tuah to adopt his unborn child, if a 
boy, offspring of him and a waiting-maid Dang Baru. Hang 
Tuah snatches his own creese from his opponent and gives him 
another. Hang Jebat’s creese gets stuck into a tray as he lunges. 
Hang Tuah stabs him. The crowd starts to mount the palace but 
seeing Jebat still alive flees in panic; “some fell on their faces, 
some in a sitting posture, some broke their legs, others their arms, 
others their backs; some fell on their backs, some broke their noses, 
others their foreheads. When each got home, his wife asked, ‘ What 
broke your nose, father of AWang?’ kissing him and exclaiming, 
‘Oh! it must hurt!’” (p. 105). Jebat leaps down from the 
palace and slays every one he meets for three days, while Hang 
Tuah has retired into his house and sits in seclusion, refusing to 
speak. On the fourth day, as Hang Tuah is going to the river to 
bathe, he sees Jebat stabbing at people in the market, and calls out 
to him to cease. Jebat comes and falls at Hang Tuah’s feet. 
Hang Tuah takes him to his house and gives him betel. Jebat 
renews his request that Hang Tuah shall adopt his unborn child, 
and after that begs that his bandages be undone. He dies on Hang 
Tuah’s lap. The Raja has his corpse placed in the middle of the 
main gate and after seven days hanged on the main road. Laksa- 
mana Hang Tuah is high in royal favour, and bears himself humbly. 
Now the Seri Betara of Majapahit and Patch Gajah Mada 
desired revenge for the death of Petala Bumi and the six swash- 
bucklers killed bv Hang Tuah at Bukit China. They send Petala 
Bumi’s son, Kertala Sari, who has just devastated Daha. He 
mixes with the Javanese colonists, Pateh Kerma Wijaya’s men, 
and perpetrates a series of robberies. Hang Tuah protects the 
palace by hanging a row of spears that move and lunge all round it. 
Hang Tuah lies like a corpse in the middle of the market 
and as Kertala Sari passes jumps up and stabs him. He muti- 
lates the robber ( di-hiris-nya pesawat Kertala Sari) and takes his 
creese (p. 118). So he proves that he killed the robber against 
others who finding the corpse cut off ears and head and hand and 
claimed to have done the deed. 
The Raja sends Hang Tuah, who can speak Tamil, with Tun 
Kasturi, whom he makes Maharaja Stia, to the land of the Klings, 
Bijaya Nigrama. A royal letter to the ruler is escorted down to 
Hang Tli ah’s boat. After seven days’ sail they reach the island 
Biram Dewa, “looking like an elephant,” and go ashore. There 
he meets the Prophet Khidlir who foretells his safe return from 
this embassy to India and from a later embassy to China. The 
prophet also tells him to take seeds from a tree in the island which 
will burgeon and flower and fruit as soon as planted i.e. perform 
K. A. Soc., No. 83, 1921. 
