No. 2. ON MORNING. සව්දුක් කල කල්හි විත්තිස සර ගන්මින්තමස් පිරිස් ...ලෙව්වොත් එව්කුළුනෙන්පෙනෙත් පෙර දිගිනවිත් උන්නා සියත් බියෙන්...එව්හු ඇස්දහරතැනින් තැනපිනිත් වූඒම ගුල්විල්කළුන්... මැව්වෙම්නොත් සුවහස්ද කින්ට උපුළුත්හි සෙව් දිනුම්රුව් ව්බඟුන්, "When the spirit (pl:) of Night had approached and distressed all the world, the Sun with his attendant Rays in mercy appeared in the East; through fear of whom the spirit (died) pined away; and the tears which trickled down from his eyes assumed the form of Dew at divers places-and to witness his joyful advent the women-like ponds gave birth to millions of eye-like Lotuses—and the hum of Bees seemed as it were the hymns of victory." VERSIFIED. "Beneath Night's iron sceptre, groaning, lay The gloomy tyrant, fill'd with coward fears, J. R. B. The above Singhalese stanza, for which we are indebted to a native pandit, Don Andris de Silva Batuwantudawe, is composed in the Sardula Wikkridita tune,* and comprises, a ශෛවර්ම සජාස්තතස් සගුර වශශාල වික්‍රිඩි තම් A molossus, an anapoest, an amphibrach, an anapoest, 2 antibachics, and a guru, with a pause at the end of the 7th and 12th syllables, compose this tune. )))) )))) molusses, anapost, amphibrach, anapost & 2 antibachics. 7. No. 3. The following, one of the concluding stanzas of a beautiful little poem, which is a critique upon the work from which the first has been selected; is from the pen of a celebrated living author named Meeripenne. හොද හොඳහපනෙක්වාමයි කියාලාපසැස්මී මද මදවර දනැත් වු දෙයක් දැන් කොයින්දැයි: Ն "I do indeed esteem him as a clever writer: but what is there free from fault? Do not you see even in the Lotus (the nelumbium speciosum), whose glowing flower is so sweet, that its stalk is full of thorns?" * In this species of Poetry, as in the above stanzas, every line must not only contain the same number of lagu and guru, but those several sounds must uniformly correspond in all the four lines. Thus each of the lines in the above selection contains 15 syllabic instants, of which 7 are guru, and 8 lagu: and they are uniform. tibrach, tibrach, molossus, bachic, * Prosodially a long letter is equal to an with the vowel by whose assistance that a bachic, t [] silent consonant together letter is sounded-vide infra. The rule for the construction of the above, which is named Malineė, is the following: නනමය යසුතේයං මාලිනී භොගිලොකෛඃ Two tibrachs, one molossus, and two bachics, with a pause after the eighth and fifteenth syllables, comprise the Malinee versification. The very rule serves as an example. It must, however, be borne in mind, that in this species of poetry the last sound or syllable must always be a guru. This distinguishes the Elu-sloka from the real Singhalese poetry, which may end with either a short or long sound, and need only have, except in one or two species, an equal number of syllabic instants: i. e. regarding a long sound or the syllable of an sound as being equal to two short; as in the following selection from the Buduguna' lankare. සමතැ ස් මුනිඳු පිරිනිවස පටන්ල ද දෙදහස් පසලොසක් අව්රුදු පිරුනුස ද දිය ගොස් පැතිර බුවනෙක බුජ නිරිඳුස ද පිරිව ස් තුනෙහි සිරිලක රජබිසේල ද “Upon the completion of 2015 years from the era of the death of the omniscient, supreme, intelligent (Budha), and 3 years since the installation into regal office, in prosperous Lanka, of King Buwanekabahu of worldly renown: "— 14 short & 2 long. It will be perceived from the above, that a return of the same music in all the lines is not essential to Singhalese Poetry; although it would greatly add to the solemnity of compositions. The writer has been successful in this in the following Elegy to the memory of a friend, who lately met a watery grave:— සිත බෑහිම මි ත රා එ මඟ බලමි තොරාදු ක සෑ ප අහ උ න්න මරා සො රා නොදැකම අපෙගි න්න අතරට ඔ හු ම රා අසල දි වැලිපැන්න ගත මරු අප * This class, which is of the ' syllabic metre,' comprises poetry from 2 to 28 feet. "Whilst watching the return of the friend of my heart, (and) inquiring from people after his health, the angel of death did at Wellipenne snatch him away by stealth, unmindful of our grief! We have said that except in one or two species of Poetry, a stanza had an equal number of sounds in all the four lines. Of the exceptions the short common metre is one; but we cannot find any rule for its construction. From observation we have, however, clearly ascertained that the first line consists of 9 syllabic instants, the second 11, the thinb 9, and the fourth 14. "The peacocks and their mates in the mountainous forest, hearing the din of tumultuous torrents, and glistening with beauty, freely play about from hill to hill."--Kawminikondala. Although out of place, we may here remark that the above stanza is so composed, as to be used in the following diagram without the repetition of eight of the letters found in all the lines.* * This is a kind of alliteration, which may be denominated, the figurative, as contrasted with the syllabic and the literal, which we shall hereafter briefly notice. To enter fully into the subject of these pung would be to devote to it more than a fourth part of the space which we have prescribed for the entire work. m Besides the above species and the blank verse (of which we shall treat hereafter), there are three or four others, as far as we can remember, which have an inequality in the number of sounds or syllabic instants in the four lines; and these we presume are of recent introduction, having only met with a few in two of the modern poets. Dunuville Gajanayaka Nillame, and Kiramba Terunanse have both adopted them in their works. From the latter we select the following, the tune of which is very pleasing to the ear. EXAMPLE. |