Did they not off'rings make, and homage pay, Did not e'en goddesses, delighted kiss, What seemed a flower from Indra'st bowers of bliss? Hail noble friend, dear to our longing sight!"-A. M. F. LITERAL TRANSLATION. 'Mayest thou Onoble Pigeon! live long; My friend! who by reason of thy yellow-white hue, and deeply red feet, art like unto a chank with coral plants produced from the milkyocean, and unto the clear autumnal sky bespangled with the Sun and the Stars! When thou wast slowly moving in the sky, and in a delightfully gentle breeze, were not (people) deceived in thee for a beautifully full-blown white Lily dropt from (Heaven)? Did they not approach thee under a belief that thou wast a Lotus-bud fallen off from the Celestial River? Did they not make offerings to thee under an impression that thou wast a white ray emitted from Budha's pure court? Did not goddesses kiss thee with delight under the mistaken idea that thou wast a flower from Nandana the Heavenly Park. Hast thou arrived without accident in thy aerial journey? Noble friend, To us thy sight is bliss!" There are also different kinds of puns by poets soaring high in the immense regions of fancy; and to give even a sketch of these rhetorical figures-very frequently termed by Europeans, "specimens of perverted ingenuity," would exceed the bounds which we have prescribed for ourselves. We may however mention a few. Under the head of Pun may * Budha's rays are those represented to have proceeded from him. They are said to have been of exquisite splendour and beauty; and of six colours. It is supposed by Budhists that the same still proceed from the Maligawa at Kandy, which contains the Tooth-relic. See note post, p. cxiv. + Indra's Park is called Nandana. It is famous in books for five celestial trees which grow in it, termed Ca/padruna, Parijata, &c. The Calpadruma yie ds as its fruits, every thing which is desired. It is this which we have elsewhere (see p. lxix.) translated, "the wish-couferring tree." n be included those which are known to the English under the term Acrostics. The Singhalese language, however, which has certain sounds with which one cannot commence a line (e. g. ¿), is ill-adapted to this species of composition; on which account Acrostics are rare. In the absence therefore, of a suitable specimen which may be selected from books, we here present the reader with a letter forwarded a few months ago to a friend. සසදාව, සරද සඳකැනෙව්දිගපතල යසසී 3 දාන කරමෙක පද මුල සිව්කුරෙ 33 වරදහැර පොතක්ෂව මැනව කුළුණෙනි "Rev. Bulatgama of universally esteemed renown, like the moon in autumn; pray, kindly send me a correct book answering to the four first letters of this stanza." The following from the Kaviasekare will present a specimen of syllabic alliteration, viz., a stanza containing the same word repeated several times, but conveying at each repetition a different meaning. "This," says a learned reviewer of Sanscrit Poetry," was none other than a talent for alliteration; by which in Sanscrit literature, is not simply meant, as for the most part with Europeans, an imaginary combination of similar sounds merely, but a style of metrical composition in which the same recurrent sounds convey at each return, a various meaning; so forming what we have already termed a series of Conundrums, or enigmas, literally such to the initiated." The above remarks apply equally to Singhalese Poetry; and however much we may lament that the Singhalese have not been employed in more profitable pursuits, this at least is clear from compositions such as those under review-that they were never wanting in "skill," "persevering labour," or" capacity." Whole poems are found devoted to alliteration; and whilst we present our readers with but few specimens, we may inform them that we possess nearly all the species known to the Sanscrit, and which are given by Dr. Yates in his Essay on Alliteration, appended to a translation of the Nalo'daya, at p. 225. et seq: 1. මලිතිය බොන මීවනපුප් මීවන 2. පිපිතු ශුවන මීවන වන මීවන 3. හඟිනිදුරන මීවන වන මීවන 4. රණසුනු කි මීවනඛිල මීවන "1. The Paraquet which extracts honey from the sweets of flowers; 2. The bees which entered the wide-spread lofty Mee forest; 3. The wild buffalo which destroys the ground and the forest by its horns; and 4. The rats, daubed with glittering chalk (plumbago), which enter the holes of trees:" Carrying the last plan a little farther, the author of the Kaviminikondala (of whom we may say what Dr. Johnson observes of Milton, that "he was a poet, who attained the whole extension of his language, distinguished all the delicacies of phrase, and all the colours of words, and learned to adjust the different sounds to all the varieties of metrical modulation") has given us one line, which repeated four times, conveys four several meanings. 1. වනකඳල දෙලෙදුල 2. වනසාදල දෙලනුදුල 3. වනකදල දෙල 4. වනකදල දෙලනුදුල "1. The jungle trees became bright with tender foliage; 2. The forest became bright by reason of the assemblage of plantain trees; The alliterations of Western writers appear to be confined chiefly to letters, whilst those of Eastern poets, including the Singhalese, extend to syllables, words, and even entire lines. The following selection is found in Dr. Yates's Nalo' daya. p. 225, illustrative of Western writing. Inter cuncta micans igniti sidera cœli e toto Phoebus ut orbe; "3. The eloped wife glistened with (her) streaming tears; 4. The jungle was bent with (the weight of) the dew upon the tender leaves." The same elegant writer has given us several puns of this kind: of which the reader will observe, the following stanza, consisting of 10 letters in each line, when divided into two, may be read without the second half, by supplying its place with the first half read from the last letter; or, from the end to the beginning, and from the beginning to end, as in the English word Glenelg. "The Lotus reared in the water of the river was opened; The Kedatta (cuculus melano leucas) obtained its great delight, the water; The noise of the birds that received There is a species of the Cuckoo-a bird with a peculiarly plaintive cry. It is supposed by the Singhalese that this bird is begging for water from the clouds, since it cannot allay its thirst otherwise than by swallowing drops of rain-water in the air.-Some suppose that it has a hole or defect in its beak or tongue, which prevents it from sipping water. Professor Wilson has the following note with reference to this bird, at p. 14 of his Megha' Duta. “The Chataca is a bird supposed to drink no water but rain water; of course he always makes a prominent figure in the description of wet and cloudy weather; thus in the rainy season of our author's Ritu' Sanhare or ‘assemblage of seasons.' තරෂාකුලෛ ශශ්චාතක පක්ෂිනාංකූලඃ The thirsty Cha'taka impatient eyes, In slow procession murmuring move along." the water echoed, and the moon that emitted rays on all sides lost her (his) brilliancy." From the same writer, abounding in puns of different kinds, the following is selected as a specimen of a stanza composed of two letters, which are inflected with the ten vowels given in the Sidath Sangarawa. නේ වන විට නව නවඬිනාගනීව න වනනොනිවිනුහුවන හානනානවනි වූනේ වන "Birds of divers colours entered the forest; the Na (Mesua Ferrea) and Bakmi (nauclia orientalis) became fresh (with foliage); the unwise eloped wives have received no consolation; (and) the forests became rivers to the bathing elephants." Illustrative of the decorations of style, which the Singhalese poets make their study, I may also mention the existence in their compositions of what may be termed rhymes (Prāsa) in the middle of a stanza. This is very common, except in the short metre. Of this species the following will serve as an example: In the translated Amara Cosha it appears that the Cha'taka is a bird not yet well known; but that it is possibly the same as the Piphia, a kind of Cuckoo-Cucuius radiatus. It is to be observed, that the Singhalese writings present no space between words; and, as in ancient Greek, there is "an equal continuation of letters, which the reader is obliged to decipher, without any assistance from points or distances." But, in poetry, as in the above stanza, where alliterations occur, a space is left with the view of exhibiting the ingenuity of the Poet. |