Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/91

 rather four pairs of feet, as the two middle pairs in each verse rhyme with one another in their final syllables; the concluding syllable of each verse also rhymes with that of the next, it being understood that in a long poem the poet has full licence to vary the rhyme as often as he pleases.

A verse is called ayat, which is the Arabic name for a verse of the Qurān. Achehnese poems are generally, though not always, written continuously, so that a verse is often distributed over two lines; to separate the verses from one another marks are employed similar to those to be seen in copies of the Sacred Book.

The simplest form of the Achehnese verse is that in which each foot contains two syllables, as:

gah ban | gajah | sië ban | tulō || jituëng | judō || dinab | mata ||

or:

adat | maté | ku pa- | ban bah || hana | salah || lōn ji- | paké ||

There is no such thing in Achehnese as quantity. The essence of the metre lies in the incidence of the accent, which is always laid on the last syllable of each foot. So far the Achehnese verses are in direct contrast to the Malay, in which the movement is "diminuendo", the strong accent falling on the first part of the foot. Mutatis mutandis, we might call the Malay metre trochaic, and the Achehnese iambic.

Verses containing one or more feet of more than two syllables are at least as common as those in which each foot contains only two syllables. Thus if be taken as denoting the accent and  its absence,  may always be replaced by  In:

hana | digòb | na di | geutanyòë || sabòh | nanggròë || dua | raja ||

the fourth foot has three syllables. This most commonly occurs in the second of each pair of feet, thus in:

adat | na umu | dudòë | lōn parōh || baʾ bhaïh | nyang tujōh || keudéh | lōn mula ||

the 2$th$, 4$th$, 6$th$ and 8$th$ feet are of three syllables.

A favourite modification of the rhyme in the middle of the verse consists of making the less accentuated first part, and not (as ordinarily) the last syllable of the 6$th$ foot, rhyme with the last syllable of the 4$th$. For example:

diju- | rèë na | pasu | leukat || di ram- | bat || na | pasu | saka ||