Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/92

 or:

kawan | gata | jikheun | jipòh || meung sa | bòh || han | jikeu- | bah lé ||

The common form in these examples would be for the fifth and sixth feet to run thus na dirambat and han meung sabòh, as the rhyme would then coincide with the end of the foot.

Among the numerous instances of poetic license we may notice the rhyming of a with euë or eu, é with i or è, ō with u, e and eu. Of the final consonants at the end of the rhyming syllables m is also regarded as rhyming with b, n with ng and sometimes even b and the final guttural denoted by ʾ as rhyming with one another and with t. There is however no definitely accepted rule for such kinds of license; it is a question of individual taste.

The word janggay (discordant) is used to indicate the harshness of a slovenly verse or one in which there is too much poetic license. A poem which answers to the canons of taste is called keunòng ("hitting the mark").

When at a loss for suitable rhymes poets sometimes resort to the expedient of addressing the reader at the end of a verse with words which rhyme in pairs, as wahé tèëlan, wahé rakan, (oh comrade!) wahé putròë (oh princess!) wahé adòë (oh younger brother or sister!) wahé raja, wahé sèëdara etc.

All the poems of the Achehnese, that is to say almost all their literary productions, are declaimed in singsong style (beuët = Malay bacha).

Both the pantōns and the component parts of ratébs have various different methods of intonation, called sometimes by onomatapaeic names, such as meuhahala meuhéhélé and sometimes after the place of their origin (as jawòë barat = "the intonation of the Malays of the West Coast"), sometimes from their character (as ranchaʾ = "animated").

For the hikayats which form the principal part of the literature, two sorts of intonation are specially employed, the lagèë Acheh or Dalam (Achehnese or Court style) and the lagèë Pidië (Pidir style). Both styles are further divided into lagèë dagath (quick time) and lagèë jareuëng (slow time). The reciter of a hikayat employs each of these in turn, in order to relieve the monotony. The lagèë jareuëng is preferred for solemn or tragic episodes. The syllables are given a prolonged enunciation, the vowels being lengthened now and then with the help of a nasal "ng." Thus in the "slow time" the double foot puchōʾ meugisa becomes punguchō meugingisa.