Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/93

 Three kinds of poems are composed in the Achehnese metre.

First come the pantōns. These have this in common with Malay pantōns, that they generally treat of love, and that each consists of two parts (with the Achehnese of one verse each) of which the first has little or no meaning, or is at all events unconnected in sense with what the poet really wishes to express, and only serves to furnish rhymes to aid the memory. Adepts have only to hear the first line of any favourite panton to at once grasp the meaning of the whole.

We have already given some examples of non-erotic pantōns in the formal dialogues connected with marriage ceremonies. The love pantōns are numberless, both the old ones which everyone knows, and new ones to which the young keep continually adding. A single example will here suffice:

Baʾ meureuya | didalam paya || puchōʾ meugisa || baʾ mata uròë ||

Meung na taʾeu | mataku dua || adat ka tabung- || ka baʾ reujang tawòë ||

"A sago palm in the swamp.

"Its crown twists round with the sun.

"Do you still see (i.e. do you still remember) my two eyes,

"Come then, if you are already gone, come quickly back again."

Pantōn meukarang, i. e. a series of pantōns, is the name given to dialogues in pantōn form, whether between lovers, or (as for instance at a wedding) between hosts and guests.

A good many pantōns are committed to writing, especially in the versified tales and other works where they are quoted or placed in the mouth of one of the characters. The majority, however, both of the separate pantōns and the pantōn meukarang just described, are transmitted orally alone.

Pantōns are employed in love making, in the traditional dialogues on solemn occasions, in sadati-games and cradle-songs. They are also used in dances such as are performed in Pidië by women and boys to the accompaniment of music.

We may remark in passing that there are pantōns in Achehnese which imitate to some extent the form of those of the Malays. These are however exceptional, and are not to be regarded as genuinely Achehnese.

Sanjaʾ is also used as the vehicle for the most important portions