Page:JSS 006 1b Bradley OldestKnownWritingInSiamese.pdf/21

 two rhymes and five rhyming words in this short stanza. Had this been a stanza of a continuous poem, there should have been two rhymes more to link it with the stanzas preceding and following.

It is scarcely necessary to remark how well these terse,

balanced, and metrical forms serve the purposes of proverbial and aphoristic utterance, the pithy maxims of policy and of life. The reputed sayings of King Alfred and of Phră Ruăng are here alike in point. Their form not merely makes them more impressive, but makes it possible to remember and repeat them. There is little doubt that the three examples last cited were actually quoted by the Prince from a mass of current "saws" concerning the methods and results of just government.

Contrary to what might be expected, these poetic forms

are no unwarranted invasion of the realm of prose. Like any other poetic quotation or allusion, they serve rather to mark very rally elevation of thought, the touch of lyric feeling, a glimpse of the ideal. This function is finely shown in a passage already cited, (ll. 18—19) which begins the sketch of a happy and prosperous realm under a kind and just government; and again in the Epilogue, where, as we pause to take our last look at the Prince, it seems as though he were already a memory in the hearts of his people. The stately, measured words in which are summed up the aims of his life read like an echo of the closing verses of the Book of Deuteronomy.

If we pass from form to content, the most striking feature

of the diction is, no doubt, its concreteness, its objectivity. Everything touched upon is visualized—is realized in terms of space, action, and motion. This is true even of the lyric passages of which we have been speaking But it is much more true when the Prince's thought is free to range at will. Then it is ever "this city of Sŭkhothăi," "this grove of palm trees," "this stone slab," "the bell hung up there,"