MSS Malay A 4

Inscribed on the title page: Inilah surat pantun cara Lampung, dialih pada basa Melayu, sama hartinya pantun Lampung dengan pantun Melayu itu, supaya tuan2 maklum, adanya. A volume of Lampung quatrains with Malay versions, apparently made for a European (tuan). The text is in two parallel column of ruled pencil lines, withe the Lampung text in Lampung script, and the Malay in Jawi script.

The text begins, no wayakni sai tuha tegosni basa Lampung ka dalam di sai ngura, which is translated in Malay as, inilah ibarat orang tua hadis Melayu zaman kini pemainan anak muda. Thus, these are quatrains from old people expressing their meaning in the Lampung language among the young. The collection comprises 73 traditional (hence sai tuha, orang tua) wayak as used by young people in courtship. The wayak is a quatrain with the rhyme a-b-a-b, each line having seven syllables. Lines 1 and 2 fortell by rhyme and association the meaning expressed in lines 3 and 4, just as in the Malay pantun. But the Malay pantun here are not exact translations of the Lampung wayak; the third and fourth lines agree roughly with the wayak, but the first and second have rhyming words unconnected with those in the wayak. In some of the wayak the first line has only four syllables (which seems to have been a legitimate poetic device, cf. O.L. Helfrich, 'Verzameling Lampongsche teksten', VBG, vol.45, no.4, p.32, where such a line occurs in no.5).

On f.11v the MS is dated 27 March 1812. It is unclear for whom the MS was written; in the third wayak the name of a Captain Ludan[?] is used as a rhyming word. There is a change of hand on f.8r. The Jawi script has some Minangkabau peculiarities and often uses sy for s. The MS was probably written at Bengkulu.