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but a step to the grouping of such pairs in extended rhetorical series, where pair balances pair, as item balances item, and with climactic effect:—"baw mi chang, baw mi ma, baw mi pua, baw mi nang, baw mi ngön, baw mi thawng," ll.29—30; "chau mæ, chau chău; thui pua, thui nang; luk chău, luk khŭn; thăng sĭn, thăng lai; thăng phu chai, phu yĭng," ll. 45—46. Such balance, either simple or complex, is found in almost every second line of the inscription. It is sometimes varied in rhythm, as the examples cited show; sometimes it is massed so as to fill a whole passage.
In primitive speech, the rhetorical effect of balance is Mnemonic value. scarcely more important than its mnemonic effect—the clue it affords the memory of speaker as well as of hearer. To a speaker a sonorous phrase, well-coined, is more valuable than a single word expressive of the same idea. The phrase has greater weight and momentum; it carries him, and his hearer too, more easily over gaps in his thought. If at all successful, it tends The stereotyped phrase. to become habitual—a stereotyped commonplace phrase. Its meaning, moreover, runs a course of its own, with little reference to the meaning of its constituent parts, as we may see in such locutions as: "păi năi ma" (Go where come), or in its English equivalent "How do you do?", or in "Good bye." It is not always necessary that all the words of such a phrase should have now, or ever should have had, either independent or pertinent meaning. It is quite permissible in many languages to invent them outright, if only the result prove sufficiently "taking." In such cases, however, it is generally desirable to invoke the aid of balance, alliteration, or assonance Thus we come at length to the "sŏi khăm" as the The "jingle." Siamese call it, or the "jingle" as we may term it. Examples are: "kha sük kha süa" enemies l. 31; or "sănŭk sănan" jolly, and "năngsü năngha" books, of modern Siamese;—or our own riff-raff, picnic, bric-a-brac.
Balance, assonance, and alliteration have already brought Metre and rhyme. us to the confines of verse. Metre and rhyme differ from these in degree rather than in kind. Primitive speech, if at all formal, turns naturally to metrical form, Our inscription is no exception to this rule. The balanced series cited above are metrical as well. But
