48
—scholars my own obligations to whom I am ever ready to acknowledge.
21. The new topic is introduced by characteristic metrical phrases. The first dipody is identical with the one commented on in 6. Its second word is here written with ฝ instead of ผ,—which is probably correct. Its last word is certainly, ใส and not ใคร as S and P have it.
22. The opening of the line finds us in the midst of another metrical phrase, no doubt conventional as well. The first word is wholly uncertain. Its consonant may be either ส or ล, since small dependence can be placed upon the little horizontal stroke which alone distinguishes between them. The stroke is there, but the stone cutter has the habit of carving just such a stroke from the angle of the adjacent letter อ by way of a flourish. Not one of the known words which the letter might represent at all fits the sense. In such a case the native scholar is utterly at a loss to understand the European's remorseless pursuit of the individual word. It may have been, as he well knows. no word at all, but only an extemporized rhyme or a hazarded jingling pendant. For him all considered speech it Fine Art, quite as valuable for its sensuous effect and suggestion as for its logical and definable content. Fine Art it is too in that the whole is something far other and greater the mere sum of its parts. In such cases the native trusts himself absolutely to the total impression, and questions not the uncertain detail. And he is not wholly wrong. Who but pedants ever pursue the precise content of each illustration in one of Macaulay's dazzling flights, or question separately the logical definition of the words in Poe's haunting phrases? In the present case we have our cue in เชื่อ 'trusts' and ค้ำ 'props'. "Sympathizes and helps" is what the whole is felt to mean. It should be remembered also that because nearly all its words are monosyllables, the Siamese is fairly compelled to secure by some such means as these the needed rhetorical amplification of its otherwise highly condensed diction.
In the midst of this serious writing ช่าง sounds surprisingly like a bit of modern half-slang in the sense of "are great hands to" "are forever———". But there seems no escape from it. Nor need we flinch, I imagine, from the obvious
