50
noun here. Moreover it is very doubtful, to say the least, whether at the time of this writing the abject noun ข้า 'slave' had advanced so far in that series of changes which at last have made of it the haughty, self-assertive 'I' of modern speech to inferiors. ข้า is still courteous in the North. There is no evidence yet to show that at this time ข้า was a pronoun at all. I take it therefore in the meaning it has everywhere else in this text; namely, 'subject'.
28—31. This passage has proved a very perplexing one, and largely so because of the usual lack of explicit connection between its members. The difficulties mostly disappear if we regard it as illustrating the Prince's generosity in his treatment of visitors of rank, but at opposite ends of the scale of wealth and power. The customary gifts and courtesies are not neglected in the case of the one because he is poor and weak; nor, because he is now in the Prince's power, is advantage taken of the other to crush in him a possible rival.
31. ข้า ◌ืเสอก I take to be variant spelling of ข้า ◌ีเสก, l. 113—114, which plainly must be our modern ฆ่า ศึก 'enemy'. ข้า เสือ which follows it, is of course its alliterative pendant or echo, introducing no new idea. Cf. p. 19, and Note to l. 23 above.
The extremites to which editors have been driven under the tyranny of the code-idea may be seen in the following renderings of this passage:—" After the goods have been stapled up in the town and stored, there will be made an election of slaves and a rejection of slaves. Such as are clever in spearing, clever in fighting, shall not be killed, neither shall they be beaten." B. "Dans les condamnations à mort q'on fasse choix des chefs de bande, qui sont de vrais tigres, ne pas les tuer serait un mal." P.
32. หั้น is a demonstrative of place 'there' or 'yonder' still in use among the Lao. The device of a bell for securing the Prince's personal attention to an appeal for justice, crops up everywhere in the Orient. The classical version is no doubt the one in the Thousand and One Nights, where the hero is· none other than Haroun Al Raschid himself. It appears in classical Siamese in the work entitled สิบ สอง เหลี่ยม.
