54
ly unknown in any sense applicable here. The second pair is clearly marked as vocal by the ขับ 'singing' which we do know, as well as by the implied antithesis. เลื่อน may therefore safely be inferred to signify some form of vocalization. This inferance is presently confirmed by the appearance of the word, ll. 53—54, in a balanced triad of festive actions:—เล่น 'sporting,' หัว (เราะ), 'laughing,' and เลื่อน, 'carolling' (?).
56—58. ปาก ประตู here and in 32 distinguishes the gateway—the passage—from the leaves or doors used to close it. เทียร ย่อม is an old-time phrase meaning 'absolutely', 'wholly', or as in this case, it is merely a sign of the superlative degree. It occurs again in 10. Public illuminations and displays of fireworks, of course, are what is spoken of in 57. มี ดั่ง จะ แตก of 58 has caused editors infinite trouble. B reads "a gong split in halves". S, hopeless of the text draws wildly on his imagination:—"les routes se croisent". P quite as wildly reads "La villa de Sukhodaya est immense, l'est à s'y perdre" Both S and P have changed แตก of the text to แฝก, 'thatch', and as usual with no resultant advantage. Our Siamese scholars are quite as much at a loss. A solution seemed as hopeless as ever, when a Lao friend recognized in it a slangy colloquialism still current in the North, used in speaking of great numbers, amounts, and the like—comparable perhaps to such western slang as 'fit to bust', 'till you can't rest', etc.
59. อฎฐารศ is simply the Indian numeral eighteen used as a substantive designation of an image of standard dimensions, much as the Englishman says "a sixty-four pounder" or "a six-footer". B has rendered the word correctly. S reads "une bibliothèque". P reads "des statues en relief", and fortifies the rendering by the following foot-note:—"Attharça: par là les Thais désignent les statuettes et bas-reliefs: manque dans les dictionnaires".
60. Caught in the tangle of superfluous verbiage just here, the engraver has lost his cue, and has repeated at the beginning of this line the four words he had just cut at the end of the last one.
62. I strongly suspect that the second word นี่ is an error for มี, which syntax and sense and the balanced phrasing alike
