61
I cannot think that the ringing eulogium of l. 111 ff., with its distinct personal note—placed as it is at the climax of this whole writing, and following without break upon what is said explicitly of Prince Khŭn Ram Khămhæng by name—could ever have been intentionally wasted upon a subject so vague and generalized as "Les habitants du pays des Thais". The syntax, moreover, is wholly against any such reference. The phrase with which it begins, แต่ คน อัน มี ใน เมือง ไท, cannot be the subject, since the introductory preposition แต่ marks it plainly as adverbial—"Of men that are in the Thai realm, . . . . find a man to equal [him] you cannot". Some pronoun, of course, our western idiom compels us to supply; but it should be supplied as all sound principles of interpretation direct, and as the native inevitably supplies it in his thought, from the subject last spoken of—that is, the Prince. No one who had not first determined to make "les Thais" and "les Aryens" synonymous terms, would ever have thought of thrusting the Prince out of the place of honor reserved for him in this peroration.
