Hugh Charles Clifford

“ The rhododendron is a wood of the jungle. The strings within the frame-work of the loom are in a tangled knot. It is true that I sit on thy lap. But do not therefore cherish the hope that thou canst take any other liberty. ”

“ There are large numbers of well-known pantun with which practically all Malays are acquainted, much as the commoner proverbs are familiar to us all, and it is not an infrequent practice in conversation for the first line of a pantun—viz.: one of the two lines to which no real meaning attaches—to be quoted alone, the audience being supposed to possess the necessary knowledge to fit on the remaining lines for himself and thus to discover the significance of the allusion. Among cultured Malays, more especially those living in the neighbourhood of the. ”

“ Often too, the pantun is used in love-making, but they are then usually composed for the exclusive use of the author and for the delectation of his lady-loves, and do not find their way into the public stock of verses. “Capping” pantun is also a not uncommon pastime, and many Malays will continue such contests for hours without once repeating the same verse, and often improvising quatrains when their stock threatens to become exhausted. ”