A Conversation on the Malay Pantun

A: Hello!
B: Hello.

A: So tell me, what is this pantun thing, anyway?
B: The pantun is an oral literary form of expression traditionally used among the Malays. The origins of the pantun are lost in the misty early history of the Malay-speaking people, but the pantun had already been perfected to its current form by the 15th century at the latest, as is attested by Malay manuscripts speaking of events occurring during this period.

A: Now, don't avoid the question. What exactly is a pantun? Aren’t you supposed to know?
B: Oh, yes. In its most basic form the pantun consists of even-numbered lines based on an abab rhyming scheme, with the shortest pantun consisting of two lines better known as the pantun dua kerat in Malay, while the longest pantun, the pantun enam belas kerat have 16 lines. A pantun is traditionally recited according to a fixed rhythym and as a rule of thumb, in order not to deviate from the rhythym, every line should contain between eight and 12 syllables...

A: Hang on. What is this abc thing you said, again?
B: Not abc. abab, as in abab rhyming scheme. This basically refers to a rhyming scheme where rhyming verses are arranged alternately "across" one or more lines. For example, a sonnet written by the 17th century English poet John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, uses an abab rhyming scheme as you can see from the excerpt below:

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

A: Hmm… interesting poem you have there. Can you repeat that part about something growing erect again?
B: Never mind. The point here is, the pantun adheres to a similar rhyming scheme. In the case of a four-lined pantun, the rhyming scheme would be abab, in the case of the six-line pantun, the scheme would be abcabc, for the eight-line pantun it’s abcdabcd and so on and so forth. Example:

Jika tidak kerana bintang,
Tak mungkin bulan terbit tinggi,
Jika tidak kerana sayang,
Tak mungkin saya datang ke mari.

If it weren’t for the stars above,
Would the moon rise so high?
If it weren’t for you, my love,
Would I ever venture nigh?

[English translation improvised from Daillie]

Note that while a two-line pantun may on the surface be following an aa rhyming scheme, if broken into smaller units, it would still show an abab scheme, as in:

Siakap senohong gelama ikan duri,
Bercakap bohong lama-lama mencuri!

Looks like an aa rhyming scheme, right? Well, look again.

Siakap senohong
Gelama ikan duri
Bercakap bohong
Lama-lama mencuri!

See? It’s abab!

A: Man, you need to get a life. So, the pantun is just the Malay version of the English sonnets! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?
B: Not quite. I was about to elaborate on this before I was unceremoniously interrupted. Well, as I was saying, pantun varies in length (oh yes, thank you for dropping the italics, it's becoming a bit irritating at this point) ranging from two to 16 lines. That said, however, the most popular form of the pantun is the pantun empat kerat i.e. the four-line pantun. This is most probably due to the fact that the “echo” effect of the rhyming lines is stronger in such a pantun, making the pantun more pleasing to the ear. In pantun with six lines or more, the rhyming lines are too wide apart, reducing the euphonious “echo” effect. In other words, by the time you get to the rhyming line two or three or seven lines later, you would have forgotten what the earlier rhyming sound was. Just listen to this 14-line pantun about someone who's about to embark on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca:

Rotan sepatah dua patah
Tarik kerakap batang padi
Dibawa sultan dari Judah
Padi yang jangan digempakan
Kalau gempa antara gugur
Bila gusur masuk perigi
Di situ tanamkan pula
Tuan di Mekah di Madinah
Naik akhirat batu haji
Tegak berdiri Rasulullah
Kami yang jangan dilupakan
Kalau lupa antara tidur
Dalam tidur menjadi mimpi
Jika terbangun diingat pula

One can hardly remember or hear what rhymes with what! And no, I’m sooo not translating that one.

A: Ahah! Gotcha! If what you said is true, then shouldn't the two-line pantun be more popular, since there are no lines separating the rhyming sounds at all and the echo effect is stronger than the four-line pantun?
B: Yes, the two-line pantun may have a stronger echo effect than a pantun with four lines but, the two-line pantun is far too short to be versatile in conveying a wide range of messages, which may be the reason why it is not so popular. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that the pantun empat kerat is the most popular among the Malays.

A: And the fact also remains that you digressed. I thought you were supposed to tell me in what way a pantun is different from an English sonnet?
B: Oh, yes. What makes a pantun different is the fact that it is divided into two halves. The top half is called pembayang maksud, literally, “shade of meaning”, while the bottom half is called maksud, or “meaning”. Now listen carefully. To make a pantun, the two halves, while rhyming with each other, must carry different themes. I repeat, there must be a thematic disconnection between the first half of the pantun and the second half, at least on the surface. If not, it’s not a pantun.

A: You’ve lost me. Come again?
B: Let me give you an example. Here’s a favourite pantun of mine:

Hendak kujala jalaku sangkut,
Kainku basah kering di pinggang,
Bagaimana hendak selimut?
Kainku sudah diambil orang.

which, if composed in English, may sound like this:

I cast my net, it’s stuck in a tangle,
The wet cloth I wear, on my very waist it dried,
To keep warm in the cold, I am not able,
My only blanket is gone from my side.

As you can see the two halves are thematically disconnected. What evident link is there between tangled nets and wet cloth, with losing one's blanket and not being able to keep warm? None, at least on the surface. Now, that’s a pantun.

A: All right, all right. And what is the point of having these disconnected halves apart from to confuse people like me?
B: Hmm, you have surprisingly asked something quite important. There is some controversy over this. Some scholars are of the view that the pembayang maksud, or the first half of the pantun, is only there to provide the rhyme for the second half. As was expressed by the Malay sage Abdullah Munshi in his autobiographical work Pelayaran Abdullah ("The Voyage of Abdullah"):

"Adapun  jalan segala pantun itu empat-empat mistar adanya; bermula mistar yang di atas dua itu, tiada ertinya, melainkan iaitu menjadi pasangannya sahaja; maka yang dua mistar di bawah, itulah yang ada bererti, adanya."

A: Er...translation?
B: Oh, sorry about that. What Abdullah Munshi said roughly was that, the top half of the pantun is only there to carry the rhyme, rather than convey any meaning.

A: And the controversy is...?
B: Well, some scholars disagree with this view. The other view that seems to be gaining wide acceptance is that the pembayang maksud, as its name suggest, actually functions as a hint to the actual meaning conveyed in the maksud, the second half of the pantun. The pembayang, in other words, prepares the audience for what is to come, setting the mood and the tone for the maksud. By setting the context, the top half of the pantun ensures that the bottom half is understood clearly in the way that is intended by the pantun-maker, at the same time preventing any misunderstanding.

A: Hmm, any examples?
B: Well, let's see. I remember for instance, in the movie Hang Tuah, which is about the escapades and adventures of the Malay warrior called, er, Hang Tuah, there was a scene in which the following pantun was recited:

Burung nuri burung helang,
Tak dapat terbang sama tinggi,
Tuan puteri berangkat pulang,
Bilakah dapat berjumpa lagi?

which in English, would roughly be like this:

The mighty eagle and the lowly crow,
Never will they together soar,
Your highness now makes haste to go,
When will we meet once more?

This pantun appeared in the scene where Hang Tuah was having a secret tryst with the princess of Pahang, Tun Teja. The princess was about to leave when Hang Tuah recited this pantun to her. You see, if you just look at the last two lines without the considering the first two, the only message coming through from Hang Tuah would be the equivalent of something like, "Hey, it's been a great date. When can we get together and do this again?" But by making an allusion to eagles and crows (or parrots, rather, as per the original Malay version) and their inability to fly together, the question that comes at the end of the pantun become more important and laden with meaning. Hang Tuah is not just asking, "Hey, when's our next date?", but he's also conveying his concern that the difference in their social status might discourage the princess from coming to see him again. Geddit?

Another example, let's look at the pantun we quoted above about tangled nets and missing blankets. The last two lines, if taken on their own, sounds rather innocuous, if not downright inane. A missing blanket? What's the big deal? But look carefully at the first two lines and you'll see that something more significant is actually at play here:

Hendak kujala jalaku sangkut,
Kainku basah kering di pinggang,
I cast my net, it’s stuck in a tangle,
The wet cloth I wear, on my very waist it dried,

In traditional Malay society where life was dependent on farming and fishing, severely tangled nets must have caused considerable distress. A malfunctioning net means no fish, no fish means no food, no food means starvation. And if you think that's not distressing enough, look at the second line, kainku basah kering di pinggang. Now, why would that be? How do we explain this? Well, one likely explanation is that, the pantun maker could not hang the cloth to dry because he/she had nothing else to change into. The pantun maker was so poor and deprived that the only clothes he/she had was the wet cloth on his/her waist. Now if that's not depressing, I don't know what is.

So now that we know that the pantun maker is in such desperate and miserable conditions, it is impossible not to be struck by the urgent lament underlying the complaint about the missing blanket. It is clear that the "blanket" is not being referred to in the literal sense. If I were to hazard I guess, I would say that the pantun maker is referring to a lover. Yes, indeed, for what else keeps us warm in the cold of the night? And from the tragedy in the pembayang maksud, I would say that the pantun was composed in the wake of the tragic loss of a lover. The complaint about the missing blanket is, in fact, an expression of emotional desperation and sexual anguish. In a society in which strong emotions and sexual issues are rarely spoken of directly and openly, the pantun works as an efficient vehicle to express oneself, and as we have seen, the clever use of the pembayang maksud helps the pantun achieve this.

A: Wow, you sure like the sound of your own voice. But I still don't understand why there is a controversy if things are as you say they are.
B: The controversy is that, it is not always possible to see the connection between the first half and the second half of a pantun, a fact often cited by proponents of the first view as "proof" that the pembayang maksud does not contain any "hint" related to the maksud. But in my opinion at least, there are at least three ways in which we can explain this:

1. Firstly, the changing lifestyle of the Malays, particularly in recent years, has drastically altered their understanding of nature and traditional Malay life. Allusions to features of nature and daily life which would have been immediately recognisable and understood in traditional Malay society is today less well understood by the modern Malays. For example, if you didn't know that tempua, a tropical bird, normally nest on high branches, then you wouldn't know that any references to tempua nests on low branches actually hint at something strange and unnatural. If you didn't know that frangipani is the flower of death among the Malays traditionally growing in cemeteries, you wouldn't be able to figure out that any mention of this flower is actually an allusion to death. Going to the extreme, if you didn't know what a fishing net is used for, you wouldn't have understood the pantun above about tangled nets and the dramatic undertones it carries.
2. Secondly, a lot of the so-called "unconnected" pembayang may actually refer to some very specific and private circumstances and conditions, known only to the pantun maker and his/her intended audience. This is particularly likely in the case of love pantun. The pembayang of a love pantun could well allude to incidents and items known only to a pair of lovers, making it difficult for outsiders and bystanders to decipher their actual significance. As to whether a pantun understood by only a limited number of people is a good pantun or not, is another question altogether. And then, as a scholar puts it, in the case of pantun, more often than not it is not so important to understand the connection, as it is to feel it. Pantun is, after all, a literary expression. 
3. Thirdly, we have to admit that the pembayang maksud of some pantun do not actually carry any significance and is only there, as some scholars put it, because of the "compulsion of rhyme". But I would submit that this has particularly been prevalent mainly among the modern and "newer" pantun which are composed by a lot of pantun makers which are not aware of the basic principles of pantun composition. 

A: Whatever. This pantun thing sounds complicated. Do people use it everyday? What do they do with it?
B: Well, the Malays of old used the pantun whenever the mood suited them. It could be traded in friendly banter among friends during times of leisure or as I mentioned earlier, used to express delicate emotions and sentiment on issues not usually discussed openly and directly. Pantun was also used a lot to express romantic feelings and love. As the French singer Patricia Kaas says, "On a tous des mots d'amour cachés au fond de soi." We all have words of love hidden deep inside us. Love, undoubtedly, inspired a lot of pantun makers in traditional Malay society, making love pantun the biggest group of pantun around! Pantun were also used on formal occasions such as wedding proposals. Sadly today, pantun usage is on a decline. Not many can appreciate its beauty and subtlety.

A: Can you name me any famous pantun makers?
B: I can't. There is no such thing as a "famous" pantun maker, as it were. Pantun is not the preserve of the educated or the literate, it is one of the truly broad-based heritage of the Malays. Any competent Malay speaker can compose pantun when and if the moment moves him or her to do so. The words used in a pantun are usually common everyday words, devoid of the complexity of suffixes and prefixes of literary and formal Malay. A pantun is traditionally composed and recited on the spur of the moment and never written down. All those pantun that were uttered in private - maybe whispered into the ears of a beloved in the early hours of the morning? - are lost. The very good and catchy ones recited in public would be repeated and spread around and become famous, but no one really knows who composed them, and to put it bluntly, no one really cares. Pantun are composed and repeated and cited as and when the situation calls for it. Anyone can do it, wherever, whenever. That is the beauty of the pantun.

A: You know what.
B: What?

A: This post is becoming too long. I suggest we get lost.
B: But I still haven't told you ab-

A: Shut up.

End

References
Kurik Kundi Merah Saga: Kumpulan Pantun Lisan Melayu, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka
Alam Pantun Melayu: Studies on the Malay Pantun, François-René Daillie
John Donne: The Complete English Poems, John Donne

Comments

[ngising]

Wow. I never knew the 'pembayang' have such a significant effect on the pantun itself.
Amazing!

[rara avis]

you're simply brilliant!

[I]

Hoho, that was great.

Re the "pembayang" as a hint to what comes next, it reminds me of an example that Samhong used to illustrate this once wayyy back during BM period:

Pucuk pauh delima batu,
Anak sembilang di tapak tangan,
Walau jauh beribu batu,
Hilang di mata di hati jangan.

Apparently, the meaning of the pembayang was like this (maybe not that accurate as I have forgotten somewhat):

If one has seen pucuk pauh, one'd notice that its color is not green but somewhat red(ish)- the similar color found on ruby stones (delima batu). So pucuk pauh in the first line was to assert the appearance of the delima batu. Delima batu was used as a symbol since it was a very pricey belonging.

I don't remember the why's, but anak sembilang is not the fish, rather it was a ring. Basically, there's a ruby stone ring in one's posession and so obviously one'd keep the ring carefully due to its being expensive and lovely.

So the next goes "walau jauh beribu batu, hilang dia mata di hati jangan". The "pembayang" then is to hint how valuable the person is to the "pemantun" as he figuratively describes her as an expensive and pretty ring.

Sorry for taking too much space, and if the above comment doesn't make sense. But true, pantun is beautiful (if only one could make sense out of it).

[yam]

brilliant entry, fazu!

[radnexus]

yay! yay!
bet you got an A
for your BM test!

Quite an educational entry there, fazu. Brilliant.

[KaiserSoze]

And here I thought that the Malay language is an unecessarily long language that we have to use since its Malaysia.

How refresing for us to be reminded of its beauty and grace.

What better way to do it then enjoying a pantun or two!

You've outdone yourself again Fazu. Really love this post!

[fazu]

Ngising: My exact thoughts as well when I found out about it!

Rara: Oh thanks! (Blush, blush).

I: You mean he repeated the same thing over and over again to each passing batch? And use the same pantun as an example, at that? ;) Sigh...the good old days.

Yes, during my time, Samhong also used the pantun you mentioned to explain the connection between the pembayang and the maksud. Indeed, "pucuk pauh delima batu", as you said, is supposed to refer to the colour of the ruby which is reminiscent of the colour of pauh shoots. Re: "anak sembilang...", though, from what I could remember, Samhong's contention was that the phrase should have been "anak sembilan di tapak tangan" and not anak sembilang (young catfish). "Anak sembilan", as you alluded to, and if my memory serves me well, is apparently a special type of ring that is made using a special technique (sth along the lines of 9 "ikat" of gold to hold the stone). Thus this pantun evokes the image of two people saying goodbye to each other, and one of them has this ruby ring on his/her palm.

It should be noted however, that I failed to find any evidence to corroborate Samhong's assertion relating to the meaning of the expression "anak sembilan" (no native speaker i've interrogated knows the use of this phrase to refer to rings + it's not mentioned in Kamus Dewan). Maybe it's a very specialist term not known to many people.

Good on you to remember this (how long has it been?) and welcome to the site!

Yam: Thanks for the kind words!

Radnexus: Oh, you're back! How was Bali? Glad you like the post.

KaiserSoze: Thank you for the very, very kind words! How did your exams go?

[Noraini]

Oh my God!!!! AMAZING explanation about pantun in an informal language!! I am impressed!

[email protected]

[Streaming Hot Sexe]

now I know it!

[gigs]

terima kasih

[RamonGustav]

Have you been turned down by other lenders?

[Antivirus_man]

You write well will be waiting for your new publications.

[BeroStof]

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