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game, while วัง ช้าง should mean the place where the herd was assembled together. The metrical form with cæsural tie-rhyme certainly marks the phrase as conventional. See p. 20.
15. For the balanced phrasing see pp. 18—19. The elephant's trunk is esteemed a great delicacy among the northern tribes,—so much so that no common person would think of keeping it for his own use. It is prepared by roasting it in a deep pit, where it is kept covered up in hot earth for days. P's rendering 'des défences des éléphants' both here and in the previous line is odd enough; but it suggests the straits to which he was reduced.
16. Of 'je pleurai mon père, et n'ayant plus à soigner ce demier' (S), and of 'pleurant mon père' (P ), there is not the slightest hint in the text. พร่ำ means 'constantly', 'steadily'; and so both S and P render it at the last, in spite of their manifest impression that it ought to mean something else.
The second word is plainly ฎ่งง=ดั่ง 'as' and not งงง, nor 'rang' (S), nor ยงง (P), no one of which has any known meaning applicable here. The editors did not know the letter ฎ.
18. The first word is involved in a break in the stone, but enough of it remains to make sure that its second letter is ล, and that its first is a letter closed above like ก or ด. The word cannot be สี่ 'four' as B's rendering gives it. S in his text writes กล, which not only satisfies the requirements of the stone, but makes perfect sense in the prase ทั้ง กล, not yet obsolete, and equivalent to the modern ทั้ง นั้น 'altogether.' But S's transliteration reads 'phonla' and his translation follows suit with 'avec ses revenus'. P not only follows S in both, but has actually written the impossible ผํล into the text, where the penstroke with white ink betrays it.
The personal narrative ends here. The new section recounts in eloquent phrase and with dramatic circumstance the prosperity, freedom, generosity, and justice of the Prince's reign. Henceforth he is spoken of in the third person, either by his name, or by his office as Prince. Only once, l. 29, does the กู of the earlier narrative appear, betraying the fact that he is still the speaker. The characteristic metrical form of lyrical
