3 - SONGS OF LOVE: MALAY DONDANG SAYANG

Summary

The sequence in Appendix A is an eight-pantun series sung by Rahim Jantan and Fatimah Adan. It was probably issued some time between 1976 and early 1982 as it is not listed in Low's thesis (1976). The tape labels the poems as “Dondang Sayang” without further identification.

The first poem in the Rahim-Fatimah sequence (see Figure 2) begins with a plain-language pantun using the subject of advice (nasihat) about love (kasih), and this is followed by another love pantun-which appeals to fate (nasib). Fate can itself be a high-level subject, but here appealing to fate is used as an argumentative technique. This avoids answering the first pantun's suggestion that the passions of the heart are detrimental by tacitly admitting to the harm of love and asserting that this misfortune has long been fated. The maintenance of the high-level theme labels these poems as a love (kasih) sequence while the changing middle-level metaphor places it within the potpourri (rampaian) style where a selection of subjects most often sung separately are presented together.

The singers then shift to deep-meaning poems. Additional complexity is introduced through the metaphor of business (niaga) while maintaining the subject of love, but the strategy of appealing to fate changes to one of lowering oneself (rendah diri). “While you may be prospering”, Rahim says, “I am wretched”. This poem is an old one, but would otherwise score points from the inclusion of a Malay proverb in its first couplet. References to folklore or history are also valued. The fourth poem changes the middle-level subject from business to a subject sometimes listed as a kind of niaga but more often discussed as the subject of silk and sackcloth (sutera dan belacu). The poem continues with the theme of love and the mode of humbling oneself: “My love is not equal to yours”, Fatimah replies. Maintenance of thematic continuity is a constant problem in the rampaian style as the high-level tajuk tends to be lost in the quest for novelty.