[Translation.]
Song
CANTO III
(In turgid style)
A storm, from the sea strikes Ke-au,
Ulu-mano, sweeping across the barrens;
It sniffs the fragrance of upland lehua,
Turns back at Kupa-koili;
Sawed by the blows of the palm leaves,
The groves of pandanus in lava shag;
Their fruit he would string ’bout his neck;
Their fruit he finds wilted and crushed,
Mere rubbish to litter the road—
Ah, the perfume! Pana-ewa is drunk with the scent;
The breath of it spreads through the groves.
Vainly flares the old king’s passion,
Craving a sauce for his meat and mine.
The summer has flown; winter has come:
Ah, that is the head of our troubles.
Palsied are you and helpless am I;
You shrink from a plunge in the water;
Alas, poor me! I’m a coward.
The imagery of this mele sets forth the story of the fierce, but fruitless, love-search of a chief, who is figured by the Ulu-mano, a boisterous wind of Puna, Hawaii. The fragrance of upland lehua (moani lehua, a’e la mauka, verse 3) typifies the charms of the woman he pursues. The expression kani lehua (verse 4), literally the sudden ending of a rain-squall, signifies the man’s failure to gain his object. The lover seeks to string the golden drupe of the pandanus (halo), that he may wear them as a wreath about his neck (uwalo); he is wounded by the teeth of the sword-leaves (o ia i ka lau o ka hala, verse 5). More than this, he meets powerful, concerted resistance (ke poo o ka hala o ke aku’i, verse 6), offered by the compact groves of pandanus that grow in the rough lava-shag (aku’i), typifying, no doubt, the resistance made by the friends and retainers of the woman. After all, he finds, or declares that he finds, the hala fruit he had sought to gather and to wear as a lei about his neck, to be spoiled, broken, fit only to litter the road (loli ka mu’o o ka hala, verse 8; A helelei ka’pua, a pili ke alanui, verse 9). In spite of his repulse and his vilification of the woman, his passion, still feeds on the thought of the one he has lost; her charms intoxicate his imagination, even as the perfume of the hala bloom bewitches the air of Pana-ewa (Pu ia Panaewa, ona-ona i ke ala, verse 10).
It is difficult to interpret verses 12 to 18 in harmony with the story as above given. They may be regarded as a commentary on the passionate episode in the life of the lover, looked at from the standpoint of old age, at a time when passion still survives but physical strength is in abeyance.
As the sugar-boiler can not extract from the stalk the last grain of sugar, so the author finds it impossible in any translation to express the full intent of these Hawaiian mele.
Mele
PALE IV
Aole au e hele ka li’u-lá o Maná,
Ia wai crape-kanaka [194] o Lima-loa; [195]
A e hoopunipuni ia a’e nei ka malihini;
A mai puni au: lie wai oupe na.
He ala-pahi ka li’u-lá o Maná;
Ke poloai [196] la i ke Koolau-waline. [197]
Ua ulu mai ka hoaloha i Wailua,
A ua kino-lau [198] Kawelo [199] mahamaha-i’ [200]
A ua aona [201] mai nei lio oiwi e.
He mea e wale au e noho aku nei la.
Noho.
O ka noho kau a ka mea waiwai;
O kau ka i’a a haawi ia mai.
Oli-oli au ke loaa ia oe.
A pela ke ahi o Ka-maile, [202]
He alualu hewa a’e la ka malihini,
Kukuni hewa i ka ili a kau ka uli, e;
Kau ka uli a ka mea aloha, e.
Footnote 194:[ (return) ] Wai oupe-kanaka. Man-fooling water; the mirage.
Footnote 195:[ (return) ] Lima-loa. The long-armed, the god of the mirage, who made his appearance at Maná, Kauai.
Footnote 196:[ (return) ] Poloai. To converse with, to have dealings with one.
Footnote 197:[ (return) ] Koolau-wahine. The sea-breeze at Mana. There is truth as well as poetry in the assertion made in this verse. The warm moist air, rising from the heated sands of Maná, did undoubtedly draw in the cool breeze from the ocean—a fruitful dalliance.
Footnote 198:[ (return) ] Kino-lau. Having many (400) bodies, or metamorphoses, said of Kawelo.
Footnote 199:[ (return) ] Kawelo.
A sorcerer who lived in the region of Maná. His favorite metamorphosis was into the form of a shark. Even when in human form he retained the gills of a fish and had the mouth of a shark at the back of his shoulders, while to the lower part of his body were attached the tail and flukes of a shark. To conceal these monstrous appendages he wore over his shoulders a kihei of kapa and allowed himself to be seen only while in the sitting posture. He sometimes took the form of a worm, a moth, a caterpillar, or a butterfly to escape the hands of his enemies. On land he generally appeared as a man squatting, after the manner of a Hawaiian gardener while weeding his garden plot.
The cultivated lands of Kawelo lay alongside the much-traveled path to the beach where the people of the neighborhood resorted to bathe, to fish, and to swim in the ocean. He made a practice of saluting the passers-by and of asking them, “Whither are you going?” adding the caution, “Look to it that you are not swallowed head and tail by the shark; he has not breakfasted yet” (E akahele oukou o pau po’o, pau hi’u i ka manó; aohe i paina i kakahiaka o ka manó). As soon as the traveler had gone on his way to the ocean, Kawelo hastened to the sea and there assumed his shark-form. The tender flesh of children was his favorite food. The frequent utterance of the same caution, joined to the great mortality among the children and youth who resorted to the ocean at this place, caused a panic among the residents. The parents consulted a soothsayer, who surprised them with the information that the guilty one was none other than the innocent-looking farmer, Kawelo. Instructed by the soothsayer, the people made an immense net of great strength and having very fine meshes. This they spread in the ocean at the bathing place. Kawelo, when caught in the net, struggled fiendishly to break away, but in vain. According to directions, they flung the body of the monster into an enormous oven which they had heated to redness, and supplied with fresh fuel for five times ten days—elima anahulu. At the end of that time there remained only gray ashes. The prophet had commanded them that when this had been accomplished they must fill the pit of the oven with dry dirt; thus doing, the monster would never come to life. They neglected this precaution. A heavy rain flooded the country—the superhuman work of the sorcerer—and from the moistened ashes sprang into being a swarm of lesser sharks. From them have come the many species of shark that now infest our ocean.
The house which once was Kawelo’s ocean residence is still pointed out, 7 fathoms deep, a structure regularly built of rocks.
Footnote 200:[ (return) ] Maha-maha i’a. The gills or fins of a fish such as marked Kawelo.
Footnote 201:[ (return) ] Aona. A word of doubtful meaning; according to one it means lucky. That expounder (T—— P——) says it should, or-might be, haona; he instances the phrase iwi paou, in which the word paoa has a similar, but not identical, form and means lucky bone.
Footnote 202:[ (return) ] Ka-maile. A place on Kauai where prevailed the custom of throwing firebrands down the lofty precipice of Nuololo. This amusement made a fine display at night. As the fire-sticks fell they swayed and drifted in the breeze, making it difficult for one standing below to premise their course through the air and to catch one of them before it struck the ground or the water, that being one of the objects of the sport. When a visitor had accomplished this feat, he would sometimes mark his flesh with the burning stick that he might show the brand to his sweetheart as a token of his fidelity.