XLI.—THE WATER OF KANE
If one were asked what, to the English-speaking mind, constitutes the most representative romantico-mystical aspiration that has been embodied in song and story, doubtless he would be compelled to answer the legend and myth of the Holy Grail. To the Hawaiian mind the aspiration and conception that most nearly approximates to this is that embodied in the words placed at the head of this chapter, The Water of Kane. One finds suggestions and hints of this conception in many passages of Hawaiian song and story, sometimes a phosphorescent flash, answering to the dip of the poet’s blade, sometimes crystallized into a set form; but nowhere else than in the following mele have I found this jewel deliberately wrought into shape, faceted, and fixed in a distinct form of speech.
This mele comes from Kauai, the island which more than any other of the Hawaiian group retains a tight hold on the mystical and imaginative features that mark the mythology of Polynesia; the island also which less than any other of the group was dazzled by the glamour of royalty and enslaved by the theory of the divine birth of kings.
He Mele no Kane
He ú-i, he ninau:
He ú-i aku ana au ia oe,
Aia i-héa ka wai a Kane?
Ala i ka hikina a ka La,
Puka i Hae-hae; [512]
Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.