Pantun Si Gagak

Terbang tinggi Si Gagak melayang

Dentuman kuat terdengar memekak

Kalau terkena hancur tak terbayang

Si Gagak lega menahan sebak

(by Delima)

Direct translation:

The Crow flies high, gliding

A loud and deafening boom is heard

If she was hit, it'd be devastating

Though tearful, The Crow's relieved

The story

The above pantun is about a crow flying high who suddenly hears a loud boom. The crow imagines that she would be in deep trouble if she was hit by the unknown source of the sound. But because it didn't, she holds back tears while feeling relieved.

What is pantun?

A pantun is a traditional form of poem in Malay. Pantun can be written and read out loud to educate, entertain and even give subtle criticisms.

It is renown for the typical rhyme scheme A-B-A-B. And for this reason, it is quite an approachable form of poetry and very popular even to this day. Emcees at formal events would perform pantun just to make their emceeing more interesting. Some Malay weddings still do a pantun exchange just for fun. You can learn more about pantun here.

Learning common Malay sounds from the pantun

In the above pantun, the first and third lines end with the rhyming syllable -yang.

1 - Terbang tinggi Si Gagak melayang

3 - Kalau terkena hancur tak terbayang

The second and fourth lines end with the rhyming syllables -kak and -bak.

2 - Dentuman kuat terdengar memekak

4 - Si Gagak lega menahan sebak

We can also find another word that can rhyme with sebak and memekak in the pantun: gagak.

Malay Vocabulary

terbang: to fly

tinggi: high

si: (used in front of animal names to mean The Animal)

gagak: crow

melayang: to glide

dentuman: a booming sound

kuat: strong

terdengar: to be heard

memekak: to defean

kalau: if

terkena: to be hit

hancur: to break/to be destroyed/to be devastating

terbayang: to imagine

lega: to be relieved

menahan: to withstand/to block

sebak: almost crying/tearful