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mystic songs, suluks, was en vogue in the eighteenth century. Sometimes the poets used macapat metres which in Central Java were unknown or unusual (see 14.900). In ancient East Javanese poems and in Javan- ese-Balinese poems dealing with myths and exorcist tales (Suda Mala, Sri Tanjut3 etc. see 30.035), varieties of macapat metres equally unknown to eighteenth and nine teenth century Central Javanese authors are used. As a matter of fact, the structure of macapat verse makes it possible to' increase the number of metres infinitely, by adding extra lines to well-known stanzas and by changing the number of syllables in the lines. Perhaps in the course of times some Javanese authors did employ this method to introduce new metres. In the ninetheenth century Central Javan ese scholars used to call metres of the maca pat type, not belonging to the group of fif teen accepted ones, tëmbai3 ten,ahan, middle metres, because of their supposed interme diate position between the tëmbav, gedé (the great metres of Indian origin) and the tëm bav, cilik (the small metres of their own time). Historically this differentiation is un justified. There seems to be no valid reason to doubt the antiquity of all metres of the macapat type indiscriminately. Only the ap pearance of so-called tev,ahan metres in an cient and difficult texts led nineteenth cen tury Javanese scholars to- give them an inter mediate position directly following the Old Javanese poetical literature ruled by Indian prosody. In Bali, probably in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a courtly form of maca pat poetry was developed. Balinese scholars of the nineteenth century called it also tëm

bav, tëvyihan, middle verse, for the same reason, namely unfamiliarity with the genre and belief in its antiquity, which had led Javanese scholars to give that name to unusual macapat metres. In Javanese-Bali- nese Court literature tëqahan poetry is char acterized by a regular alternation of stanzas in different metres throughout the poem, apparently for variety’s sake. As a rule all macapat poetry was meant to be sung. Per haps in the case of Javanese-Balinese tev,ahan verse the poets gave special attention to music and singing. It seems possible that originally stanzas of the poems written in different metres were meant to be sung by different singers by turns (see 46.250). Javanese-Balinese musical tëv,ahan poetry developed several varieties at the seventeenth and eighteenth century Balinese Courts. Kadiri and dëmm; jeem to belong to a rela tively old period. The twelfth and thirteenth century East Javanese Kadiri Court was a centre of literary activity. Many kakawins were written at the time (see 30.030). The connection between the ancient Kadiri Court and the (perhaps) seventeenth century Javanese-Balinese tëv,ahan variety of maca pat verse is as yet unknown. For a time tëryihan poetry was flourishing in Bali, but it did not supersede common macapat verse and apparently it did not last. The Tantri fables, adaptations of Indian Pancatantra tales (see 30.290) and the Malat Kurj and related Panji romances (see 30.360) are partly in Javanese-Balinese tëv,ahan metres. In Javanese-Balinese literature and in poems written in the Balinese vernacular, the tëv,ahan variety of macapat verse is some thing of a curiosity. It is still insufficiently studied.