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longing to the Maqkunagaran House. Its plays were adaptations of the Damar Wulan romance (30.850). The text, in verse, was sung by the dancers, all women. So travesty was an element of the performance. In the twentieth century the Mat)kunagaran Lai}ën Driya became popular. The text was pub lished by Bale Pustaka, Batavia, about 1930. In the beginning of the twentieth century in Yogyakarta the magnificent way art, wot} festivals of the Sultan’s Count stimulated the grand-vizir Danu Rëja to organize house theatricals called Larjen Wanara. The play was taken from the Rama epic, and monkeys were prominent actors in the performance. The text has not been published. Almost contemporaneous with the Matjku- nagaran Larsen Driya the Surakarta prince Prabu Wijaya organized similar musical house theatricals. But then he chose Ménak Amir Hamza tales to' be adapted as plays. The actors were boys, playing female roles in travesty. After the noble sponsor’s death this Ménak theatre declined and fell into oblivion .The texts were not published. 31.151 Surakarta pakern of Ménak Amir Hamza plays, musical: cod. 6787. 31.160 Pasindèn Bédaya. Of old, at the Surakarta and Yogyakarta Courts, dances and songs of female performers were appreciated and cultivated. A slow and stately dance with intricate labyrinthic fig ures, performed by nine girls called be day as, and accompanied by songs, called pasindèn, and gamelan music, belonged to the Susu- hunan’s and Sultan’s Royal prerogatives. By custom none other than the King was al lowed to have bëdayas. Probably the dance

is related to sacral performances mentioned in Old Javanese literature, and originally it was a rite connected with a cosmic and social myth. In Surakarta and Yogyakarta, but especially in Surakarta, the great be day a ketawav, dance was performed only at state functions: it was always a very solemn cere mony. The bëdaya performance has been discussed in the present author’s Javaanse “Volksvertoningen” and “Java in the XIVth “Century”. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the bëdayas did not sing themselves. The singers sat with the gamelan orchestre. Per haps originally the songs were sung by the dancers, however. Poerbatjaraka (“Kapus- “takan Djawi”, 1952, p. 145) discussed a Pasindèn Bëdaya text made by the early nineteenth century Count poet Yasadipura. It is a short poetic version of the Déwa Ruci tale. As Déwa Ruci texts were con sidered to contain information on a pro found religious mystery (see 30.250), their connection with the bédaya performance, originally a religious rite, is significant. Meanwhile, the texts sung on the occasion of bëdaya performances prior to the Yasa dipura period are unknown. It is probable, though, that the Court poet adhered to old tradition, and confined himself to a moderni zation in form and idiom of an old text. Since the mysterious bëdaya songs had provoked public curiosity, already in 1S66 Pasindèn Bëdaya texts were published by a local printer in Sëmarat}. The book con tains mostly lyric erotic songs. These Pa sindèn Bëdaya texts are remarkable as speci mens of lyric erotic poetry deemed accept able in high literature of the Islamic period. As a rule this kind of poetry is relegated