ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a poem The Song of the Three Mons, which embodies two traditions found among the Mon or Talaing people of Burma: that they came from the east coast of India in very early times; and that they consist of three tribes, occupying three several provinces of the Mon country of Burma Bassein, Pegu, and Martaban. The poem also contains some new evidence as to the distribution of the three Mon tribes in Burma, which is perhaps worth attention. The value of the evidence depends to some extent on the antiquity of the poem. The elaborate metre in which it is written, the rare words occurring in it show that it dates from a period when Mon was a live literary medium. The rhyme-scheme of the stanzas is very elaborate. Each line consists of three quadrisyllable phrases linked by rhymes and there are also link-rhymes between lines.
