[Footnote 345: _Kauná_. A woman of Ka-ú celebrated for her skill in the hula, also the name of a cape that reaches out into the stormy ocean.] [Translation.] _Song_ At Wailua stands the main house-post; This oracle harks to wild voices, Tumult and clamor, O Ulu-po; It utters no voice to entreaty. 5 Alas for the prophet that’s dumb! But there drifts the incense of hala. Maná sees the rain-whirl of Eleao. The robe of Ka-ú sways in the wind, That dashes the waves ’gainst the sea-wall, 10 At Honu-apo, windy Ka-ú; The Pai-ha’a palms strive with the gale. Such weather is grievous to you: The sea-scud is flying. My little i-ao, O fly 15 With the breeze Koolau! Fly with the Moa’e-ku! Look at the rain-mist fly! Leap with the cataract, leap! Plunge, now here, now there! 20 Feet foremost, head foremost; Leap with a glance and a glide! Kauná, opens the dance; you win. Rise, Hiiaka, arise! The meaning of this mele centers about a phenomenon that is said to have been observed at Ka-ipu-ha’a, near Wailua, on Kauai. To one standing on a knoll near the two cliffs Ikuwa and Mahoena (verse 5) there came, it is said, an echo from the murmur and clamor of the ocean and the moan of the wind, a confused mingling of nature’s voices. The listener, however, got no echoing answer to his own call. The mele does not stick to the unities as we understand them. The poets of old Hawaii felt at liberty to run to the ends of their earth; and the auditor must allow his imagination to be transported suddenly from one island to another; in this [Page 193] case, first from Wailua to Maná on the same island, where he is shown the procession of whirling rain clouds of Eleao (verse 7). Thence the poet carries him to Honuapo, Hawaii, and shows him the waves dashing against the ocean-walls and the clashing of the palm-fronds of Paiaha’a in the wind. The scene shifts back to Kauai, and one stands with the poet looking down on a piece of ocean where the people are wont to disport themselves. (Maka-iwa, not far from Ka-ipu-ha’a, is said to be such a place.) Verses 12 to 19 in the Hawaiian (13 to 21 in the translation) describe the spirited scene.