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rasa Appendix A, item 32). This is perhaps apparent in the way specific rasas shift positions from continuum to continuum. What I wish to bring out, rather, is how different rasas relate to each other comparatively, with respect to a set of culturally significant parameters.
1. Heavy « Light, Old « New regu ↔ sereng(?) ↔ sedhih ↔ prenès ↔ bérag ↔ gecul figure 3.1. Continuum from “heavy” to “light,” and from old to new.
As rasa gendhing lies chiefly in the realm of affect, I shall start with the opposition that most clearly has to do with feelings, namely “heavy” (anteb [ J]) vs. “light” (ènthèng [ J]), or, in a less literal translation, serious versus gay. This distinction is perhaps the most fundamental of all, and is the closest equivalent— for musical compositions—to the two basic voice types of luruh and trègèl. In figure 3.1, I have arranged my six terms from most serious (regu) to most mirthful (gecul). Ènthèng has a number of synonyms: ringan [I] (light) gembira [I] or gambirå [ J] (happy) sigrak [ J] (agile) bérag [ J] (exuberant) prenès [ J] (coquettish).
Note that, whereas bérag and prenès can also refer to more specific rasas within this general category, they are so basic that they are often used more generically to refer to the entire cluster of affects (just as elm can refer specifically to the species Ulmus americana, to it and any of its relatives in the genus Ulmus [English elm, slippery elm], or to the family Ulmaceae, which includes hackberries and zelkovas as well as the elm genus). In contrast to ènthèng, anteb has no close synonyms outside of the immediate lexical set, anteb/manteb/berat. The Indonesian equivalent, berat, means “weighty,” “serious,” and “difficult.” Only the first two of these meanings are expressed in Javanese by anteb, and only the first and third by abot [Ng] (awrat [K]) (see table 3.2). While abot is not really a rasa term per se, pieces that are anteb are often abot (difficult) as well. The only other continuum that is a good match for anteb « ènthèng is old « new. By that I mean that “old” affects tend to line up with “heavy” ones and “new” ones line up with “light” ones. In other words, great seriousness seems to be associated with great age. This is reflected in the term gendhing