Javanese literature has a very large historical component. In all sorts of texts, such as laudatory poems, chronicles, and travelogues, writers have interpreted the how and why of certain circumstances.
These texts are important for the knowledge of Javanese perspectives on the past. Scholars of Javanese history have paid much attention to theoretical questions, aiming at a balanced evaluation of Javanese historiography next to Western historiography. In doing so they focused on Old and Modern Javanese sources, drawing both on written sources and archaeological and epigraphic material. The debate continues up to the present.
Babads as a genre belong to the traditional literature. Characteristic for this kind of literature is that it is written in metrical form and is governed by a set of strict conventions. Anything written in prose (gancaran) was in traditional Javanese society not considered as belles letters, but merely served as a kind of note-book or aide-mémoire.
I woke up one morning heard a robin's song.
I asked that robin "Why do you sing?"
"It was a voice whose rhymes are worlds
That made my song for me
How could I not sing?"
I woke up on morning heard a robins song
I asked that robin "Who made your throat?"
"That same hand that flies a million dawns
Made my tiny throat and wrote my songs
How could I not sing?"
I built an arbor and I asked the vine
"How come you grow so tall?"
"If I can make it above the wall
That same hand that holds out hope for all
Will gild me in the morning sky
And though I cannot sing
That hand a gentle wind will bring
And make a rustling lullaby
For milky sleeping babes
How could I not grow?"
I woke up one morning and I asked the sky
"How can you bear such emptiness?"
"For that bright eye that looks out and smiles
And makes my night her day
What would I not bear?"
I woke up one morning and I heard her voice
She called me by my name
What would I not give
To be called her child
What would I not give
To be called her friend
I'm gonna wake up one morning I'm gonna see her face
Smiling down on me
That robin's song and that morning sky
Are all the hope I need
I don't know how and I don't know why
But I'm gonna wake up one morning and I'll see her face
Smiling Down on me
I'm gonna wake up one morning
I'm gonna wake up one morning