1	a swa ; It burns, this domba (kindled) by the doctor;
1a	a swa dogodela; It burns, and burns completely;
2	a tsha . It is dawn, and they will dance till midday.
3	Madunana mukosi! Young men (dancing domba), raise the alarm!
4	U wa -nda-lila. Yell loud and long, so that someone will weep.
4a	Mukosi wa -nda-lila (See line 181). The cry of the roan antelope.
5	Nyampembe wa ndimoni. (Nyampembe tsho wela ndimoni). (See mulayo No. 123.) Nyampembe has fallen on the garden, i.e. the sun has come amongst the green maize plants, i.e. a youth has come amongst the girls in the domba dance.
5a	Nyampembe tshi a honedza. Nyampembe is grunting.
6	Ni shele , (Shelani ), Pour some water into the river-reed,
7	Manzhingi u kone u lila. So that the pipes will sound nicely.
8	i lila , The little reed-pipe cries like a bush partridge (Dendroper-drix sephaexa),
9	hu lila mazika. The low-pitched pipes are booming.
10	Ni shele khulu dza tshikona! Pour out (of the bag of pipes) the big bass pipes of tshikona.
11	Hu lila ya thakhula. The pipe called thakhula can be heard.

These words refer literally to the beginning of domba, to the lighting of the fire and the performance of the reed-pipe dance (tshikona) by young men and girls. a swa also refers to the end, the `burning' of domba, and to the dancing on the last day, when novices are expected to dance the whole night. In lines 3 and 4 there is a pun on - = to plant, as a seed; to rise, of the sun; to shout; - = to pierce, to slaughter; -nda-lila = the roan antelope, which is such a small animal that the hunter upon killing it was supposed to sit down and pretend to weep, saying "Ndi-Ia-na-nnyi?" (with whom shall I eat it?). The hidden meaning of deflowering a virgin (cf. the antelope) is developed in the following lines. Before performances of tshikona, reed-pipes are often soaked in water, so that they will sound better, and nzhingi is the name of a pipe in the ensemble. But the river-reed also refers to the penis, and Manzhingi is intended to sound like a girl's name. The symbolism is continued in the next couplet, with the references to the cry of the partridge and the sound of the bass pipes. One master of domba denied that lines 6 and 7 had any sexual significance: he said that the singer (i.e. the master himself) was asking for beer, so that he would be able to sing better. Thakhula is second in importance to phala, the pipe which is the keynote of the tshikona ensemble (Blacking 1967b:21).