Barry Caplan scripsit:
> " I think that I shall never see
> a Kogai lovely as a tree "
In English, strict-meter poems depend on the number of syllables, where
"syllable" is a very hard-to-define concept except that we know one when
we see it, with some special cases like "flower", which can be one syllable
or two as needed.
In Japanese (and classical Greek) it's more useful to talk of moras. For
example, "Tokyo" (toukyou) has only two syllable peaks, but four moras:
it takes about as long to say "To-o-kyo-o" as to say "Mitsubishi".
I will now bore you with this strict-meter poem:
3s (to be sung by Niels Bohr)
I think that I shall never c
A # lovelier than 3;
3 < 6 or 4,
And than 1 it's slightly more.
All things in nature come in 3s,
Like \u2234s, trios, Q.E.D.'s;
And $s gain more dignity
When thus augmented: 3 \u00D7 3.
A 3 whose slender curves are pressed
By banks, for compound interest;
Oh would that, paying loans or rent,
My rates were only 3%!
3\u00B2 expands with rapture free,
And reaches toward \u221E,
3 complements each $x$ and $y$
And intimately lives with \u03C0.
A circle's # of \u00B0s
Are best \u00F7d up by 3s,
But wrapped in dim obscurity
Is \u221A-3.
Atoms are split by men like me,
But only God is 1 in 3.
--John Atherton
--
John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan
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