Re: Insane Question

Sally Caves scripsit:

> And what is the name of that type of poem in which you are allowed about
> seven words that you keep repeating finally?  Is it the sestina?  I can
> NEVER remember this.  All I know is that it is incredibly hard to write.
> What are its requirements?
To write a sestina, you need to pick six words, which are indeed used at
the ends of each line (the only other constraint on the line is a fixed
metrical scheme, whatever you like).  There are six stanzas, each of
which words of the immediately preceding stanza according to this rule:
if a stanza's final words are in the order ABCDEF, the next stanza uses
the order FAEBDC.

Finally, there is an envoi, or moral, of three lines, which uses the six
words two to a line.  There seems to be no fixed rule about how the words
are ordered.

The sestina, BTW, was invented by Arnaut Daniel, who I first met in Dante's
_Purgatory_.  He is the last soul that Dante meets there, and when Dante
speaks to him, Arnaut responds in his native Catalan:

Io mi fei al mostrato innanzi un poco,
        e dissi ch'al suo nome il mio disire
        apparecchiava grazioso loco.
El cominciò liberamente a dire:
        "Tan m'abellis vostre cortes deman,
        qu'ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire.
Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan;
        consiros vei la passada folor,
        e vei jausen lo joi qu'esper, denan.
Ara vos prec, per aquella valor
        que vos guida al som de l'escalina,
        sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!".
Poi s'ascose nel foco che li affina.

Which Dorothy Sayers renders most ingeniously thus:

I to that soul he'd shown advanced a pace,
       Begging he would vouchsafe his name to me,
       Who hoped to write it in an honoured place ;
And he at once made answer frank and free:
       "Sae weel me likes your couthie kind entreatin',
       I canna nor I winna hide fra' ye;
I'm Arnaut, wha gae singin' aye and greetin';
       Waefu' I mind my fulish deeds lang syne,
       Lauchin' luik forrit tae the bricht morn's meetin'.
Pray ye the noo, by yonder micht that fine
       Sall guide ye till the top step o' the stair,
       Tak' timely thocht for a' my mickle pine" -
Then veiled him in the fires that fine them there.

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...> www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of
resources is the purpose of markets.  Efficiency is a byproduct of market
systems, not their goal.  The reasons markets work are not because users
have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow
users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are
not for conservation of cheap resources.  --Clay Shirkey