Ambiguity in Poetry?
From: | Padraic Brown <elemtilas@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, December 11, 2002, 20:12 |
Here's a winning entry at the 2002 Bardic
College's competitions this past Summer in
Castreleon. It won first prize for fewest letters
used in a poem; but curiously only second prize
in most problematic interpretation. Two old
bardic judges did come to blows over their
respective interpretations, however:
amaramaramaram
The troubles come largely from the poem's lack of
punctuation and accent marks. It can be variously
translated as:
Falling in love - the enlivening herb!
To be in love - the bitter herb!
Bitter love! on to suicide!
Spicy-hot love! leads to marriage!
The words that caused all this trouble are:
amar, a verb which means "love";
am-ar, a compound preposition that generally
means "around", "to", "towards", "on to";
ámar, an adjective that means "bitter", "spicy",
"pungent", "sweet", or a noun that means
"smelling salts";
ram, a noun that connotes branchiness, meaning
"branch", "stick", "gallows" (ram y gigges),
"maypole" (ram l' amur), "weed or herb".
Anyone have similar to share?
Padraic.
=====
fas peryn omen c' yng ach h-yst yn caleor peryn ndia;
enffoge yn omen ach h-yst yn caleor per la gouitha.
.
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