Tuesday, February 12, 2008

alphabetic poetics

something cool I found: The old Japanese syllabary was arranged to form a kinda of poem.

now it goes か き く け こ、 さ し す せ そ (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, sa, shi, su, se, so); arranged by the sound.

The old one goes:

いろはにほへと (i, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to) Even the blooming flowers
ちりぬるを   (chi, ri, nu, ru, wo) Will eventually fade
わかよたれそ  (wa, ka, yo, ta, re, so) Even our world
つねならむ   (tsu, ne, na, ra, mu) Is not eternal
うゐのおくやま (u, wi, no, o, ku, ya, ma) Deep in the mountains
けふこえて   (ke, fu, ko, e, te) Cross them today
あさきゆめみし (a, sa, ki, yu, me, mi, shi) And superficial dreams
ゑひもせす   (e, hi, mo, se, su) Shall no longer delude you.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I kid you not, I just read that not ten minutes before I read your post. It's linked in the paragraph about Ishikawa addresses here.

sQ*eeky said...

interesting...There are many more variations of the poem in the wikipedia entry.

Here is the page, if anyone is interested.

Anonymous said...

I love this!

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