Findail's Song -- Verse Form

[Lisa]

Before Findail tells his story about Kastenessen, he sings a song. It's 5 stanzas, like this:

A
B
C
D

A
X
X
X

X
B
X
X

X
X
C
X

X
X
X
D

So the first stanza is made up of the 1st line of the 2nd stanza, the 2nd line of the 3rd stanza, the 3rd line of the 4th stanza, and the 4th line of the 5th stanza. I've seen this kind of thing before, but I can't remember what it's called. Does anyone know?

[Menolly]

Wow!

Long time member; first post!

Be Welcome to the Watch, Lisa.
Be Well Come and True.

Come introduce yourself in the Say hello in here thread in The Summonsing.

Look around and post some more. There is much to be discussed here other than Covenant.

[peter]

Great post Lisa; alas I can't answer the question and [shame of shames] I haven't got a copy/copies of the 2nd Chrons to refer to, to have a look at the poem.

[nb I assume it is the name of this form of verse construction you are after rather than the name of Findails song - IIRC SRD does not give names to his verses within the text as such, though I may be wrong here.]

More importantly, you have pointed out something that I, in thirty-five years of Chrons reading have never given much thought to - namely just how good is SRD as a poet as opposed to a prose writer. I am supremely guilty of rushing through the verses in pusuit of the prose story [I do read them, but with somewhat reduced attention] and your post brings home just how unfair I might be being to Donaldson in doing so. The use of constructions such as the one you point out is of coure no guarentee of a high quality end result [anybody who ever read my 'perfectly construcred' Shakespearean sonnet will attest to this], but it certainly demonstrates a working knowledge of the 'mechanics' of writing poetry. In the hands of a master of language like Donaldson one would expect the results of this to be at least half good.

I now realise that there could be an entire level of achievement within the Chrons that has completely passed me by [not for the first time as a quick glance at the contnts of these threads will show ]. It seems I have work to do!

[edit; Ok - the closest I can get is that Donaldson is playing with variations of the "forme fixe" of medieval and French rennaisance poetry. The three classic forms of this were the rondeau, the ballade and the virelai - but none of these in their classical form appear to have the 5 verse, four line stanza, and the repetition pattern you outline. It may be that there is a specific name for SRD's 'form' that I couldn't find, or it may be that he has just developed this line pattern 'after' the ones I mention. The above forme fixe types do indeed use the repetition of lines as per Donaldson's, but mainly in 5 or 8 line stanzas, and not [from what I could tell] in the ordered way that he has [there is order, but it is somewhat more complex]. Interesting stuff!

[wayfriend]

I don't know the name of that form of verse either, I am afraid. You can go here, or to similar places, and try to figure it out.

But I do know of another sort of example of it. Linkin Park, In the End.

One thing, I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme
To remind myself how
I tried so hard

In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I’m surprised
It got so far

Things aren’t the way they were before
You wouldn’t even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me
In the end

You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time
when...

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter

[Lisa]

That's similar. Not quite the same, though. But thanks for the link.

I don't know the name of that form of verse either, I am afraid. You can go here, or to similar places, and try to figure it out.

But I do know of another sort of example of it. Linkin Park, In the End.

One thing, I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme
To remind myself how
I tried so hard

In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I’m surprised
It got so far

Things aren’t the way they were before
You wouldn’t even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me
In the end

You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time
when...

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter

[Lisa]

Great post Lisa; alas I can't answer the question and [shame of shames] I haven't got a copy/copies of the 2nd Chrons to refer to, to have a look at the poem.

[nb I assume it is the name of this form of verse construction you are after rather than the name of Findails song - IIRC SRD does not give names to his verses within the text as such, though I may be wrong here.]

Let those who sail the Sea bow down;
Let those who walk bow low:
For there is neither peace nor dream
Where the Appointed go.

Let those who sail the Sea bow down;
For they have never seen
The Earth-wrack rise against the stars
And ruin blowing keen.

Mortality has mortal eyes
Let those who walk bow low,
For those are chaff before the blast
Of what they do not know.

The price of sight is risk and dare
Or loss of life and all,
For there is neither peace nor dream
When Earth begins to fall.

And therefore let the others bow
Who neither see nor know;
For they are spared from voyaging
Where the Appointed go.

More importantly, you have pointed out something that I, in thirty-five years of Chrons reading have never given much thought to - namely just how good is SRD as a poet as opposed to a prose writer.

I know, right? I've always wondered whether he had melodies in mind for any of the songs in his books. I'd love to hear them done the way SRD hears them in his head.

[edit; Ok - the closest I can get is that Donaldson is playing with variations of the "forme fixe" of medieval and French rennaisance poetry. The three classic forms of this were the rondeau, the ballade and the virelai - but none of these in their classical form appear to have the 5 verse, four line stanza, and the repetition pattern you outline. It may be that there is a specific name for SRD's 'form' that I couldn't find, or it may be that he has just developed this line pattern 'after' the ones I mention. The above forme fixe types do indeed use the repetition of lines as per Donaldson's, but mainly in 5 or 8 line stanzas, and not [from what I could tell] in the ordered way that he has [there is order, but it is somewhat more complex]. Interesting stuff!

I thought I remembered someone attributing the form to Kipling, but I haven't been able to find an example that fits. I wrote a couple of things in this form years ago, one when I was horribly depressed, so it's kind of dark, and it's always seemed to tie the ideas in it together. I was kind of surprised to see it here. I'm in the process of rereading from the start in advance of The Last Dark coming out, and this may actually be the first time I've reread The One Tree since writing those.

[Avatar]

I've never read them as songs, but this one, and the song of the Unhomed that Foamfollower sings in LFB remain two of my favourite poems of all time.

--A

[peter]

Kipling sounds a fair possibility Lisa. Many thanks for posting the poem. It has a 'Ballad of Reading Gaol' feel to it's meter - I wonder if Wilde used the device at all in his poem [too long since I read it to remember]. I'm sure I have seen poems constructed as this one before, it's just a case of remembering where!

Looking at the poem reinforces that I have been way too cavalier in my reading of these parts of the Chrons.

[wayfriend]

BTW, The official website has a collection of Donaldson's poems online.

www.stephenrdonaldson.com > from the author > poetry

It includes a subsection "Songs of the Land". It has every song I can think of, including Findail's Let Those who Sail the Sea Bow Down.

[Lisa]

So I have another question. "These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives." Is that original to SRD? I've seen it attributed to a 17th century German named Paul Gerhardt?

[wayfriend]

When a man lies he murders some part of the world. These are the pale deaths men miscall their lives.

-- Paul Gerhardt [link]

These are the pale deaths
which men miscall their lives:
for all the scents of green things growing,
each breath is but an exhalation of the grave.
Bodies jerk like puppet corpses,
and hell walks laughing

---- Stephen R. Donaldson[link]

AFAICT, Donaldson has never acknowledged "borrowing" those lines.

And there was this exchange in the Gradual Interview. Make of it what you may.

Sean Casey: [...] On a related note, there's something I've always wondered about. Are you aware of the Metallica track 'To Live is to Die'? It's an instrumental, but it has a spoken passage which shares lines with the poem Thomas considers writing at the start of the Chronicles:

When a Man Lies He Murders
Some Part of the World
These Are the Pale Deaths Which
Men Miscall Their Lives
All this I Cannot Bear
to Witness Any Longer
Cannot the Kingdom of Salvation
Take Me Home

• Sorry, I'm not aware of ANYthing Metallica has done. I don't listen to the radio, and my tastes in music are a bit, well, out-dated.
  
  (08/02/2004)

[peter]

It is entierly possible to encounter sentances, ideas, whatever, over the course of ones life that later come back to one as ones own - the memory is just not that reliable that it can differentiate at a distance, with 100% accuracy, between 'I said this' and 'I heard this said'. Most of the time it works - but not always. So occurances such as this do not have to be cases of deliberate plagerism by any means. Also, things can indeed be said twice, ideas can occur twice, actions can be performed twice without connection just by the laws of chance. It 'aint likely - but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen; just that in the very nature of published matereal, these rare occurences will become much more apparent than elsewhere, where they will dissapear into the unrecorded library of stuff that no-one wrote down. [In the case of Gerhart/Donaldson it still took 300 years.

However, these things given, there is a similarity between the Gerhart/Donaldson/Mettalica lines that cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet by a trite response. My take on it is ambivalent - I accept the possibility of any explanation, and forgive SRD a little 'borrowing' if that indeed is the case [which, as I say, is by no means proven]. The monumental achievement of the Chrons as a whole rises far above this one small question. [No offense intended Lisa ]

[wayfriend]

Understood. Sometimes we unconsciously use phrases that we have heard before. And sometimes two people will invent the same phrase out of happenstance. It has happened to me.

Donaldson, in the GI, often answers questions by saying that his inspirations from other sources are often unconscious.

I think it's rather humorous that, by presenting those lines as written by a rock band (incorrectly; it's someone reading Gerhardt's poem in one of their songs) rather than by a 17th century poet, the whole matter was deflected rather than resolved.

[Vraith]

On the original question...there are quite a large number of poetic forms that use line repetitions in structural ways. I've never come across that precise form, but it resembles, in certain ways, several other forms...so likely it was invented by him but inspired by other forms that, with his education, he would certainly have been aware of.
[the terzanelle and the triente-sei are probably the closest...the first is quite old, the second IIRC was invented 50 or 60 years ago]

On the line-stealing: taking lines like that is fairly common, historically...and almost always there is some kind of "dialogue" happening between the original and the taken. It is ESPECIALLY common to use the borrowed line first or last. [though naturally it's possible it was just a subconscious pop-up, original source unremembered]

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

Actually, it's also not that uncommon for scientific inventions to happen at once due to independent research, sometimes it's much about the surrounding circumstances that push in such a similar direction, like fish and dolphins became similar. Though sometimes it feels like there's something "in the air", maybe some information field not yet discovered but somewhat speculated... I did mention a few times similar thoughts and even words said by different people at the same moment, when it couldn't be done on purpose.

I tried asking an art critic I know, apparently such a form is either very rare, or even invented by SRD, and likely doesn't have an own name. There are some similar ones though, most of all Rondeau redouble I think, maybe that's the one you could have seen and found similar. Here, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondeau Its first stanza also has all the repeating lines from the next four stanzas. Maybe it's some other variation of Rondeau, there are many.

On the original question...there are quite a large number of poetic forms that use line repetitions in structural ways. I've never come across that precise form, but it resembles, in certain ways, several other forms...so likely it was invented by him but inspired by other forms that, with his education, he would certainly have been aware of.
[the terzanelle and the triente-sei are probably the closest...the first is quite old, the second IIRC was invented 50 or 60 years ago]

Right, these are also quite close, with a strict repeating pattern, though a terzanelle has repeats going from one stanza to the next, and a triente-sei has stanzas of six lines and also "loses" the very first line in the repeats. If I haven't mixed all this up yet...

[Lisa]

However, these things given, there is a similarity between the Gerhart/Donaldson/Mettalica lines that cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet by a trite response. My take on it is ambivalent - I accept the possibility of any explanation, and forgive SRD a little 'borrowing' if that indeed is the case [which, as I say, is by no means proven]. The monumental achievement of the Chrons as a whole rises far above this one small question. [No offense intended Lisa ]

None taken. I kind of wonder how it could be Gerhardt, since he wrote in German. It'd have to be someone's specific translation of Gerhardt, and that translation could have been done by someone who read Lord Foul's Bane.

[Lisa]

I tried asking an art critic I know, apparently such a form is either very rare, or even invented by SRD, and likely doesn't have an own name. There are some similar ones though, most of all Rondeau redouble I think, maybe that's the one you could have seen and found similar. Here, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondeau Its first stanza also has all the repeating lines from the next four stanzas. Maybe it's some other variation of Rondeau, there are many.

It's similar, but I remember specifically reading someone talking about the form that "Let those who sail the Sea bow down" is in. Not talking about that particular case, but that was for sure the form. I tend to call it a "line acrostic" (not a very poetic term, but it's descriptive).

[peter]

However, these things given, there is a similarity between the Gerhart/Donaldson/Mettalica lines that cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet by a trite response. My take on it is ambivalent - I accept the possibility of any explanation, and forgive SRD a little 'borrowing' if that indeed is the case [which, as I say, is by no means proven]. The monumental achievement of the Chrons as a whole rises far above this one small question. [No offense intended Lisa ]

None taken. I kind of wonder how it could be Gerhardt, since he wrote in German. It'd have to be someone's specific translation of Gerhardt, and that translation could have been done by someone who read Lord Foul's Bane.

The same thought had ocured to me Lisa - translation can be notriously slippery and the phraseology [?] sounded to modern for it to have come unadulterated from the purported time of writing even if it was not translation.