Dragaera

Dzur and the cycle poem

Fri Oct 28 05:18:12 PDT 2005

Sure.

Steve Rapaport wrote:
> Well, that settles my question I suppose.  Thanks, Steve.
> 
> May I include your response in the wikicities discussion?
> 
> Steve the Younger
> 
> On 10/28/05, *Steven Brust* <skzb at dreamcafe.com 
> <mailto:skzb at dreamcafe.com>> wrote:
> 
>     There are many reasons I hate that poem and wish I'd never written it;
>     you've just mentioned one.  "Dzur" is one syllable.  The only way to
>     make that line work is with a beat, or a breath, *before* the beginning
>     of the line, which is ugly.
> 
>     Steve Rapaport wrote:
>      > Ok, this has been bugging me for twenty-odd years. I just put it
>     into the
>      > Lyorn Records wiki, but I'd like to hear what people think here.
>      >
>      > Pronouncing "Dzur"
>      >
>      > The Cycle <http://dragaera.wikicities.com/wiki/Cycle> poem is in
>     trochaic
>      > tetrameter < http://tinablue.homestead.com/Prosody2meter.html> (*
>      > http://tinablue.homestead.com/Prosody2meter.html*),
>      >
>      > That is, the lines have four feet, each one is a trochee (STRONG
>     weak), e.g.
>      > "PHOEnix SINKS in TO de CAY___"
>      >
>      > (the last foot is a half-foot in every line)
>      >
>      > But: this line is an exception:
>      > *Dzur stalks and blends with night.*
>      >
>      > The only way the poem scans (that I can see) is if Dzur is
>     pronounced with
>      > TWO syllables, with the first one strongest, as in:
>      >
>      > "DEE-zur" STALKS and BLENDS with NIGHT ____
>      >
>      >
>      > Does anyone think that it's pronounced that way? Or have another
>     way to make
>      > that line scan properly? (Other than changing words)
>      > --
>      > \Steve
>      > Dragaera at dragaera.info <mailto:Dragaera at dragaera.info>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> \Steve