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A rhyme of Ice and Fire


Cosmic Maintenance Man

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Oh my god. My head hurts. I did enjoy your long poem though: doomily gloomily/ Stannis baratheon was my fave :)

Mine too (head hurting, that is).

My hat's off to you, Cryptic Weirwood, but I'll stick to limericks and haiku -- and at the moment I don't even have the energy for those.

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To sing a song of ice and fire,

Is to play the game of pride and desire,

Where lives are at stake, and each single mistake,

Leads to consequences most dire.

It rides on wings in Westeros,

Black wings carry tidings of despair and loss,

Creating mistrust of birds, of dark wings and dark words,

As the mariner to his albatross.

A song that is sung for a throne,

Sung for honour or ambition alone,

Yet the words stay the same, when you play in this game,

You win or you die, it is known.

A song of betrayal and lies,

Where death plays his part in disguise.

Through whispers and ploys, in silence or noise,

He meets them all in the end, no surprise.

Of ice and of fire, two different sins,

Two sides of a game that nobody wins,

They speak of fires of hell, yet ice kills as well,

Winter is coming , and your watch begins.

So the world sings this song,

Sings of rights and of wrongs,

From The Wall to Mereen, and all in between,

It is sung, and is played, everlong.

So to sing this song of fire and ice,

Is to step to the edge, and to roll the dice,

In a Machiavellian world, where dark plans are unfurled,

None are safe, men nor mice.

This sounded better when I wrote it :P Reading back, not so sure haha.

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Thanks, Rose. Glad you enjoyed it.

The verse you mention is the one verse where I intentionally used alliteration on the beat: Feeding the flames / of the Fire god’s priest.

It’s almost as though you can feel the pounding tribal pulse of some evil ritual as it beats out the victims’ doom.

(It also tips its hat to the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry, where three out of the four beats in a line should alliterate, two before the cæsura and one after it.)

You're not my Old English Poetry lecturer are you? :) I'm having Beowulf and Dream of the Rood flashbacks

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Right, CrypticWeirwood... Think I've cracked it... The first few chaptersof Game of Thrones....

Prologue - Will

Unceupon-Nonceupon

Gerod the Night's watchman

ranging the forest with

his Brothers Black.

Came upon corpses, got

cheimatophobia!*

running from Others; they

never came back.

Chapter one - Bran

Moreshadows-Foreshadows

Eddard of Winterfell

found a rare direwolf

killed in a fight.

One each for his children

gender-specifically

the one for Jon Snow is

pure, ghostly white

Chapter two - Catelyn

Surprisals-Arrivals

Catelyn of Winterfell

Brings Eddard news of King

Robert and host.

Marching to Winterfell

to make Ned an offer

uncategorically;

Arryn's a ghost.

Chapter Three - Daenerys

Khaleesi, Khaloosi

Viserys Targaryen's

sister is sold to a

barbarian lord.

Ran from the Usurper

Circumnavigated;

an army will get their

Kingdom Restored

Chapter Four - Eddard

Regally-Legally

Robert Barratheon

visits her tomb down in;

Winterfell's Crypts.

Ned gets promoted, though

uber-reluctantly

recalls the promise that

once passed her lips.

Chapter Five - Jon

Bastardly-Dastardly

Jon Snow of Winterfell

wishes to take the black;

go to The Wall

Tyrion Lannister

characteristically

"All dwarfs are bastards" his

shadow so tall...

* - fear of tthe cold

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Right, CrypticWeirwood... Think I've cracked it... The first few chaptersof Game of Thrones....

Yup, that’s it; you got the idea! That’s great. I especially liked your cheimatophobia, from Greek χειμών (‘cheimōn’) meaning winter. Not exactly a word you hear every day, although we’re deep into it right now up here in the northern hemisphere. I like it a lot. Turns out there’s also a shrubbery called chimonanthus, whose name means ‘winter flower’, and which goes by the common name of Winter Sweet.

You have a couple of places where it doesn’t quite scan as a double-dactyl, so with the MER-ri-ly MER-ri-ly’ rhythm:

STRONG-weak-weak STRONG-weak-weak
(
six syllables
as a double-dactl
)

STRONG-weak-weak STRONG-weak-weak
(
six syllables
as a double-dactl
)

STRONG-weak-weak STRONG-weak-weak
(
six syllables
as a double-dactl
)

STRONG-weak-weak STRONG.
(
four syllables as a choriamb
)

If I get time later, maybe I’ll see whether I can’t think of a tiny change or two to mend them for you.

Speaking of winter, here’s a famous rhyme about it:

When winter first begins to bite

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
and stones crack in the frosty night,

when pools are black and trees are bare,

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
’tis evil in the Wild to fare.

Do you remember that one? It’s clearly a rewrite of this much older verse:

When icicles hang by the wall

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
And milk comes frozen home in pail;

When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! A merry note!

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all around the wind doth blow,

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,

And birds sit brooding in the snow,

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw;

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl—

Then nightly sings the staring owl

⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! A merry note!

Brrr!!!

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  • 1 month later...

@ 'Cryptic Weirwood'

No problem, that’s cool. It’s just the standard limerick, which has been around a long time. It’s easy to remember, and is quite catchy. Plus they lend themselves to being dirty.

A rather harder scheme is the double-dactyl, which I used for my long poem a few postings ago. I find it more difficult, but more satsifying, too. The meter scheme is quite strict, and it has other rules, too. The wikipage has the full description, including this self-referential/self-descriptive example:

Long-short-short, long-short-short

Dactyls in dimeter,

Verse form with choriambs

(Masculine rhyme):

One sentence (two stanzas)

Hexasyllabically

Challenges poets who

Don't have the time.

Alas! I haven’t managed to incite anyone else to write double-datyls. Here’s how to do it:

  1. First you have to find a person’s name that works as a double-dactyl. There are an incredibly high number of names in A Song of Ice and Fire that are just perfect for this, which is why I thought to use the form: Beric Dondarrion, Robert Barantheon, Rhaegar Targaryen. There are loads more where those came from.
  2. Now you choose some ‘nonsense’ double-dactyl for the second line that slyly connects to the person this verse is about. I used Madderly-hatterly Aerys Targaryen, Dracally-whackally Rhaegar Targaryen, Morbidly-torpidly Robert Baratheon, Hocussy-pocussy Aemon Targaryen, Prickelly-dickelly Renly Baratheon, Hankety-pankety Tyrion Lannister, Doomily-gloomily Stannis Baratheon, Izzio-Rizzinty Aegon Targaryen, and of course the crowning Higgledy-piggledy Lord Wyman Manderly. See how much fun those are? Plus I snuck in a bonus one at the top of the second half of the last stanza, with Wolvering Wolverenes, which was just too good to pass up.
  3. Then you have to find the six-syllable word that fits with that person. You can’t repeat one of these in any given poem. I used Pyromaniacally, Apocalyptically, Respectability, Thaumaturgistally, Homoerotically, Unsympathetically, Ritualistically, Chronobiology, and Incontrovertibly.
  4. Now you find the rhyme for the ends of the two stanzas; this is actually the easiest part.
  5. Now fill out the rest of the poem, keeping an eye on the meter so it doesn’t have any extra syllables and so the beats all fall in the right place.

At least, that’s what worked for me. See if you can’t write some yourself; they are really fun.

Hey I really like that style of poem-- read it last night and couldn't get the rhythms out of my head.

Anyway, as I was trying to get to sleep I thought up a couple more and since i'm still not really certain about all the rules of writing double dactyls i wanted to see what u thought.

also what you said about the names in AGoT being easily transferrable to the six-syllable meter (eg Rheagar Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister) -- i thought about all the other characters in the books (freys, boltons, martells) and especially the starks, who are arguably the most important characters, and how their names dont conform as well to the double-dactyl style. so i thought up some names for them, like "bastard of boltonhouse," which is taking some poetic license but it fits the meter. I started with cersei and jaime which have good names for your style of poem because lannister is already 3 syllables.

Anyway, let me know what you think:

Brotherty-fuckerty

Queen Cersei Lannister,

Guilty of treasonous

Passion and crime.

Slatternly slovenly

Incestuality:

Cersei will have no one's

Mercy this time.

Goldenly-boldenly

Ser Jaime Lannister

Lost all his honour as

Knight and as man.

Then he met Vargo and

Misopportunity;

Found his lost honour but

Lost his swordhand.

Crazesty-sadisty

Bastard of Boltonhouse

Schemes with his father to

Murder and maim.

Goading John Snow with his

Psychodepravity

Wanting Stark lands which are

Not his to claim.

So i gave it a try...

Sluttily-nuttily was another idea i had for cersei but i liked the brother one best. i have six-syllable metered names for a few other characters and am working on figuring out poems for them (youre right though, coming up with a single six-syllable word for the 2nd stanza is friggin hard!) anyway, lmk what you think.

*also if any other members have suggestions, criticisms or comments-- show no mercy!

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  • 5 weeks later...

@ CrypticWeirwood

A few new double-dactyls:

Bravishly-Knavishly

Beric Dondarrion,

Lightning Lord outlaw whose

Name is revered,

Loved by the commons for

Justiciability,

Throughout the realm he is

Loved as he's feared.

Markedly-Darkedly

Lord Snow of Castle Black,

Raised to Command by his

Peers and his friends.

Seeking alliance through

Recipricocity

Greets all the Wildlings;

Means to an end.

Nascently-Patiently

Prince of the Dornishmen,

Doran has secretly

Formed his own plots.

Waiting long years for some

Accountability,

Still he gets none while sweet

Elia rots.

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  • 3 weeks later...

No problem, that’s cool. It’s just the standard limerick, which has been around a long time. It’s easy to remember, and is quite catchy. Plus they lend themselves to being dirty.

"They don't have to be dirty, but people prefer it." - Red Green

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