June 07, 2006

The old egg

Un petit d'un petit
S'étonne aux Halles
Un petit d'un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu'importe un petit d'un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.

***

Questions: who wrote this? Why? What is it meant to be? Do you think it is funny? Why or why not?

Hint: You really don't need to know French. (I don't, and I knew even less when I first ran into this and its cousins).

Hint: check the title of this post.

If this interests anyone, I'll post some more from time to time.

10 comments:

Thampan said...

well i dont want to be a spoiler ..

so let me just say

scene 1
0
********
********
********

Anurag said...

My response is:

Who wrote this?
Why? Please tell me why!

Anonymous said...

hahaha thampan...cool!

must say dilip the hint about the title helped...

aao bataon tum.hein anday ka funda..:-)) yeh nahin yaron koin mamuli banda...

and by the way i think its funny! specially the ah-ha moment when you figure it out!!

not spoiling....but what about little miss muffet??

Rahul Siddharthan said...

Brilliant -- I just figured it out. I suppose it's quicker if you don't know French...

But I admit I googled and found this page -- which didn't help me at all, until I got to the very last line on it.

Here's something similar, in English...

Anonymous said...

nice! I got it with the little miss muffet clue.

Rahul Siddharthan said...

Lit-elle messe, moffette,
Satan ne te fête,
Et digne somme coeurs et nouez.
À longue qu'aime est-ce pailles d'Eure.
Et ne Satan bise ailleurs
Et ne fredonne messe. Moffette, ah ouais!

I must pick up the book...

Dilip D'Souza said...

Thampan, that's good! Now I'm waiting to see how you'll draw Scene 2, then Scene 3 and 4 and on. Go to it, man!

Anurag, I hope there have been enough hints on this page by now...

Radhika, I think it is hilarious. Especially see the footnotes (on the page that Rahul points to). And THANKS SO MUCH for the muffet clue. Yeah, just when I'm trying to keep it pleasantly obscure.

Rahul, I have a copy of (part of) the book. If you leave a postal address, I'll send you a copy. (I'll delete that comment as soon as I get the address). Delightful stuff, isn't it? I also love that Anguish Languish page. Did you like the Dinah version?

Anurag said...

Nope! No good. Yes, I am dumb. :((

Rahul Siddharthan said...

Dilip - the book is available on amazon, I'll probably order a copy -- will mail you if I have trouble.

Anurag -- while you don't need to know French you do need to know the rules of pronunciation... if you read it like English it won't hit you. If that's beyond you, google for the answer...

Thampan said...

scene 2

*******
******* 0
*******

scene 3

*******
*******
******* ()

well it gets pretty complex after this :-)

and blogger removes the spaces from the comments