The lenger lyfe, the more offence: The more offence, the greater payn: The greater payn, the lesse defence: The lesse defence, the lesser gayn. The losse of gayn long yll doth trye: Wherefore come death, and let me dye. The shorter life, lesse count I fynde: The lesse account, the sooner made: The count soon made, the meryer minde: The mery minde doth thought euade. Short lyfe in truth this thing doth trye: Wherefore come death, and let me dye: Come gentle death, the ebbe of care, The ebbe of care, the flood of lyfe, The flood of lyfe, the ioyfull fare, The ioyfull fare, the end of strife. The end of strife, that thing wishe I: Wherefore come death, and let me dye.
Sir, you should notice me: I am the Man; I am Good Fortune: I am satisfied. All I desired, more than I could desire, I have: everything has gone right with me. Life was a hiding-place that played me false; I croucht ashamed, and still was seen and scorned: But now I am not seen. I was a fool, And now I know what wisdom dare not know: For I know Nothing. I was a slave, and now I have ungoverned freedom and the wealth That cannot be conceived: for I have Nothing. I lookt for beauty and I longed for rest, And now I have perfection: nay, I am Perfection: I am Nothing, I am dead.
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
How this picture is made
What a fractal is
A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. The large form and the small form are the same kind of thing. A poem can be drawn that way. The shape of the whole comes from the shape of the lines.
Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.
How the boundary is drawn
The number under the picture is the poem constant. It is read from the build of the lines: their length, how uneven they are, the size of the stanzas, the share of vowels, and the way the lines end. A new word moves the number when it changes that build. The same poem always gives the same number.
Drawn on its own, that number sits in a quiet part of the plane, and most poems would look like the same soft disk. So the number is carried outward along its own direction until it meets the edge of the Mandelbrot set, where the shape turns sharp. The picture is the Julia set of that meeting place.
Each point on the canvas is folded again and again by one small rule. Points that stay near the rule form the dark interior. Points that rush away become the coloured bands. The hue comes from the poem constant, and the brightest bands turn toward gold. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.
What the branching signifies
Branching draws the poem as a tree. Each turn follows a line, and every smaller branch repeats that pattern. A longer line reaches farther. The letters at the start of a line bend the next turn. A higher share of vowels opens the branches wider.
The trunk takes its colour from the poem constant and warms toward gold at the tips. When the poem has more than one stanza, gold forks leave the trunk. Each fork is a stanza beyond the first, up to three. The tree divides where the poem divides. One stanza remains a single trunk.