Another grook...

I thought it might be interesting to post the first, and a reworked version of this, to show how it developed.
(And this must mean that there's a lot of improvement still to be made...) 

$that_is_the_question = <<GROOK;

THAT IS THE QUESTION
by Piet Hein (in Grooks, 1966) 
translated into Perl by osfameron (hakim\@earthling.net) v. 1.0

 Hamlet Anno Domini

GROOK

to_be (1)
or
to_be (0)

&& print $that_is_the_question;

########
sub to_be {
    $exist = shift;
    $that_is_the_question.=
    ($exist  ? "Co-" : "or no ").
    "existence \n";
    do {not $exist}
}

[download]
And the reworked version: 
$that_is_the_question = <<GROOK;

THAT IS THE QUESTION: Hamlet Anno Domini
by Piet Hein (in Grooks, 1966) 
translated into Perl by osfameron (hakim\@earthling.net) v. 1.1

GROOK
# Unlike the other grook translations, the text is not 
# included in the <<here document above, but is created
# within the script.

push @mortal_coil,"Co-"=>"or no "; print (

    #    #    #

(     &to_be 
    or not &to_be) ? 
    "$that_is_the_question."
:
     $whether_tis_nobler_etc

    #    #    #

); sub to_be {
    $that_is_the_question.=
    "\n".(shift @mortal_coil).
    "existence";  0;
}

[download]
Osfameron

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: That is the question (Grook)
by ivory (Pilgrim) on Aug 04, 2000 at 18:35 UTC
    What's a Grook?

    Ivory

[reply]
      From http://www.netpower.no/~ranveig/piethein/grook.html

      A grook, or "gruk" which is the original Danish name, is a short, often humorous poem, which expresses some sort of wisdom. Piet Hein invented the grooks during World War II, when Denmark was occupied by Germany. The short poems were easy to remember, and had a hidden meaning that wasn't easily understood by the Germans and their helpers. The name of these poems, as well as the signature used, "Kumbel", were picked simply because nothing else could be associated with them.

      Odud
[reply]
      They're short pithy rhymed poems, and were originally created by a Dane called Piet Hein who was a scientist, town planner, writer etc... (can't be certain, but I think Piet Hein would have liked Perl).

      Though I've not yet killed myself looking (local bookshop, Amazon, bol.com), it looks like his collections of grooks ("Grooks", "More Grooks" and "Still More Grooks") are out of print.
      But you can find quite a lot of them online (www.google.com gives quite a good set of results).

      Each Grook was illustrated with a simple ink sketch: some of these are very good and add a lot to the poems...

      ...which is possibly more than can be said for these Perl translations... (posted in Perl Poetry...)

      Cheerio!
      Osfameron

[reply]

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