I'm fond of a passage in Gulliver's Travels where Jonathan Swift anatomizes Lilliputian writing: "their manner of Writing is very peculiar, being neither from the Left to the Right, like the Europeans; nor from the Right to the Left, like the Arabians; nor from up to down, like the Chinese; nor from down to up, like the Cascagians; but aslant from one Corner of the Paper to the other, like Ladies in England." In one paragraph, Swift manages to nail two of his favorite targets: "ladies" and "England."
In good satirical fashion, Dr. S. supplements truth with fancy: the "Cascagians," who write from bottom to top, may sound like the Carpathians or Sarmatians some other trans-Caucasus people, but they don't exist. It appears that Swift invented them in order to complete his survey of the directions in which writing might flow. Yet even including the imaginary Cascagians, Swift's list is not comprehensive. There are other possibilities for writing beside up and down, right and left.
In boustrophedon (a lovely Greekish word that signifies "turn like an ox plowing"), alternate lines move in opposite directions. Lines one, three, five and seven and so on proceed from left to right; lines two, four, six, and eight from right to left. Ancient languages such as Safaitic were written in boustrophedon; some Etruscan inscriptions, still undeciphered, follow the same pattern.
Boustrophedon is not unreasonable, but it's certainly awkward for those who have made a fetish of left to right. Here's how Shakespeare transforms boustrophedonically.
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,—
!srats etsahc uoy, uoy ot ti eman ton em teL
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
,wons naht sreh fo niks retihw taht racs roN
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
.nem erom yarteb ll'ehs esle, eid tsum ehs teY.
Survival of the fittest, applying even to scripts, no doubt led to the downfall of boustrophedon. Query: would our brains be more supple and more imaginative if we had retained this style of writing? Or would we simply be more perplexed? Or dizzy? And would we, as a civilization, prize as the peak of wit and award the laurel to the palindrome?
Incidentally, Rongorongo, the indigenous language of Easter Island, was apparently written in reverse boustrophedon, i.e. bottom to top -- a compositional practice that any satirist, even Swift, would have been delighted to invent.
May 26. Marion M., associate professor of English at the University of Iowa, writes: "I'm confused about 'reverse boustrophedon.' Is it real, or is it a another Dr. Metablog 'invention'? Is Rongorongo a metablogian Cascagian? I'm skeptical. And how does it work? Can you favor us with a few lines in so-called 'reverse boustrophedon?'
Vivian replies:
Devoutly to be wish'd....
noitammusnoc a siT' .ot rieh si hself tahT
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
dne ew yas ot peels a yb dna ;emor oN
And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
,selbuort fo aes a tsniaga smra ekat ot rO
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
reffus ot dnim eht ni relbon sit' rehtehW
To be, or not to be- that is the question:
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