"Cadaeic Cadenza" is a 1996 short story by Mike Keith. It is an example of constrained writing, a story with restrictions on how it can be written. It is also one of the most prodigious examples of piphilology, being written in "pilish". The word "cadaeic" is the alphabetical equivalent of 3.141593, the first six decimal digits of pi when rounded, where each digit is replaced by the Nth letter of the alphabet; a cadenza is a solo passage in music.
In addition to the main restriction, the author attempts to mimic portions, or entire works, of different types and pieces of literature ("The Raven", "Jabberwocky", the lyrics of Yes, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", Rubaiyat, Hamlet, and Carl Sandburg's Grass) in story, structure, and rhyme.
When the number of letters in each word is written out they form the first 3835 digits of pi.
| One | / | A | Poem | / | A | Raven | / | Midnights | so | dreary, | tired | and | weary, | |
| 3 | . | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| And | fear | overcame | my | being | – | the | fear | of | "forevermore". | |
| 3 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 11 |
Taking "A" as 1, "B" as 2, "C" as 3, etc., the name of the piece itself is based on pi, as "Cadaeic" is the first 7 digits of pi, when rounded to that number of significant digits. C a d a e i c 3.1 4 1 5 9 3
The first part of Cadaeic Cadenza is slightly changed from an earlier version, "Near a Raven", which was a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven".[1]