What does 「／＼」 mean in this sentence?


皆さん、こんにちは！

Now, I've been reading 竹取物語 and have come across (another) set of symbols that
I've yet to understand. Given the following sentence.

> かくて翁やう／＼豐になり行く。

What does the sudden 「／＼」 mean?




This is supposed to be an iteration mark.

This type of iteration mark is usually only used in vertical writing (the
traditional layout for Japanese writing). It looks like a big く but is twice
as tall.

It also exists in Unicode, so I can try to produce it here, although it may
not render nicely:

> や  
>  う  
>  〱

([Wikipedia](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B8%8A%E3%82%8A%E5%AD%97) does a
better job and has more examples.)

The characters `／＼` are often (ab)used to represent the vertical iteration
mark in horizontal writing.

So,

> やう／＼ = やうやう = ようよう = 漸う




This is supposed to be an iteration mark.

This type of iteration mark is usually only used in vertical writing (the
traditional layout for Japanese writing). It looks like a big く but is twice
as tall.

It also exists in Unicode, so I can try to produce it here, although it may
not render nicely:

> や  
>  う  
>  〱

([Wikipedia](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B8%8A%E3%82%8A%E5%AD%97) does a
better job and has more examples.)

The characters `／＼` are often (ab)used to represent the vertical iteration
mark in horizontal writing.

So,

> やう／＼ = やうやう = ようよう = 漸う

