Μια παιδική ζωγραφιά έγινε αφορμή να θυμηθώ ένα από τα πιο εμπνευσμένα
κείμενα του Crowley. Το κοριτσάκι που μου έδωσε την ζωγραφιά είπε
τα εξής: «Είναι ο πύργος, εσύ είσαι η πριγκίπισσα που
κοιμάται και στην πόρτα είναι ο πρίγκιπας". Το κοριτσάκι το λένε και Φωτεινή, πως μπορείς
να μην το ακούσεις; Χαμογελάω.
Σε πρώτη φάση αντιλήφθηκα την ζωγραφιά του
κοριτσιού κυριολεκτικά. Για κάποιο λόγο όμως, στη συνέχεια είχα μια έντονη σκέψη ότι αυτό που μου
ζωγράφισε συνδέεται με το κείμενο «ΤΗΕ WAKE WORLD»
του CROWLEY.
Το διήγημα αυτό είναι ενταγμένο στο «KONX om PAX»
και έχει χαρακτηριστεί ως ένα μυστικιστικό παραμύθι, το οποίο σκιαγραφεί το
ταξίδι της μύησης μέσα στην Δυτική Μυστηριακή Παράδοση. Ο Crowley είχε
υποστηρίξει ότι αρχικά το είχε γράψει για την κόρη του, Lola Zaza (εξού και το όνομα Lola Daydream της
ηρωίδας), συνδέοντας τον εαυτό του με τον Πρίγκιπα. Σε δεύτερο επίπεδο και όπως
γίνεται κατανοητό και από τις πρώτες γραμμές του διηγήματος, η Lola,
η οποία κοιμάται, είναι η Virgo Mundi
(Κόρη του Κόσμου) ή αλλιώς ο κάθε ένας/μια από εμάς που «κοιμάται», μέσα στην ψευδαίσθηση
της Μάγια. Ο Πρίγκιπας είναι ο Άγιος Φύλακας Άγγελος, ο οδηγός της μέσα στο Παλάτι
(του Καββαλιστικού Δέντρου της Ζωής).
Παραθέτω το διήγημα του Crowley για όποιον/α
ενδιαφέρεται να το διαβάσει. Επίσης, στον παρακάτω σύνδεσμο, μπορείτε να
διαβάσετε σχόλια και επεξηγηματικές σημειώσεις πάνω στο κείμενο. Είναι πολύ
καλή ανάλυση, αξίζει να την μελετήσετε.
Από την άλλη… μπορείτε απλά να αφεθείτε στην
αλληγορία και να απολαύσετε το διήγημα.
Από την άλλη… μπορείτε να πάτε μια βόλτα στην
εξοχή.
Ή στη θάλασσα.
Εδώ που τα λέμε, και εγώ το ίδιο έπρεπε να
κάνω.
Απορώ για ποιο λόγο κάνω αυτή την ανάρτηση.
Αλλά αν δεν την έκανα, θα ήταν μια αντίσταση
στην δεκτικότητα. Αν και έχω καιρό που σταμάτησα να ασχολούμαι διανοητικά με
όλο αυτό το υλικό, πιθανόν εργάζεται ακόμα σε ένα άλλο επίπεδο, πιθανόν με έναν
διαφορετικό τρόπο από ότι πριν, ποιος ξέρει;
Και γιατί να ξέρει;
Η καθημερινότητα έχει πλήθος μηνυμάτων. Ποιος
ο λόγος να αντιστεκόμαστε σε αυτά; Ιδίως όταν μια φωνή μέσα μας, που διαθέτει
σιγουριά, μας λέει ότι οι συνδέσεις είναι οι σωστές. Αλλά και να μην είναι, τι
πειράζει; Είμαστε απλά παρατηρητές. Δεν υπάρχει λόγος να αρνούμαστε οτιδήποτε.
Δέχτηκα την ζωγραφιά. Δέχτηκα τον συνειρμό,
την σύνδεσή της με κάτι. Δέχτηκα την παρόρμηση να μιλήσω γι αυτό. Και να το
μοιραστώ.
Παρατήρησα τις αντιστάσεις. Αλλά τα επιχειρήματα
τους ήταν αστεία. Αφορούσαν το Εγώ.
Ένας Δάσκαλος έχει πει :
«Όταν η προσπάθεια απαιτείται, η προσπάθεια θα
εμφανιστεί.
Όταν η έλλειψη προσπάθειας γίνεται ουσιαστική,
θα βεβαιωθεί.
Δεν χρειάζεται να πιέζετε τη ζωή.
Απλά να ρέετε με αυτήν και να δίνεστε
ολοκληρωτικά στο έργο της παρούσας στιγμής.»
Και προφανώς, συμφωνώ μαζί του.
Στην παρούσα φάση.
Γιατί ποιος ξέρει για μετά;
Αυτό είναι και το ωραίο όμως.
Λοιπόν, οι Δάσκαλοι τα λένε καλά.
Οι πρίγκιπες πάλι… καθόλου καλά δεν τα λένε.
Μάλλον γιατί δεν είναι πρίγκιπες.
Αλλά θέλουν να είναι βασιλιάδες.
Άλλο τι θέλεις όμως και άλλο τι είσαι.
Και άλλο τι νομίζεις ότι είσαι.
Το ίδιο ισχύει και για τις Λόλες.
Ωραία περιπέτεια αυτή η ανάρτηση. Γελάω κι
εγώ.
Δεν τα κατάφερα να την κρατήσω σοβαρή.
Γιατί, ποιος είπε ότι θα ήταν σοβαρή;
Αυθεντική είπαμε να είναι.
Liber XCV
The Wake World
THE WAKE WORLD
TALE FOR BABES AND SUCKLINGS
My name is Lola, because I am the Key of
Delights, and the other children in my dream call me Lola
Daydream. When I am awake, you see, I know that I am dreaming,
so that they must be very silly children, don't you think? There
are people in the dream, too, who are quite grown up and horrid;
but the really important thing is the wake-up person. There is
only one, for there could never be any one like him. I call him
my Fairy Prince. He rides a horse with beautiful wings like a
swan, or sometimes a strange creature like a lion or a bull,
with a woman's face and breasts, and she has unfathomable eyes.
My Fairy Prince is a dark boy, very comely; I
think every one must love him, and yet every one is afraid. He
looks through one just as if one had no clothes on in the Garden
of God, and he had made one, and one could do nothing except in
the mirror of his mind. He never laughs or frowns or smiles;
because, whatever he sees, he sees what is beyond as well, and
so nothing ever happens. His mouth is redder than any roses you
ever saw. I wake up quite when we kiss each other, and there is
no dream any more. But when it is not trembling on mine, I see
kisses on his lips, as if he were kissing some one that one
could not see.
Now you must know that my Fairy Prince is my
lover, and one day he will come for good and ride away with me
and marry me. I shan't tell you his name because it is too
beautiful. It is a great secret between us. When we were engaged
he gave me such a beautiful ring.
It was like this. First there was his shield,
which had a sun on it and some roses, all on a kind of bar; and
there was a terrible number written on it. There was a bank of
soft roses with the sun shining on it, and above there was a red
rose on a golden cross, and then there was a three-cornered
star, shining so bright that nobody could possibly look at it
unless they had love in their eyes; and in the middle was an eye
without an eyelid. That could see anything, I should think, but
you see it could never go to sleep, because there wasn't any
eyelid. On the sides were written I.N.R.I. and T.A.R.O., which
mean many strange and beautiful things, and terrible things too.
I should think any one would be afraid to hurt any one who wore
that ring. It is all cut out of amethyst, and my Fairy Prince
said: "Whenever you want me, look into the ring and call me ever
so softly by my name, and kiss the ring, and worship it, and
then look ever so deeply into it, and I will come to you." So I
made up a pretty poem to say every time I woke up, for you see I
am a very sleepy girl, and dream ever so much about the other
children; and that is a pity, because there is only one thing I
love, and that is my Fairy Prince. So this is the poem I did to
worship the ring, part is words, and part is pictures. You must
pick out what the pictures mean, and then it all makes poetry.
THE INVOCATION OF THE RING
ADONAI! Thou inmost D,
Self-glittering image of my soul,
Strong lover to thy Bride's desire,
Call me and claim me and control!
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst.
For on mine eyes the golden Q
Hath dawned; my vigil slew the night.
I saw the image of the One:
I came from darkness into L.V.X.
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst.
I.N.R.I - me crucified,
Me slain, interred, arisen, inspire!
T.A.R.O. - me glorified,
Anointed, fill with frenzied D!
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst.
I eat my flesh: I drink my blood
I gird my loins: I journey far:
For thou hast shown
m,
+
u, 777, kamhlon,
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst.
Prostrate I wait upon Thy will,
Mine Angel for this grace of union.
O let this sacrament distil
Thy conversation and communion.
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst.
I have not told you anything about myself,
because it doesn't really matter; the only thing I want to tell
you about is my Fairy Prince. But as I am telling you all this,
I am seventeen years old and very fair when you shut your eyes
to look; but when you open them, I am really dark, with fair
skin. I have ever-such heaps of hair, and big, big, round eyes,
always wondering at everything. Never mind, it's only a
nuisance. I shall tell you what happened one day when I said the
poem to the ring. I wasn't really quite awake when I began, but
as I said it, it got brighter and brighter, and when I came to
"ring of Amethyst" the fifth time (there are five verses,
because my lover's name has five V's in it), he galloped across
the beautiful green sunset, spurring the winged horse, till the
blood made all the sky turn rosy red. So he caught me up and set
me on his horse, and I clung to his neck as we galloped into the
night. Then he told me he would take me to his Palace and show
me everything, and one day when we were married I should be
mistress of it all. Then I wanted to be married to him at once,
and then I saw it couldn't be, because I was so sleepy and had
bad dreams, and one couldn't be a good wife if one is always
doing that sort of thing. But he said I would be older one day,
and not sleep so much, and every one slept a little, but the
great thing was not to be lazy and contented with the dreams, so
I mean to fight hard.
By and by we came to a beautiful green place
with the strangest house you ever saw. Round the big meadow
there lay a wonderful snake, with steel gray plumes, and he had
his tail in his mouth, and kept on eating it and eating it,
because there was nothing else for it to eat, and my Fairy
Prince said he would go on like that till there was nothing left
at all. Then I said it would get smaller and smaller and crush
the meadow and the palace, and I think perhaps I began to cry.
But my Fairy Prince said: "don't be such a silly!" and I wasn't
old enough to understand all that it meant, but one day I should
and all one had to do was to be as glad as glad. So he kissed
me, and we got off the horse, and he took me to the door of the
house, and we went in. It was frightfully dark in the passage,
and I felt tied so that I couldn't move, so I promised to myself
to love him, and he kissed me. It was dreadfully, dreadfully
dark though, but he said not to be afraid, silly! And it's
getting lighter, now keep straight forward, darling! And then he
kissed me again, and said: "Welcome to my Palace!"
I will tell you all about how it was built,
because it is the most beautiful place that ever was. On the
sunset side were all the baths, and the bedrooms were in front
of us as we were. The baths were all of pale olive-coloured
marble, and the bedrooms had lemon-coloured everything. Then
there were the kitchens on the sunrise side, and they were
russet, like dead leaves are in autumn in one's dreams. The
place we had come through was perfectly black everything, and
only used for offices and such things. There were the most
horrid things everywhere about; black beetles and cockroaches,
and goodness knows what; but they can't hurt when the Fairy
Prince is there. I think a little girl would be eaten though if
she went in there alone.
Then he said: "Come on! This is only the
servants' hall, nearly everybody stays here all their lives."
And I said: "Kiss me!" So he said: "Every step you take is only
possible when you say that." We came to a dreadful dark passage
again, so narrow and low, that it was like a dirty old tunnel,
and yet so vast and wide that everything in the whole world was
contained in it. We saw all the strange dreams and awful shapes
of fear, and really I don't know how we ever got through, except
that the Prince called for some splendid strong creatures to
guard us. There was an eagle that flew, and beat his wings, and
tore and bit at everything that came near; and there was a lion
that roared terribly, and his breath was a flame, and burnt up
the things, so that there was a great cloud; and rain fell
gently and purely, so that he really did the things good by
fighting them. And there was a bull that tossed them on his
horns, so that they changed into butterflies; and there was a
man that kept telling everybody to be quiet and not make a
noise. So we came at last in the next house of the Palace. It
was a great dome of violet, and in the centre the moon shone.
She was a full moon, and yet she looked like a woman quite,
quite young. Yet her hair was silver, and finer than spiders'
webs, and it rayed about her, like one can't say what; it was
all too beautiful. In the middle of the hall there was a black
stone pillar, from the top of which sprang a fountain of pearls;
and as they fell upon the floor, they changed the dark marble to
the colour of blood, and it was like a green universe of
flowers, and little children playing among them. So I said:
"Shall we be married in this House?" and he said: "No, this is
only the House where the business is carried on. All the Palace
rests upon this House; but you are called Lola because you are
the Key of Delights. Many people stay here all there lives
though." I made him kiss me, and we went on to another passage
which opened out of the Servants' Hall. This passage was all
fire and flames and full of coffins. There was an angel blowing
on a trumpet, and people getting out of the coffins. My Fairy
Prince said: "Most people never wake up for anything less." So
we went (at the same time it was; you see in dreams people can
only be in one place at a time; that's the best of being awake)
through another passage, which was lighted by the Sun. Yet there
were fairies dancing in a green ring, just as if it was night.
And there were two children playing by the wall, and my Fairy
Prince and I played as we went; and he said: "The difference is
that we are going through. Most people play without a purpose;
if you are travelling it is all right, and play makes the
journey seem short." Then we came out into the Third (or Eighth,
it depends which way you count them, because there are ten)
House, and that was so splendid you can't imagine. In the first
place it was a bright, bright, bright orange colour, and then it
had flashes of light all over it, going so fast we couldn't see
them, and then there was the sound of the sea and one could look
through into the deep, and there was the ocean raging beneath
one's feet, and strong dolphins riding on it and crying aloud,
"Holy! Holy! Holy!" in such an ecstasy you can't think, and
rolling and playing for sheer joy. It was all lighted by a tiny,
weeny, shy little planet, sparkling and silvery, and now and
then then a wave of fiery chariots filled with eager spearmen
blazed through the sky, and my Fairy Prince said: "Isn't it all
fine?" But I knew he didn't really mean it, so I said: "Kiss
me!" and he kissed me, and we went on. He said: "Good little
girl of mine, there's many a one stays there all his life." I
forgot to say that the whole place was just one mass of books,
and people reading them till they were so silly, they didn't
know what they were doing. And there were cheats, and doctors,
and thieves; I was really very glad to go away.
There were three ways into the Seventh House,
and the first was such a funny way. We walked through a pool,
each on the arm of a great big Beetle, and then we found
ourselves on a winding path. There were nasty Jackals about,
they made such a noise, and at the end I could see two towers.
Then there was the queerest moon you ever saw, only a quarter
full. The shadows fell so strangely, one could see the
mysterious shapes, like great bats with women's faces, and blood
dripping from their mouths, and creatures partly wolves and
partly men, everything changing one into the other. And we saw
shadows like old, old, ugly women, creeping about on sticks, and
all of a sudden they would fly up into the air, shrieking the
funniest kind of songs, and then suddenly one would come down
flop, and you saw she was really quite young and ever so lovely,
and she would have nothing on, and as you looked at her she
would crumble away like a biscuit. Then there was another
passage which was really too secret for anything; all I shall
tell you is, there was the most beautiful Goddess that ever was,
and she was washing herself in a river of dew. If you ask what
she is doing, she says: "I'm making thunderbolts." It was only
starlight, and yet one could see quite clearly, so don't think
I'm making a mistake. The third path is a most terrible passage;
it's all a great war, and there's earthquakes and chariots of
fire, and all the castles breaking to pieces. I was glad when we
Came to the Green Palace.
It was all built of malachite and emerald, and
there was the loveliest gentlest living, and I was married to my
Fairy Prince there, and we had the most delicious honeymoon, and
I had a beautiful baby, and then I remembered myself, but only
just in time, and said: "Kiss me!" And he kissed me and said:
"My goodness! But that was a near thing that time; my little
girl nearly went to sleep. Most people who reach the Seventh
House stay there all their lives, I can tell you."
It did seem a shame to go on; there was such a
flashing green star to light it, and all the air was filled with
amber-coloured flames like kisses. And we could see through the
floor, and there were terrible lions, like furnaces for fury,
and they all roared out: "Holy! Holy! Holy!" and leaped and
danced for joy. And when I saw myself in the mirrors, the dome
was one mass of beautiful green mirrors, I saw how serious I
looked, and that I had to go on. I hoped the Fairy Prince
would look serious too, because it is a most dreadful business
going beyond the Seventh House; but he only looked the same as
ever. But oh! How I kissed him, and how I clung to him, or I
think I should never , never have had the courage to go up those
dreadful passages, especially knowing what was at the end of
them. And now I'm only a little girl, and I'm ever so tired of
writing, but I'll tell you all about the rest another time.
Explicit Capitulum Primum
vel De Collegio Externo.
PART II
I was telling you how we started from the Green Palace.
There are three passages that lead to the Treasure House of Gold, and
all of them are very dreadful. One is called Terror by Night, and
another the Arrow by Day, and the third has a name that people are
afraid to hear, so I won't say.
But in the first we came to a mighty throne of gray
granite, shaped like the sweetest pussy cat you ever saw, and set up on
a desolate heath. It was midnight, and the Devil came down and sat in
the midst; but my Fairy Prince whispered: "Hush! It is a great secret,
but his name is Yeheswah, and he is the Saviour of the World." And that
was very funny, because the girl next me thought it was Jesus Christ,
till another Fairy Prince (my Prince's brother) whispered as he kissed
her: "Hush, tell nobody ever, that is Satan, and he is the Saviour of
the World."
We were a very great company, and I can't tell you of
all the strange things we did and said, or of the song we sang as we
danced face outwards in a great circle ever closing in on the Devil on
the throne. But whenever I saw a toad or a bat, or some horrid insect,
my Fairy Prince always whispered: "It is the Saviour of the World," and
I saw that it was so. We did all the most beautiful wicked things you
can imagine, and yet all the time knew they were good and right, and
must be done if ever we were to get to the House of Gold. So we enjoyed
ourselves very much and ate the most extraordinary supper you can think
of. There were babies roasted whole and stuffed with pork sausages and
olives; and some of the girls cut off chops and steaks from their own
bodies, and gave them to a beautiful white cook at a silver grill, that
was lighted with the gas of dead bodies and marshes; and he cooked them
splendidly, and we all enjoyed it immensely. Then there was a tame goat
with a gold collar, that went about laughing with everyone; and he was
all shaved in patches like a poodle. We kissed him and petted him, and
it was lovely. You must remember that I never let go of my Fairy Prince
for a single instant, or of course I should have been turned into a
horrid black toad.
Then there was another passage called the Arrow by Day,
and there was a most lovely lady all shining with the sun, and moon, and
stars, who was lighting a great bowl of water with one hand, by dropping
dew on it out of a cup, and with the other she was putting out a
terrible fire with a torch. She had a red lion and a white eagle, that
she had always had ever since she was a little girl. She had found them
in a nasty pit full of all kinds of nasty filth, and they were very
savage; but by always treating them kindly they had grown up faithful
and good. This should be a lesson to all of us never to be unkind to our
pets.
My Fairy Prince was laughing all the time in the third
path. There was nobody there but an old gentleman who had put on his
bones outside, and was trying ever so hard to cut down the grass with a
scythe. But the faster he cut it the faster it grew. My Fairy Prince
said: "Everybody that ever was has come along this path, and yet only
one ever got to the end of it." But I saw a lot of people walking
straight through as if they knew it quite well; he explained, though,
that they were really only one; and if you walked through that proved
it. I thought that was silly, but he's much older and wiser than I am;
so I said nothing. The truth is that it is a very hard
Palace to talk about, and the further you get in, the
harder it is to say what you mean because it all has to be put into
dream talk, as of course the language of the wake-world is silence.
So never mind! Let me go on. We came by and by to the
Sixth House. I forgot to say that all those three paths were really one,
because they all meant that things were different inside to outside, and
so people couldn't judge. It was fearfully interesting; but mind you
don't go in those passages without the Fairy Prince. And of course
there's the Veil. I don't think I'd better tell you about the Veil. I'll
only put your mouth to my head, and your hand - there, that'll tell any
body who knows that I've really been there, and that it's all true that
I'm telling you.
This Sixth House is called the Treasure House of Gold;
it's a most mysterious place as ever you were in. First there's a tiny,
tiny, tiny doorway, you must crawl through on your hands and knees; and
even then I scraped ever such a lot of skin off my back; then you have
to be nailed on a red board with four arms, with a great gold circle in
the middle, and that hurts you dreadfully. Then they make you swear the
most solemn things you ever heard of, how you would be faithful to the
Fairy Prince, and live for nothing but to know him better and better. So
the nails stopped hurting, because, of course, I saw that I was really
being married, and this was part of it, and I was as glad as glad; and
at that moment my Fairy Prince put his hand on my head, and I tell you,
honour bright, it was more wakeup than ever before, even than when he
used to kiss me. After that they said I could go into the Bride-chamber,
but it was only the most curious room that ever was with seven sides.
There was a dreadful red dragon on the floor, and all the sides were
painted every colour you can think of, with curious figures and
pictures. The light was not like dream light at all; it was wake light
and it came through a beautiful rose in the ceiling. In the middle was a
table all covered with beautiful pictures and texts, and there were ever
such strange things on it. There was a little crucifix in the middle,
all of diamonds and emeralds and rubies, and other precious stones, and
there was a dagger with a golden handle, and a cup of the most delicious
wine, and there was a curious coin with the strangest writing on it, and
a funny little stick that was covered with flames, like a rose tree is
with roses. Beside the strange coin was a heavy iron chain, and I took
it and put it round my neck because I was bound to my Fairy Prince, and
I would never go about like other people till I found him again. And
they took the dagger and dipped it in the cup, and stabbed me all over
to show that I was not afraid to be hurt, if only I could find my Fairy
Prince. Then I took the crucifix and held it up to make more light in
case he was somewhere in the dark corners, but no! Yet I knew he was
there somewhere, so I thought he must be in the box, for under the table
was a great chest; and I was terribly sad because I felt something
dreadful was going to happen. And sure enough, when I had the courage, I
asked them to open the box, and the same people that made me crawl
through that horrid hole, and lost my Fairy Prince, and nailed me to the
red board, took away the table and opened the box, and there was my
Fairy Prince, quite, quite dead. If you only knew how sorry I felt! But
I had with me a walking-stick with wings, and a shining sun at the top
that had been his, and I touched him on the breast to try and wake him;
but it was no good. Only I seemed to hear his voice saying wonderful
things, and it was quite certain he wasn't really dead. So I put the
walking-stick on his breast, and another little thing he had which I had
forgotten to tell you about. It was a kind of cross with an oval handle
that he had been very fond of. But I couldn't go away without something
of his, so I took his shepherd's staff, and a little whip with blood on
it, and jewels oozing from the blood, if you know what I mean, that they
had put in his hands when they buried him. Then I went away, and cried,
and cried, and cried. But before I got very far they called me back; and
the people who had been so stern were smiling, and I saw they had taken
the coffin out of the little room with seven sides. And the coffin was
quite, quite empty. Then they began to tell us all about it, and I heard
my Fairy Prince within the little room saying holy exalted things, such
as the stars trace in the sky as they travel in the car called "Millions
of Years." Then they took me into the little room, and there was my
Fairy Prince standing in the middle. So I knelt down and we all kissed
his beautiful feet, and the myriads of eyes like diamonds that were
hidden in his feet laughed joy at us. One couldn't lift one's head, for
he was too glorious to behold; but he spoke beautiful words like dying
nightingales that have sorrowed for the fading of roses, and pressed
themselves to death upon the thorns; and one's whole body became a
single eye, so that one saw as if the unborn thought of light brooded
over an eternal sea. Then there was light as the lightening flaming out
of the east, even unto the west, and it was fashioned as the swiftness
of a sword.
By and by one rose up, then one seemed to be quite,
quite dead, and buried in the centre of a pyramid of the most brilliant
light it is possible to think of. And it was wake-light too; and
everybody knows that even wake-darkness is really brighter than the
dream-light. So you might just guess what it was like. There was more
than that too; I can't possibly tell you. I know too what I.N.R.I. on
the ring meant: and I can't tell you that either, because the
dream-language has such a lot of important words missing. It's a very
silly language, I think.
By and by I came to myself a little, and now I was
really and truly married to the Fairy Prince, so I suppose we shall
always be near each other now.
There was the way out of the little room with millions
of changing colours, ever so beautiful, and it was lined with armed men,
waving their swords for joy like flashes of lightening; and all about us
glittering serpents danced and sang for joy. There was a winged horse
ready for us when we came out on the slopes of the mountain. You see the
Sixth House is really in a mountain called Mount Abiegnus, only one
doesn't see it because one goes through indoors all the way. There's one
House you have to go outdoors to get to, because no passage has ever
been made; but I'll tell you about that afterwards; it's the Third
House. So we got on the horse and went away for our honeymoon. I shan't
tell you a single word about the honeymoon.
Explicit
Capitulum Secundum
vel
De Collegio ad S. S. porta
Collegii Interni.
PART III
You mustn't suppose the honeymoon is ever really over,
because it just isn't. But he said to me: "Princess, you haven't been
all over the Palace yet. Your special House is the Third, you
know, because it's so convenient for the Second where I usually live.
The King my Father lives in the First; he's never to be seen, you know
He's very, very old nowadays; I an practically Regent of course. You
must never forget that I am really He; only one generation back is not
so far, and I entirely represent his thought. Soon," he whispered ever
so softly, "you will be a mother; there will be a Fairy Prince again to
run away with another pretty little Sleepy head. Then I saw that when
Fairy Princes were really and truly married they became Fairy Kings; and
that I was quite wrong ever to be ashamed of being only a little girl
and afraid of spoiling his prospects, because really, you see, he could
never become King and have a son, a Fairy Prince without me.
But one can only do that by getting to the Third House,
and it's a dreadful journey, I do most honestly assure you.
There are two passages, one from the Eighth House and
one from the Sixth; the first is all water, and the second is almost
worse, because you have to balance yourself so carefully, or you fall
and hurt yourself.
To go through the first you must be painted all over
with blood up to your waist, and cross your legs, and then put a rope
round one angle and swing you off. I had such a pretty white petticoat
on, and my Prince said I looked just like a white pyramid with a huge
red cross on the top of it, which made me ever so glad, because now I
knew I should be the Saviour of the World, which is what one wants to
be, isn't it? Only sometimes the world means all the other children in
the dream, and sometimes the dream itself, and sometimes the wake-things
one sees before one is quite, quite awake. The Prince tells me that
really and truly only the First House where his Father lives was really
a wake-house, all the others had a little sleep about them, and the
further you got the more awake you were, and began to know just how much
was dream and how much wake.
Then there was the other passage where there was a
narrow ledge of green crystal, which was all you had to walk on, and
there was a beautiful blue feather balancing on the edge, and if you
disturbed the feather there was a lady with a sword, and she would cut
off your head. So I didn't dare hardly to breathe, and all around there
were thousands and thousands of beautiful people in green who danced and
danced like anything, and at the end there was the terrible door of the
Fifth House, which is the Royal armoury. And when we came in the House
was full of steel machinery, some red hot and some white hot, and the
din was simply fearful. So to get the noise out of my head, I took the
whip and whipped myself till all my blood poured down over everything,
and I saw the whole House as a cataract of foaming blood rushing
headlong from the flaming and scintillating Star of Fire that blazed and
blazed in the candescent dome, and everything went red before my eyes,
and a great flame like a strong wind blew through the House with a noise
louder than any thunder could possibly be, so that I couldn't hold
myself hardly, and I took up the sharp knives of the machines and cut
myself all over, and the noise got louder and louder, and the flame
burnt through me and through me, so that I when my Prince said: "You
wouldn't think it, would you, sweetheart? But there are lots of people
who stay here all their lives."
There are three ways into the Fourth House from below.
The first passage is a very curious place, all full of wheels and ever
such strange creatures, like monkeys and sphinxes and jackals climbing
about them and trying to get to the top. It was very silly, because
there isn't really any top to a wheel at all; the place you want to get
to is the centre, if you want to be quiet. Then there was a really
lovely passage, like a deep wood in Springtime, the dearest old man came
along who had lived there all his life, because he was the guardian of
it, and he didn't need to travel because he belonged to the First House
really from the very beginning. He wore a vast cloak, and he carried a
lamp and a long stick; and he said that the cloak meant you were to be
silent and not say anything you saw, and the lamp meant you were to tell
everybody and make them glad, and the stick was like a guide to tell you
which to do. But I didn't quite believe that, because I am getting a
grown-up girl now, and I wasn't to be put off like that. I could see
that the stick was really the measuring rod with which the whole Palace
was built, and the lamp was the only light they had to build it by, and
the cloak was the abyss of darkness that covers it all up. That is why
dream people never see beautiful things like I'm telling you about. All
their houses are built of common red bricks, and they sit in them all
day and play silly games with counters, and oh! Dear me, how they do
chat and quarrel. When any one gets a million counters, he is so glad
you can't think, and goes away and tries to change some of the counters
for things he really wants, and he can't, so you nearly die of laughing,
though of course it would be really sad if it were wake-life. But I was
telling you about the ways to the Fourth House, and the third way is
full of lions, and a person might be afraid; only whenever one comes to
bite at you, there is a lovely lady who puts her hands in its mouth and
shuts it. So we went through quite safely, and I thought of Daniel in
the lions' den.
The Fourth House is the most wonderful of all I had ever
seen. It is the most heavenly blue mansion; it is built of beryl and
amethyst, and lapis lazuli and turquoise and sapphire. The centre of the
floor is a pool of purest aquamarine, and in it is water, only you can
see every drop as a separate crystal, and the blue tinge filtering
through the light. Above there hangs a calm yet mighty globe of deep
sapphirine blue. Round it there were nine mirrors, and there is a noise
that means when you understand it, "Joy! Joy! Joy!" There are violet
flames darting through the air, each one a little sob of happy love. One
began to see what the dream-world was really for at last; every time any
one kissed any one for real love, that was a little throb of violet
flame in this beautiful House in the Wake-World. And we bathed and swam
in the pool, and were so happy you can't think. But they said: "Little
girl, you must pay for the entertainment." [I forgot to tell you there
was music like fountains make as they rise and fall, only of course much
more wonderful than that.] So I asked what I must pay, and they said:
"You are now mistress of all these houses from the Fourth to the Ninth.
You have managed the Servants' Hall well enough since your marriage; now
you must manage the others, because till you do you can never go on to
the Third House." So I said: "It seems to me that they are all in
perfectly good order." But they took me up in the air, and then I saw
that the outsides were horribly disfigured with great advertisements,
and every single house had written all over it:
FIRST HOUSE
This is his Majesty's favourite Residence.
No other genuine. Beware of worthless imitations.
Come in HERE and spend life!
Come in HERE and see the Serpent eat his Tail!
So I was furious, as you may imagine, and had men go and
put all the proper numbers on them, and a little sarcastic remark to
make them ashamed; so they read:
Fifth House, and mostly dream at that.
Seventh House. External splendour and internal
corruption. and so on. And on each one I put "No thoroughfare from here
to the First House. The only way is out of doors. By order."
This was frightfully annoying, because in the old days
we could walk about inside everywhere, and not get wet if it rained, but
nowadays there isn't any way from the Fourth to the Third House. You
could go of course by chariot from the Fifth to the Third, or go through
the House where the twins live from the Sixth to the Third, but that
isn't allowed unless you have been to the Fourth House too, and go from
there at the same time.
It was here they told me what T.A.R.O. on the ring
meant. First it means gate, and it is the name of my Fairy Prince, when
you spell it in full letter by letter.
There are seventy-eight parts to it, which makes a
perfect plan of the whole Palace, so you can always find your way, if
you remember to say T.A.R.O.. Then you remember I.N.R.I. is short for
L.V.X., which means the brilliance of the wide-wake Light, and that too
is the name of my Fairy Prince only spelt short.
The Romans said it had sixty-five parts, which is five
times thirteen, and seventy-eight is six times thirteen. To get into the
Wake World you must know your thirteen times table quite well. So if you
take them both together that makes eleven times thirteen, and then you
say "Abrahadabra," which is a most mysterious word, because it has
eleven letters in it. You remember the Houses are numbered both ways, so
that the Third House is called the Eighth House too, and the Fifth the
Sixth, and so on. But you can't tell what lovely things that means till
you've been through them all, and got to the very end. So when you look
at the Ring and see I.N.R.I. and T.A.R.O. on it that means that it is
like a policeman keeping on saying "Pass along, please!" I would have
liked to stay in the Fourth House all my life, but I began to see it was
just a little dream House too; and I couldn't rest, because my own House
was the very next one. But it's too awful to tell you how to get there.
You want the most fearful lot of courage, and there's nobody to help
you, nobody at all, and there's no proper passage. But it's frightfully
exciting, and you must wait till next time before I tell you how I
started on that horrible journey, and if I ever got there or not.
Explicit Capitulum Tertium
vel
de Collegio Interno
PART IV
Now I shall tell you about the chariot race in the first
passage. The chariot is all carved out of pure, clear amber, so that
electric sparks fly about as the furs rub it. The whole cushions and
rugs are all beautiful soft ermine fur. There is a canopy of bright blue
with stars (like the sky in the dream world), and the chariot is drawn
by two sphinxes, one black and one white. The charioteer is a most
curious person; he is a great big crab in the most glittering armour,
and he can just drive! His name is the mysterious name I told you about
with the eleven letters, but we call him Jehu for short, because he's
only nineteen years old. It's important to know though because this
journey is the most difficult of all, and without the chariot one could
never do it, because it is so far - much farther than the heaven is from
the dream world.
The passage where the twins live is very difficult too.
They are two sisters; and one is very pure and good, and the other is a
horrid fast woman. But that shows you how silly the dream language is -
really there is another way to put it: you can say there are two
sisters, and one is very silly and ignorant, and the other has learnt
how to know and enjoy.
Now when one is a Princess it is very important to have
good manners, so you have to go into the passage, and take one on each
arm, and go through with them singing and dancing; and if you hurt the
feelings of either of them the least little bit in the world it would
show that you were not really a great lady, only a dress lady, and there
is a man with a bow and arrow in the air, and he would soon finish you,
and you would never get to the Third House at all.
But the real serious difficulty is the outdoors. You
have to leave the House of Love, as they call the Fourth House. You are
quite, quite naked: you must take off your husband-clothes, and your
baby-clothes, and all your pleasure clothes, and your skin, and your
flesh, and your bones, every one of them must come right off. And then
you must take off your feeling clothes; and then your idea clothes; and
then what we call your tendency clothes which you have always worn, and
which make you what you are. After that you take off your consciousness
clothes, which you have always thought were your very own self, and you
leap out into the cold abyss, and you can't think how lonely it is.
There isn't any light, or any path, or anything to catch hold of to help
you, and there is no Fairy Prince any more: you can' even hear his voice
calling you to come on. There's nothing to tell you which way to go, and
you feel the most horrible sensation of falling away from everything
that ever was. You've got no nothing at all; you don't know how awful it
all is. You would turn back if you could only stop falling; but luckily
you can't. So you fall and fall faster and faster; and I can't tell you
any more.
The Third House is called the House of Sorrow. They gave
me new clothes of the queerest kind, because one never thinks of them as
one's own clothes, but only as clothes. It is a House of utmost
Darkness. There is a pool of black solemn water in the shining obsidian,
and one is like a vast veiled figure of wonderful beauty brooding over
the sea; and by and by the Pains come upon one. I can't tell you
anything about the Pains. Only they are different from any other pains,
because they start from inside you, from a deeper, truer kind of you
than you ever knew. By and by you see a tremendous blaze of a new sun in
the Sixth House, and you are as glad as glad as glad; and there are
millions of trumpets blown, and voices crying: "Hail to the Fairy
Prince!" meaning the new one that you have had for your baby; and at
that moment you find you are living in the first Three Houses all at
once, for you feel the delight of your own dear Prince and his love; and
the old King stirs in his Silence in the First House, and thousands of
millions of blessings shoot out like rays of light, and everything is
all harmony and beauty below, and crowned above with the crown of twelve
stars, which is the only way you can put it into dream talk.
Now you see you don't need to struggle to go on any
more, because you know already that all the House is one Palace, and you
move about in your own wake world, just as is necessary. All the paths
up to the Second House are open - the path of the Heirophant with the
flaming star and the incense in the vast cathedral, and the path of the
Mighty Ruler, who governs everything with his orb and his crown and his
sceptre. There is the path of the Queen of Love, which is more beautiful
than anything, and along it my own dear lover passes to my bridal
chamber. Then there are the three way to the Holy House of the old King,
the way by which he is joined with the new Fairy Prince, where dwells a
moonlike virgin with an open book, and always, always reads beautiful
words therein, smiling mysteriously through her shining veil, woven of
sweet thoughts and pure kisses. And there is the way by which I always
go to the King, my Father, and that passage is built of thunder and
lightening; but there is a holy Magician named Hermes, who takes me
through so quickly that I arrive sometimes even at the very moment I
start. Last of all is the most mysterious passage of them all, and if
any of you saw it you would think there was a foolish man in it being
bitten by crocodiles and dogs, and carrying a sack with nothing of any
use at all in it. But really it is the man who meant to wake up, and did
wake up. So that is his House, he is the old King himself, and so are
you. So he wouldn't care what anyone thought he was.
Really all the passages to the first Three Houses are
very useful; all the dream-world and the half-dream world, and the
Wake-world are governed from those passages.
I began to see now how very unreal even the Wake-world
is, because there is just a little dream in it, and the right world is
the Wide-Wide-Wide-Wake-World. My lover calls me little Lola Wide-awake,
not Lola Daydream any more. But it is always Lola, because I am the Key
of Delights. I never told you about the first two houses, and really you
wouldn't understand. But the Second House is gray, because the light and
dark flash by so quick it's all blended into one; and in it lives my
lover, and that's all I care about.
The First House is so brilliant that you can't think;
and there, too, is my lover and I when we are one. You wouldn't
understand that either. And the last thing I shall say is that one
begins to see that there isn't really quite a Wide-Wide-Wide-Wake-World
till the Serpent outside has finished eating up his tail, and I don't
really and truly understand that myself. But it doesn't matter; what you
must all do first is to find the Fairy Prince to come and ride away with
you, so don't bother about the Serpent yet. That's all.
Explicit Opusculum in Capitulo Quarto
vel de Collegio Summo.
