I leave this message here for any who come exploring this desolate place. I should have known that S'bhuth did not fully reveal all the actions he took when he arrived in our world. Initially, he desperately sought out darkness and obliteration. Whatever force dragged him across that great blackness -- I have pondered it for years, now, and it still remains beyond my understanding -- was not strong enough to destroy his mind, though it left him raving for many years. By the time he began to appear to me he had recovered from his shock, but still he left me some clues about what he did in his madness.
My gelding is a nimble fellow, thank God. The rocky path leading to this loney place is a treacherous one. I hope that you, reader, did not find any mishap on your journey here. You must be wondering about the meaning of this old man's rantings -- or else you are the one S'bhuth said would come, the one unable to leave things well enough alone, and you understand all of this too well. S'bhuth left a hole here. Find the tree with the hidden door, and beyond it a place seen only in S'bhuth's madness.
Within this place, somewhere, you will find a manuscript. Carry it with you when you leave; S'bhuth indicated that it would someday be of great importance. If you are curious, incidentally, it is not one of my journals; I had nothing whatsoever to do with the book. S'bhuth said it belonged to 'the oldest mathematician' and it 'contained the seed' of his eventual destruction. There are some matters where I have always felt it best not to press S'bhuth for further information. This is one of them.
I leave this message here for any who come exploring this desolate place. I should have known that S'bhuth did not fully reveal all the actions he took when he arrived in our world. Initially, he desperately sought out darkness and obliteration. Whatever force dragged him across that great blackness -- I have pondered it for years, now, and it still remains beyond my understanding -- was not strong enough to destroy his mind, though it left him raving for many years. By the time he began to appear to me he had recovered from his shock, but still he left me some clues about what he did in his madness.
My gelding is a nimble fellow, thank God. The rocky path leading to this loney place is a treacherous one. I hope that you, reader, did not find any mishap on your journey here. You must be wondering about the meaning of this old man's rantings -- or else you are the one S'bhuth said would come, the one unable to leave things well enough alone, and you understand all of this too well. S'bhuth left a hole here. Find the tree with the hidden door, and beyond it a place seen only in S'bhuth's madness.
Within this place, somewhere, you will find a manuscript. Carry it with you when you leave; S'bhuth indicated that it would someday be of great importance. If you are curious, incidentally, it is not one of my journals; I had nothing whatsoever to do with the book. S'bhuth said it belonged to 'the oldest mathematician' and it 'contained the seed' of his eventual destruction. There are some matters where I have always felt it best not to press S'bhuth for further information. This is one of them.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
"These words were written by one of your kind. I cannot (/parse?) the fear inherent to them; all I can understand is the knowledge of imminence, of something vast - known all too well, and coming slowly (/forwards?). "Leonardo called me mad. In that madness I applied the lessons of my youth, lessons at the hands of my old masters, lessons carved into me. "Now they return, and the scars of my education burn in joyous anticipation. When I am gone, you will - finally - be free."
S'bhuth very well could have been the thing Yeats imagined. Stranger things have happened. We all think, though, that S'bhuth is far from the worst this existence has to offer.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
"These words were written by one of your kind. I cannot (/parse?) the fear inherent to them; all I can understand is the knowledge of imminence, of something vast - known all too well, and coming slowly (/forwards?). "Leonardo called me mad. In that madness I applied the lessons of my youth, lessons at the hands of my old masters, lessons carved into me. "Now they return, and the scars of my education burn in joyous anticipation. When I am gone, you will - finally - be free."
S'bhuth very well could have been the thing Yeats imagined. Stranger things have happened. We all think, though, that S'bhuth is far from the worst this existence has to offer.
