Bad to Worse

by Edeson, Robert;

  14 The title is a quotation from Leonardo (see footnote 4, Appendix B).

  The proposition that primordially the terms of theism, and therefore theism itself, arose de novo out of lexical chaos—having no existent validity beyond an accidental belonging to some inchoate vocabulary and a class of sentences constructed therefrom—is argued in the anonymous (possibly Sedite) e-manifesto En Arche. Further consideration of that idea, which has not been seriously challenged, is beyond the scope of these notes, but the interested reader can access occasional discussion papers put out by Episkopos (a dissident Vatican secret college), Wagon des Philosophes in Paris, Meccan Bride and Mosqueto.Net online, and the Mount Sycamore School of Theology, amongst others.

  Suffice it here to conclude that linguistic research will soon inform us that if any uncorrupted intelligibility does persist in the world, it belongs to the swints, whilst human language, on balance, has served our own enlightenment poorly.

  CHAPTER 11 Interestingly, the Ferendes already enjoyed an enviable fame in arthropod science. This latest find has sent scholars back to the original field notes of the Scottish naturalist Thomas MacAkerman, who gave the first comprehensive description of crab speciation based almost entirely on surveys in Greater Ferende, which he visited in 1816 and 1819. Though his concern was primarily with tidal crustaceans, there is an emerging appreciation that MacAkerman remarked on transient bipedalism as a flight reflex in a miniature terrestrial crab that he chose not to study. (The student wanting to know more about this scientist extraordinaire is referred to Tøssentern’s recent monograph on MacAkerman’s life and achievements.)

  Perhaps more striking than an inferred upright gait is the apparent size1 of the creature that attacked Glimpse. This is probably an example of the commonly observed insular gigantism (reflecting an absence of environmental pressures and predators). Alternatively, this might have been a freak specimen suffering a form of adenomatous endocrine gigantism. Obviously, future capture studies in the field should decide the issue.

  The process of autotomy (essentially, self-amputation) as occurred here is a well-documented survival and escape tactic in arthropods, as well as in molluscs and some vertebrates. The consequential phenomenon of part regeneration is one of the most intriguing in zoology, though its obvious benefits are lost to humans, whose evolutionary advancement gifted instead the ability to verbalize a circumstanced preference for it.

  The attentive reader with an appreciation for symmetries may have surmised, from the fact that a long side passage exists immediately to the left of the second hairpin in a level tunnel, that the geometry here was strictly a reflected z-bend (that is, first turn to the left, second to the right). For a crab (smaller than this one) crawling on the roof, the first turn will appear on its right, and it will think2 it is negotiating a literal z-bend. (Such a symmetry reversal, incidentally, is routinely effected without recourse to mirrors, rotation through the plane or walking on the ceiling, but rather three bold slashes, in a surgical transposition procedure known as Z-plasty.)

  1 Predictably, these salient facts of size and stance have been abstracted by fantasist-theists in furtherance of any cause to fear and revere. For them, the Ferende crab is an avatar of Standing Giant.

  2 Of course if the crab, like the reader, is attentive and apprehends indexical worlds, it may not think this at all. Also, it may be crawling sideways in any case. Also, it may not think anything.

  CHAPTER 22 In many ways, our understanding of swint ethology is much less advanced than is the case with their language. We do not know if a given thrice is a family unit, or even if its membership is stable1. (Nor do we know the fate of so-called remainder birds, or how they are identified.) The possibility of fluid interchange between thrices would confer both advantages and difficulties if it proves to be that populations are multilingual. In either case, model complexity and statistical challenges in the analytics are stupefying.

  [REMARK Parsan speech] If the gap-semantic hypothesis is proven, Misgivingston will have convincingly solved the greatest mystery in classical linguistics: How did the Syllabines communicate—and how did such a sophisticated artistic and scholarly culture flourish—when the vocabulary of their Parsan language was a single word (known, from Roman sources, to be Can’t)? (For an introduction to this subject, and a description of the famously difficult minimization problem referred to by theorists as the Syllabine Task, the reader should consult the endnote to Chapter 17 in Darian’s The Weaver Fish.)

  [EXERCISE Isomorphism] The student is encouraged to consider in what ways an interpretational reversal from ‘gaps separate words’ to ‘words separate gaps’ shares a symmetry relation with Rigo Mortiss’s denotative reversal connecting ‘town’ and ‘townsfolk’, and with Satroit’s observance dialectic (notes to Chapters 1 and 20, respectively).

  [EXERCISE Romance in Parsa Syllabina] A poet–centurion stationed in the Roman-occupied province of Parsa wandered from his legion’s camp, seeking solitude and inspiration to compose an ode. Coming upon a tranquil glade, he rested on a fallen log and played his cithara. A nearby Syllabine shepherdess, entranced by the heavenly melody, entered the woods to discover its source. She approached the poet, singing to his music with such beauty and purity of voice that he thought her the vision of a Muse. When he sang to her Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori2, she sought meaning in the gaps. When she responded Can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t, he sought meaning in the words. Explain how the centurion proposed marriage and the shepherdess accepted3.

  1 One prominent sociologist has hypothesized that the phenomenon of thricing in swints is evolutionarily conserved in ménage à trois—a human behaviour seen almost exclusively in sophisticated book-reading circles—together with its transient and more democratized variant, known as threesome.

  2 Reprised centuries later by Virgil (Eclogue X: 69).

  3 Versions of this story, of variable charm, appear throughout antiquity, dating at least from Cisalpinus in the early third century BC. The betrothal conundrum is always present in some form but never answered. Only within the last decade has a satisfactory (and darkly existentialist) solution been advanced.

  CHAPTER 23 Towards the end of his life, Satroit ordered most of his work, including ‘Tyrian Purple’, suppressed as juvenilia. (He freely advised all living poets aged under sixty to do likewise. In response, a coalition of the offended produced an anthology, Speak for Yourself, Satroit, which is no longer in print, while Satroit is.) Much of the personal collection, memorabilia and manuscript material curated at Libraire Satroit was saved by his testamentary notaire, who claimed to have misunderstood instructions. For that incompetence, he was awarded the Croix de la République.

  Acknowledging a want of maturity, the poem does illuminate a preoccupation with art and inference (and interference) that has been touched on elsewhere, under ekphrasis. Here is the characteristic tension, impressed into naïve dialogue, ending with a resolve and asserted optimism that we know, for Satroit as for any poet of decline, cannot endure. In fact, the inherent historicism and a concluding surrender to the counterfactual would seem to predestine this. Not surprisingly, many identify here an ulterior pessimism1 as Satroit’s primary concern, and argue its domain to be not art alone, but knowledge.

  Alison Pilcrow, in the Compendium previously cited, draws attention to Satroit’s often-quoted observation that the purpose of poetry is seduction. Sometimes this is perfectly evident, as in ‘The Betrothal’ or ‘A Suitor’s Reverie’, but more often Satroit supplies a cipher-trove of suggestion and implication that leaves the reader (and translator) with work to do. (Perhaps ‘making text’ is that very enterprise, though some believe the meaning here is more ‘textile’, others simply ‘sense’.) There are at least three major considerations. Lawrence Enright, whose translation is given here, emphasizes the challenge of rendering into English particular nuances of an Ottoman sensibility that are, in Satroit’s phrase, ‘occulted by alphabet’. (To illustrate, Enright ha
s offered five versions of the third stanza.) Second, there must be unravelled a Phoenician coloratura made in antiquity and half-remembered in descendent souls. Finally, and most problematically, Satroit’s is often a language of mercurial imagery rather than tractable vocabulary. (These difficulties are well known: another translation of ‘Tyrian Purple’, by Isobel Beckoner, is voluptuously sexual and almost unrecognizable as the same poem. Its comprehensibility on first publication was not helped by religious censorship.) Taking all this into account, and revisiting Enright’s translation subtextually, we might easily conclude that seduction is also the purpose of art, which shares its tireless cycles of making and destroying.

  For those interested in the science, it is clear from the final line that Satroit was aware that Tyrian purple is dibrominated indigo, a wondrous link across chemistry, biology and border.

  1 Somewhere (this author cannot recall the place, but readers may), Satroit spoke of three tenses of verb being adequate for art and life. These were the past erotic, (present) hesitant, and future separative—serving poetry, knowledge and love, respectively. There seems little joy in that. Satroit’s pessimism clearly deserves more scholarly interest for a better understanding of his poetry, and his death.

  CHAPTER 24 Worse’s advice regarding swinging the billy, ‘not for use indoors’, might sensibly be extended to outdoors as well. If the reader insists on performing this bush theatre, the author recommends rehearsals with cold water. UITA Press takes no responsibility for the quality of the brew or the severity of scalds.

  [REMARK Pendulum] Worse’s centrifuge is a realization of the thought experiment connecting diallelus and circulus, offered in footnote 10 to Chapter 7 (above). See also endnote to Chapter 19. Hence it is possible to sediment tea leaves, simulate capsize, and unify fallacies, all in a single flamboyant act.

  The authoritative history of photography is yet to be rewritten, as the task of re-conceptualizing its origins thousands of years into the past is naturally demanding of establishment imagination. There seems no doubt that when the evidence is properly weighed, the technique must be judged a Neolithic invention located in the Ferendes.

  (One prejudice to be overcome is an anthropological disposition to underestimate the sophistication of early humans, conflating two natures, habilis and sapiens (in the sense, no tools means not smart). Now that such an impressive technology has been uncovered, the intellectual stature of Stone Age peoples might be better appreciated. They hadn’t our fountain pens but, for all we know, they were better poets.)

  Although the chemistry of the silver halide image must be accepted as a Ferende discovery, a comprehensive reevaluation of the subject’s history requires that we examine a second line of invention, namely optics. The large figure astride the tunnel entrance was certainly a silhouette using light from the fire pit before it. Impressive as that is, the smaller pictograms that were thought to be hand-fashioned or brushed using seki juice as paint are proving to be far more interesting. These are not silhouettes, but show internal (that is, not contiguous with a boundary) contrast structure despite the seki chemistry being uniform across the image. Because this suggested that the seki was used in development of a latent image or as a fixative coating rather than a stain, further analysis was sought, and this confirmed that the image contrast correlated with distributions of silver or terencium redox states. Moreover, thiosulphate ion has been detected both in fermented seki juice and in some josephites, where it presumably arises from incomplete oxidation of the sulphide.

  It is believed that these images could only be formed using perforated masking, or some form of lensing that focused (if imperfectly) object shape and shading. As edge definition can be seen to vary within a single blotching, the second method is considered more likely. The obvious candidate for such a lens is an appropriately contoured josephite, and several clear, roughly lenticular examples have been found collocated with dated tranchets whilst excavating near the fire pits. (Their oblateness is explained by very high spin velocities during volcanic expulsion and upper atmospheric cooling.) Specimens were sent to Cambridge for distortion calibration using reference images. The difficult task of numerically deconvolving a blotching to define separately the object character and the lens aberration (as well as illumination properties in some cases) is underway in Thwistle’s department. How extraordinary it will be if these apparent ideograms are revealed to be photographic records of recognizably distinct human faces.

  The reader using retrieval services to further personal research is advised that the Ferende civilization described here is referred to variously in different literatures as Medallion People, Rep’huselans, and (more romantically) the Josephite Collectors. For information on the cave complex itself, search on Medallion Caves.

  [Before proceeding, readers should acquaint themselves with Clause 22 of the Warning, to be found at the end of this volume.]

  In a bizarre case of holy testament redux, there are certain passages in Inferno that, in the context, are labelled Apocrypha, and which Moreish is said not to have authored. It seems never to have been suggested that the famous Charlatan Saint and False Prophet cantos are among these, and therefore the attribution is retained. A personal communication to Ms Moreish seeking clarification has not been answered.

  For the student reluctant to traverse the underworld in full, a reading of the outermost Circle of Infamy (once called Limbo; with inevitable changes in demographics and rationalization of punitive regimes generally, the term is considered obsolete) will suffice to convey both style and theme. There will be found the cantos mentioned, as well as Zealot of the Sword, Thievery of Sohs, and many others. It is vital that the visitor not fraternize with this company, who are poised before an ineluctable direct line to Satan (see below) and will grasp at innocents in their fall.

  Whilst inside those Circular Lands, readers are urged to note important facts about the prevailing plane geometry, knowledge of which will relieve them of much distress on their ultimate return. But first we must correct a number of structural misconceptions arising from mediaeval accounts that can no longer be considered reliable. In particular, the reader should dispel any notion that the surface she will tread is other than planar. In consequence, her progress will be everywhere a level traverse; early poetic references to ‘descent’ and ‘fall’ are allegorical. We are now certain that elaborate historical depictions of laminate discs, turbinate pits, or precipices were entirely fanciful, designed to terrify, and of no use as guides for the serious traveller.

  Recall the well-attested concentricity of form within the Inferno. In the interests of exactitude generally and for the exercise that follows, it needs to be pointed out that occupants of a Circle (except the innermost) actually inhabit an annulus rather than a disc, and henceforth the designation Annulus of Infamy is preferred. We distinguish its boundaries as an outer circle and an inner circle.

  (On the subject of spirit-world circles, incidentally, the scriptures abound with speculation as to whether their properties differ from those in our temporal experience; in particular, whether the ratio of circumference to diameter accords with the geometry of mortals. Luckily, as will be shown, the visitor can easily measure the value of π pertaining locally and apply it in her further researches.)

  On arrival, newcomers are tested with a riddle:

  To regain the living world what you must do

  Is walk a path that’s longest and is shortest too.

  To bear that length

  Take Theta’s strength

  From where you stand: Behold the power of two!

  The verse is inscribed on the inner lintel of the entry portal, and Virgil informs us that the immediate vicinity is called by locals the Piazza of the Squabbling Prophets, who are locked in argument about who is Theta, how best to kill her to steal her power, and then what to do. The canto Torment of the Throng, belonging to the Apocrypha, describes how every time they look upwards to read it, the riddle changes.

  (Fortunately,
the apartment that Virgil keeps, and which he kindly makes available to visiting poets, is located in the more elegant Preziosa Piazza di Senso, some distance away. His neighbour is Standing Giant1, who passes freely between worlds, occasionally transporting the deserving clasped in one hand.)

  For the future convenience of the reader, and to expedite her sometime progress through the afterlife, the solution is given here. On the basis that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, we conclude that our path is straight. The longest straight line constructible within an annulus is a chord of the outer circle that is tangent to the inner circle. (This is the true meaning of the Hebraic Secret Chord, which is not musical at all.) The thoughtful reader will immediately ‘behold’ that leading from the entry two such chords exist, one to the left (exit through the Temple of Apostasy) and one to the right (through the Garden of Renunciation). Perhaps, after all, the prophets are happiest remaining where they are—until summoned to the Throne of Satan.

  Evidently neither Moreish nor her guide had been a conscientious student of Euclid, as they were slow to take advantage of the riddle’s instruction when seeking to leave. Fortunately, however, Virgil is informative in other ways. He also seems obsessed with punctuality, recording departure and arrival times in great detail.

  In what follows, parameters are indexed by annulus number (the Annulus of Infamy being 1 and the Satanic disc being 9) or, where appropriate, Circle number (the outermost being 1), the distinction being clear from the context. We may label the Circles C1, C2, and so on, and likewise the annuli A1, A2, and so on.

  Let 2l1 be the length of our constructed riddle line. We can determine this length from times given and knowledge of their walking pace (in units of souls trampled per interval of time). Virgil also mentions the total number n of souls in residence, as well as their dense-packed physical occupancy allowance s and the wailing room w allotted to each. It is a simple matter to derive the area a1 of the Annulus of Infamy (A1) as a1 = n (s + w). Then