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584
2 Keep the Word! ... And then the bone spoke; it was there in the fork of the tree: Why do you want a mere bone, a round thing in the branches of a tree? said the head of One Hunaphu when it spoke to the maiden. You don't want it, she was told. I do want it, said the maiden. Very well. Stretch out your right hand here, so I can see it, said the bone. Yes, said the maiden. She stretched out her right hand, up there in front of the bone. And then the bone spit out its saliva, which landed squarely in the hand of the maiden. And then she looked in her hand, she inspected it right away, but the bone's saliva wasn't in her hand. It is just a sign I have given you, my saliva, my spittle. This, my head, has nothing on it - just bone, nothing of meat. It's just the same with the head of a great lord: it's just the flesh that makes his face look good. And when he dies, people get frightened by his bones. After that, his son is like his saliva, his spittle, in his being, whether it be the son of a lord or the son of a craftsman, an orator. The father does not disappear, but goes on being fulfilled. Neither dimmed nor destroyed is the face of a lord, a warrior, craftsman, an orator. Rather, he will leave his daughters and sons. So it is that I have done likewise through you. Now go up there on the face of the earth; you will not die. Keep the word. So be it, said the head of One and Seven Hunaphu - they were of one mind when they did it ... Presumably this was to try to make people re-member the third divine Word.
It was necessary because of the invention of letters. ... Most ingenious Thoth, said the god and king Thamus, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practise their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise ... ... The first half beginning with Alef - an ox, and ending with Lamed - a whip. The second list begins with Mem - water, and continues with Nun - fish, Samek - fish bones, Ayin - a water spring, Peh - the mouth of a well, Tsadi - to fish, Kof, Resh and Shin are the hook hole, hook head and hook teeth, known to exist from prehistoric times, and the Tav is the mark used to count the fish caught ... The letters made people prone to war because the letters were deceptive - easy to be misunderstood. A gap of dis-cord immediately developed between the newborn literary interpretations and the mythic language inherited in the pictures. ... All saints revile her, and all sober men / Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - / In scorn of which I sailed to find her / In distant regions likeliest to hold her / Whom I desired above all things to know, / Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, / To go my headstrong and heroic way / Seeking her out at the volcano's head, / Among pack ice, or where the track had faded / Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: / Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's, / Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, / With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips. Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir / Will celebrate the Mountain Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; / But I am gifted, even in November / Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense / Of her nakedly worn magnificence / I forget cruelty and past betrayal, / Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall ...
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