Category: literature

The Tanah: Troughs–Chapter One

[The following is the forty-first of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, here is the thirty-seventh, here is the thirty-eighth, here is the thirty-ninth, and here is the fortieth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Introduction

The ancient tribe that wrote the books of the Tanah conceived of history as a series of crests and troughs, the former being periods of good fortune, and the latter being periods of bad fortune. The writers chose to collect the major troughs of their sacred history and narrate the happenings of each in the chapters of this book, and to collect the major crests of that history and tell of them in the chapters of the next book.

The beginnings of these books of crests and troughs deal with those current to the writers at the time of writing; that is, the first chapters of each deal with the enslavement of the Luminosians by the Zoyans (Troughs), and their prophesied liberation (Crests).

Subsequent chapters in each book deal with scenarios believed to happen hundreds of years after the writing: a trough of servitude to wealthy owners of land, what reads like a prophecy of feudalism; then, a crest will come, liberating the people from this servitude. A final trough concerns a world with increasing and extreme wealth inequality, with authoritarian states that use violence to keep the masses in check, and various methods of lulling the masses into docility and complacency, again, to keep them in check–that is, breads and circuses. It prophesies a world disturbingly close to our own, so accurate is its prescience.

As for the corresponding crest meant to lift the world out of that distant, dystopian future, there is an ambiguity to it as to whether the future world will be saved by the leadership of some messiah-like figure, or if the Earth’s only salvation will be a kind of Armageddon, killing and wiping out all of human, animal, and plant life, leading to a far-off, gradual regeneration of life in a completely new form. Again, the prophecy seems chillingly prescient.

Chapter One

Woe to us Luminosians! Our punishment is just!

We have been under the yoke of the Zoyans for ten years now, and no end to our misery is in sight! We only know that a crest will one day come to liberate us, yet it seems so far away from us.

We toil, we dig, we build, we break up rock, we serve meals to and clean for our betters, the Zoyans. We do all of these tasks as just punishment for our wicked and selfish use of magic, turning the once-benevolent Crims against us! We deserve our suffering!

The Zoyans degrade us because we degraded others. They conquered us because we conquered others. They make us slaves because we made slaves of others. They use our women for their sexual sport because we used the women of others for our sexual sport. The Echo Effect taught us of these dangers, but we would not listen.

These hard times that we must endure are a trough. A trough is part of a wave, and therefore a crest will come. Ill fortune is no more permanent than good fortune is. A trough will move up into a crest just as surely as a crest will move down into another trough.

We cannot know how long this trough will last. We only know that, one day, the wave will begin to rise again. Will that day come tomorrow? Will it come next week? Next month? Next year? In how many years will it come? In how many decades will it come?

We do not know any of this. We only know that the wave will rise again into a crest. We must therefore be patient, have faith, and endure.

So for now, we must continue to do our work, as hateful as it is. We must continue to toil, to dig, to build, to break up rock, to serve meals and clean for our betters, the Zoyans. We must do all of these tasks as penance for having made others do these tasks for us one time in the past, what had been a crest for us.

We must remember: if the beginning of a new crest has not come yet, it is because our penance for our own sins is not yet complete. It will be complete one day: we must have faith, and be patient. The Crims know when that day will be, and we know that they are faithful to us.

Analysis of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1960 novel by Harper Lee, winning the Pulitzer Prize the following year. The book has been widely read in high schools and middle schools in the US since as early as 1963 (I read it in Grade 10 English class in the mid-1980s in Canada); the choice of TKAM as a suitable subject for teen classroom study has been controversial, given its use of racial slurs, the topic of rape, and occasional mild profanity.

The novel was adapted into a film in 1962, starring Gregory Peck (who won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch) and Mary Badham, with Phillip Alford, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy, Brock Peters, Estelle Evans, Paul Fix, Collin Wilcox, James Anderson, Robert Duvall, and William Windom. The film was also nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Despite the novel’s controversial subject matter of rape and racial prejudice against blacks, TKAM is famous for the warmth and humour of its narration. Finch, the lawyer father of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch–who narrates the novel as an adult and who as a child is played by Badham in the film–is a hero and model of integrity for lawyers, since it is Atticus who takes on the burden of defending Tom Robinson (Peters), a black man falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell (Wilcox) in a town so prejudiced against blacks that there’s no way he’ll be acquitted, even though it’s established that his ‘raping’ of her would have been physically impossible.

There was a mixed response to the novel upon its publication. Despite the “astonishing phenomenon” (to use author Mary McDonough Murphy’s words) of TKAM, with many copies sold and its widespread use in schools over the years, there’s been surprisingly scant literary analysis of it. I hope what I write here won’t be little more than a repetition and variation of what others have already said about it.

An obvious theme in the novel is prejudice, though it isn’t limited to the prejudice against blacks. A major issue, at the beginning of the story, for Scout, her older brother Jeremy “Jem” Finch (Alford), and their friend, Charles Baker Harris (“Dill”–Megna), is their fear of reclusive Arthur “Boo” Radley (Duvall), who is perceived by the three kids as a dangerous, violent psychopath. They believe this because of horrific stories about him, based on the gossip of their neighbours, which is the basis of their prejudice against him.

Actually, Boo is a shy man who would like to be friends with the kids, and so he often leaves little gifts for them in the tree knothole by the Radley house. The kids are content to take the gifts, and while they find him fascinating and mysterious, they’re still scared of him, wanting to goad him into coming out of his house so they can see him while keeping a safe distance from him.

Like Tom Robinson, Boo is a “mockingbird” of the story, against whom it would be a sin to kill. These two are kind, gentle people who would never harm anyone (except in self-defence or the defence of others, as in the case of Radley defending Jem and Scout from an assault at night towards the end of the novel, an assault from a character who is a true danger to many: Bob Ewell (Anderson).

Ewell and his family are a personification of the ‘white trash’ stereotype in many ways. Apart from their virulent racism against blacks, there’s a general vulgarity about them that anyone would find repellent.

One would feel some sympathy for Mayella, Bob’s daughter and a target of much of his abuse, of which sexual abuse is strongly implied in the story, as well as physical and emotional abuse. Still, she helps to enable the charge of rape against Tom Robinson, when we learn that it was actually she who made sexual advances on him. (Lee, pages 259-260)

There’s another child in the Ewell family, a boy named Burris, who keeps failing the first grade in Scout’s class, because he shows up only on the first day of every school year. He’s filthy dirty, and Scout’s teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, tells him to go home and wash the lice out of his hair. The boy demonstrates his vulgarity by calling her a “snot-nosed slut” before leaving the classroom. (Lee, pages 35-37)

Now, I mention this ‘white trash’ stereotype among poor people in the story, but this doesn’t mean that stereotypes are tossed around everywhere without any sensitivity in TKAM. On the contrary, Lee takes pains in her narrative to defy stereotypical thinking as much as possible. The Ewell family, as well as the ‘ladylike’ but hypocritical Mrs. Merriweather and her gossipy ilk, are exceptions to the rule.

To contrast a good (or at least relatively good) poor family against the Ewells, there are the Cunninghams, who are portrayed in a largely sympathetic way. Little Walter Cunningham is invited to the Finch’s house for a meal, since the boy is hungry; this is after he’s got into a fight with Scout at school. He helps himself to a generous amount of molasses during the meal, at which Scout frowns in disapproval, then she is reprimanded by Calpurnia (Evans in the film) for being judgmental about his indulgence. (Lee, pages 32-33) The Cunninghams are so poor, hit hard by The Depression, that they can’t pay in cash for anything.

The boy’s father, Walter Cunningham Sr., pays off his debt to Atticus for his legal services by giving him firewood, vegetables, and other supplies. As a poor farmer, Mr. Cunningham is a mix of good and bad. His willingness to give things in place of money in exchange for this or that good or service shows how honorable he is to respect others for what good they’ve done for him (on an individual level, what he’s doing is rather like gift culture).

His bad side, however, is seen when he is part of a mob intent on lynching Tom Robinson. A moral weakness of many among the poor is their tendency ‘to punch down,’ or to hurt those in a weaker social position than they’re in, as with poor white Cunningham as against poor black Robinson; this is equally true of Mayella and her false rape accusation. These people would do better ‘to punch up,’ or fight the rich capitalist class instead.

It is Scout’s sweet, innocent words to Mr. Cunningham that make him relent and take his would-be lynch mob back home (pages 204-206). She asks him about his entailment (<<< from legal 3rd definition) and his son, Walter Cunningham, Jr. In this relenting, Mr. Cunningham redeems himself a bit and thus rises above the ‘white trash’ stereotype.

Scout herself is the perfect embodiment of a character in TKAM who defies stereotypes, for she is a tomboy. She typically wears denim overalls rather than dresses, and she often gets into fights with boys at school; I mentioned above her fight with Walter Jr. She is a lovable contrast to the stereotypical gossipy ladies like Mrs. Merriweather (Chapter 24).

It’s important that the novel confront the problem of stereotypes and then defy them, for of course it is stereotypical thinking, with the sweeping generalizations it makes about this or that group of people (‘all blacks are like this,’ ‘all poor people are like that,’ ‘all women and girls do this or that sort of thing,’ etc.), that leads to prejudice against those people.

Prejudice, as we know, often leads to killing. Because of prejudice against Tom and the stereotyping of blacks, he’ll not only be found guilty of a crime he didn’t commit–a crime it should be easy to see he couldn’t possibly have committed–but also shot dead…with seventeen bullets…when trying to run and escape from prison (page 315).

Atticus decries the stereotyping of and sweeping generalizations made against blacks during his closing statement to the jury for Robinson’s trial (page 273). He speaks of “the evil assumption–that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our [i.e., white] women” (Lee’s emphasis). Atticus speaks ironically that this is “a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin”.

One ought to remember that such racist generalizing about blacks is not limited to poor, uneducated, ignorant ‘white trash,’ much to the dismay of the educated liberal. Even a philosopher as otherwise brilliant as Hegel was not above making unfair generalizations about “the Negro” (a word which, by the way, was once the polite word to use for black people, as was colored…back during such times as the Jim Crow years). One need only read the Introduction of Hegel’s Philosophy of History (“GEOGRAPHICAL BASIS OF HISTORY,” pages 91-99) to see what I mean.

He claims that Africa is “the land of childhood,” (page 91) that “The Negro…exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state” (page 93), and that among them “moral sentiments are quite weak, or more strictly speaking, non-existent.” (page 96) Thus, apparently, to paraphrase Hegel’s conclusion on page 99, Africa should be left out of a serious discussion of history as “movement or development”.

Apart from the general lack in Marx of the ugly racism we see in Hegel, my other reasons for preferring Marx to Hegel include how Marx’s theory of the base and superstructure can explain how it’s the social relations of production (the base) that result in the legal, political, and cultural realms (the superstructure) that are in turn used to justify the base, therefore perpetuating the entire system in a seemingly endless loop. In other words, Marx explains how class antagonisms result in the very racism Hegel so thoughtlessly rationalizes. It is not Hegel’s “World Spirit” that will bring mankind closer and closer to freedom, but Marx’s revolutionary overthrow of the system that will do so.

To get back to Boo Radley, the kids regard him as “a malevolent phantom” (page 10), a “haint” that lives in the Radley house. We imagine a ghost saying “Boo,” and this nickname that the kids have for him sounds like a short form for the racial slur “boogie,” which had already been used against blacks since the early 1920s (i.e., through its association with ‘boogie-woogie’). Though the use of “spook” as a racial slur for blacks was only first used in the 1940s, well after the setting of TKAM in the Depression-era 1930s, the book’s publication in 1960 means that Lee must have been aware of its use as a slur, and so the notion of regarding Boo as a ghost fits in with how prejudice against him parallels prejudice against blacks.

When we finally get a physical description of Boo Radley, we learn that his skin is a sickly white, his face and hands in particular–so white as to be far whiter than normal (page 362). There’s an irony in how this far whiter than white skin is on a man against whom the prejudice parallels that of a black man like Tom Robinson.

According to the gossip of Miss Stephanie Crawford (Dill’s aunt in the film, and played by Alice Ghostley), Boo took a pair of scissors and stabbed them in the leg of his father (page 10). This stabbing of phallic scissor blades in his father’s leg can be paralleled symbolically with Tom Robinson’s supposed rape of Mayella. It’s another apocryphal story used to reinforce prejudice against someone who’s actually gentle.

Jem gives “a reasonable description of Boo” on page 16. Actually, it’s a sensationalistic, exaggerated, and terrifying description. Apparently, Boo eats raw squirrels and cats, which explains his bloodstained hands. There’s a long, jagged scar going across his face. His teeth are yellow and rotten, of those he still has. His eyes pop, and he usually drools. Such an ugly description parallels that of any racist for the ‘ugly,’ dark appearance of black people.

As scared as the kids are of this supposedly terrifying man, though, they’re also fascinated with him, Dill in particular wanting to know what he looks like (page 16). They start daring each other to go up to the Radley house and get an up-close look at him (pages 16-19). This mix of fascination and fear of those one is prejudiced against can be compared to the human zoos of the past, where whites would look at, for example, Africans in enclosures; then there’s that opening scene in Office Space, on the commute to work, when Michael Bolton is grooving to hip hop in his car, but he gets terrified when a young black man approaches, so Bolton locks his car door and turns down his music.

Going against all of this prejudice are the words of wisdom that Atticus imparts onto Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view….until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (page 39) Put another way, empathy is the cure for prejudice.

Still, the kids persist in their fantasies about Boo Radley, even acting out dramas of the Radley family, with Scout playing Mrs. Radley, just sweeping the porch, Dill playing old Mr. Radley, pacing the sidewalk and coughing, and Jem playing Boo, who “shrieked and howled from time to time.” (pages 51-52) This is rather like how so many of us, even when told about the virtue of empathy, persist in our prejudices against blacks and other minorities, scorning empathy as “woke.”

Only in the case of Jem, Scout, and Dill, they’re all just little kids who don’t know any better. Unlike so many adults who persist in their bigotries, the three kids will learn the error of prejudicial thinking, thanks to their progressive-minded father and their closeness to Calpurnia, who helps humanize blacks for them by her example. Indeed, during Robinson’s trial, the kids will go up to the area of the courtroom to watch the trial with the blacks, including Reverend Sykes. This kids’ sitting with the blacks is a symbolic desegregation that will be very good for them, and it will help pave the way for Scout’s acceptance of Boo Radley by the end of the story.

The kids’ gradual learning of the evil of prejudice may be good for them, but it’s also painful, for in this process of learning, they will also lose their innocence. Jem’s loss of his pants while escaping from Boo can be seen as symbolic of that loss of innocence (Chapter 6, pages 72-73).

With the theme of the loss of innocence is all feigned innocence masking guilt, as well as imagined guilt hiding an actual innocence. We see the former in how the three kids seem all sweet and innocent, yet they’re being naughty in their repeated trespassing on the Radley property, which is based on their not-so-innocent prejudging of Boo Radley.

There’s also the seeming innocence of the charming Maycomb community, who seem all sweet, innocent, and Christian, yet they’re tainted with racial prejudice. This problem is by no means limited to the Ewells: others, including Mrs. Merriweather in the Missionary Society, put on hypocritical airs of Christian piety (Chapter 24), yet they display blatant racism towards blacks (Merriweather, for example, uses the word “darky” to refer to blacks on page 310). Then there’s the attempt, led by Mr. Cunningham, to lynch Tom Robinson. There’s also the gossiping of the community.

On the other side of the coin, there’s the real innocence of Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, which is obscured behind all the prejudice against the two. It should be clear early on that Boo means no harm to the kids when he leaves the gifts in the tree knothole for them. Finally, his defence of Jem and Scout against Bob Ewell’s assault on them proves once and for all what a good man Boo is. Near the end of the story, when Scout sees him and says, “Hey, Boo,” then Atticus gently corrects her by saying, “Mr. Arthur, honey,” it’s like someone telling a racist not to use racial slurs when referring to blacks.

Speaking of blacks, Tom Robinson is clearly a kind, gentle human being who only wanted to be helpful to Mayella in doing little household chores for her, and with no remuneration for it. Her sexual advances on him, then her accusation of rape, were not only an attempt to hide her guilt behind a veil of innocence, but also a projection of lechery onto him.

Robinson, like Radley, is a “mockingbird,” a symbol of innocence. It’s a sin to kill, or otherwise harm in any way either of these men–or people like them–because they do no harm to anyone; they do only acts of kindness, just as how mockingbirds will just “sing their hearts out for us,” as Miss Maudie says to Scout (page 119), to explain to the little girl what her father meant by it being acceptable to shoot all the bluejays she and Jem want to shoot with their air-rifles, but never to shoot mockingbirds.

Never harm the innocent.

One of the biggest problems we have in this world is our inability to tell the difference between the innocent and the guilty. That inability is the result of our minds being tainted with prejudice–a loss of our own innocence.

Because of this taint of prejudice, Atticus’s job of defending Robinson, what should be a straightforward one of establishing a reasonable doubt that he raped Mayella, has become nearly impossible. The fact that Robinson’s left arm is useless and crippled, the result of an accident with a cotton gin when he was a child, demonstrates that he couldn’t possibly have given Mayella the facial injuries she got from the rape she accuses him of, injuries that in all probability came from the left hand of her assailant.

Bob Ewell, however, is left-handed, as he shows the people in the courtroom when he writes his name on an envelope for all to see (page 237). That it’s far likelier that a villain like Bob, who drinks and poaches to feed his poor family, is the one who hit and perhaps even raped Mayella, rather than Robinson, is completely lost on the prejudiced jury.

There are no lengthy debates between Atticus and Mr. Gilmer, the prosecutor (Windom) during the trial. Gilmer must imagine, correctly, that he’ll easily win this case simply because the defendant is black. The “witnesses [have] been led by the nose as asses are,” older Scout notes in the narration (page 252), which is an allusion to a soliloquy by Iago in Othello (Act One, Scene iii, lines 444-445), a play about a black man being manipulated by scheming, vengeful white Iago. Just as Othello is led to his destruction by Iago, so is Robinson being led to his destruction by the lies of a white supremacist society.

Because of all of these problems, what should be an easy defence for Atticus has become a near-impossible one. Not only will this job be as difficult for him to do as I’ve said, but he’ll also be hated as a ‘nigger-lover’ for doing it (e.g., Bob Ewell’s vengeful attempt on the lives of Jem and Scout). If he refuses the job, though, he won’t be able to live with himself, let alone give non-hypocritical moral guidance to his kids (pages 139-140).

His annoyance at having to deal with problems that shouldn’t exist when defending Robinson is rather like in the incident when he has to shoot the rabid dog (Chapter 10). Sheriff Hector “Heck” Tate (Overton) wants Atticus to shoot the dog because Atticus is a much better shot than Tate (page 127); similarly, Judge Taylor wants Atticus to take on the Robinson case. Shooting the mad dog is symbolic of ridding Maycomb County of racial prejudice. Here is an animal that should be killed…to protect the truly innocent.

Interestingly, TKAM also explores how racial prejudice can go in the opposite direction. In Chapter 12, Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to the church of the black community, and a black woman there named Lula is annoyed to see two white kids in their church. Now it’s Calpurnia who has been put in Atticus’s shoes, telling Lula there’s nothing wrong with whites attending their church (page 158).

Lula’s the only one there who has this negative attitude, though, for as Zeebo, the garbage collector, says, the rest of the black community are all mighty glad to have Jem and Scout there in church with them (page 159). It’s in this church that the kids meet Reverend Sykes, who as we know later will have the kids with all the blacks in the balcony area of the courthouse for the trial. Of course, the kids have no prejudice against blacks, for Scout would like to go and visit Calpurnia at her home (pages 167-168), and Calpurnia would be glad to have them come over.

Now, just after Scout has asked to see Calpurnia in her home, Scout looks over at the Radley Place, “expecting to see its phantom occupant”, but it isn’t there. She still needs to get over her hangups about Boo.

Older Scout as narrator observes “a caste system in Maycomb, where the people “took for granted attitudes, character shadings, even gestures, as having been repeated in each generation and refined by time.” (page 175) Examples of such “character shadings” and stereotypes are then given for the gossipy Crawfords, the morbidity of one third of the Merriweathers, the dishonest Delafields, and the idiosyncratic walk of the Bufords. Here are examples of Maycomb prejudices and stereotypical thinking that have nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

Another such example of prejudice is in Aunt Alexandra and her attitude toward the Cunninghams. She won’t have little Walter Cunningham over to the Finch’s house because, in her opinion, “he–is–trash, that’s why” (page 301). We know the Cunninghams, for all of their faults, are nowhere near as bad as the Ewells, but they’re poor enough to be “trash” in Aunt Alexandra’s eyes.

To get back to Robinson’s trial, when Mr. Gilmer is cross-examining him, it’s clear that the prosecutor is relying a lot less on examining the evidence for or against Robinson than on using anything about him to reinforce stereotypical thinking about him, to get an easy conviction. Gilmer begins his cross-examination by mentioning Robinson’s having gotten thirty days for disorderly conduct, implying that Robinson had beaten up “the nigger” really badly, when actually, it was Robinson who got badly beaten (page 262).

Next, Gilmer links Robinson’s being strong enough to bust up chiffarobes and kindling with one hand, “to chok[ing] the breath out of a woman, and sling[ing] her to the floor.” (page 263) It doesn’t matter if there’s any actual proof of Robinson doing that to Mayella…just establish the possibility (however unlikely) of him doing that, just because he’s black. Gilmer also reverses the sense of appearance vs reality with Tom by saying he’s “a mighty good fellow, it seems” by helping with the Ewells’ chores “for not one penny” (page 263).

Gilmer is shocked to hear Robinson say he helped Mayella for free because he felt sorry for her (page 264). It doesn’t matter how poor or ‘white trash’ the Ewell family are, or how it should be obvious that Bob Ewell abuses her. Robinson has every reason in the world to feel sorry for her, but such an idea is unmentionable, since she is white and he is an ‘inferior’ black man.

Yet the whole problem with such things as racial and ethnic prejudice, class conflict, sexual abuse, and the mistreatment of women is that there’s a lack of feeling sorry for people, a lack of empathy, the presence of which would be the beginning of a cure to these problems. We’ll notice how in this trial there’s no real concern with getting justice for Mayella–not even she is really concerned with it, so indoctrinated is she with the prejudices of her community. It’s all about finding a scapegoat in the form of a black man, to rid the Maycomb community of its sin.

What’s deeply saddening is how, in Atticus’s real hopes that an appeal of the guilty verdict will lead to an acquittal, “the shadow of a beginning” (page 297), Robinson still ends up shot and killed.

Yet another example of the liberal hypocrisy in the Maycomb community is when, in Scout’s class with Miss Gates, the teacher contrasts the “DEMOCRACY” of the US with Hitler’s fascism and persecution of the Jews (pages 328-329); yet Scout has also seen Miss Gates leave the courthouse after the Robinson trial, and she’s talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford about how the blacks in their community should learn a lesson from the trial about “gettin’ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry [white people].” (page 331)

Jem and Scout have come to a better understanding of people by the end of the novel. Scout figures “there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” (page 304) Jem can understand that idea, but he’s upset about how that “one kind of folks” always “despise each other”. He can understand that it’s this contempt for one’s fellow man that makes Boo Radley want to stay shut up in his house all the time.

In a conversation earlier with Jem on page 196, when the boy mentions the Ku Klux Klan, Atticus dismisses the idea, saying “It’ll never come back.”

After the attempted lynching of Robinson that Atticus saw, one wonders how he could be so sure of there being no return of the Klan.

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, New York, Grand Central Publishing, 1960

Manna

T
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a
i
n

f
a
l
l

o
f

b
a
l
l
s

o
f

f
i
r
e

o
n

Z
i
o
s

will empty their
apartments, will
tell Aviv to leave
and give the land
back to those who
were promised it.
Weeping Israelis’
children should be
asking their moms
and dads why they
were taken here, &
why they laughed
at weeping Gazan
children. Iranian
rain is a shower to
respond to bombs
rained on Lebanon and the like. The exodus will cry, “I ran so far away from Iran.”

The Tanah: Amores–Four More Spells for Attractiveness

[The following is the thirty-ninth of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, here is the thirty-seventh, and here is the thirty-eighth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Physical Attractiveness Spell

[Take a ritual bath in the manner described in previous spells. Recite the following verse over and over again as the lather is spread on your body and rinsed off.]

Weleb, blow on me a flower’s fragrance.
Nevil, make whom I love burn for me.
Drofurb, make his love as strong as stone.
Priff, give me long and flowing, lovely hair.

Comment: this spell was meant for women to use on men.

Spell for Knowing and Being Another’s Fantasy Lover

[Burn a flame in a pile of twigs surrounded in a mound of dirt. Do this on a windy day. As you hold a small pot of water just over the fire, to heat the water, stare into the flame and recite the verse below, over and over. When the water is hot enough–not so hot as to burn the skin–pour it on your arm and continue repeatedly chanting the verse.]

Weleb, blow on me the secrets of his dreams.
Nevil, teach me all of his desires.
Drofurb, make me the ground of what he wants.
Priff, pour on me the scent of all his lusts.

Comment: again, this is a spell meant for women to use on men, not vice versa.

Weight Loss Spell

[Dig holes large enough to fit your feet in, holes in a circle around a large fire. Fill the holes with water, enough to go up to your ankles. Do this on a windy day. As you recite the following verse, go around the fire with your bare feet going in the holes and splashing in the water. Make sure never to miss the holes. Continue to do so until there is no more splashing water, only mud, always repeating the verse.]

Weleb, blow thinness on me!
Nevil, burn my fat off me!
Drofurb, make my fat sink into you!
Priff, wash my fat off me!

Comment: the desired weight loss was expected to be achieved within a week or two.

Spell for Sculpting the Desired Body Shape

[Take a ritual bath as described previously. As you spread the lather all over your body, move your hands in shapes that accurately imitate the contours you wish your body to have, pushing in or pulling out wherever you want the curves to go in or out, all while repeatedly chanting the verse below.]

Weleb, blow on me the shape I want!
Nevil, burn away the curves I hate!
Drofurb, set my wanted shape in stone!
Priff, make my wanted curves flow like waves!

Comment: this, too, is a spell meant for women–usually. It was rare that men ever used it. The desired body shape was expected to come within a few days, at most.

Even though these four spells were thought to be relatively harmless as far as the elders were concerned, reliance on them to make one–usually, a woman–more attractive was still frowned on by the elders, who wished their people wouldn’t base their worth on their physical attractiveness alone.

Two Buildings

I rack my brain
thinking…How
are we going to
get out of this?

I ran so far away
from what I once
believed, but now
I know no escape.

Two Tehran
buildings have been blown up,
smoke floating up in all directions.
A leader has been charred to cinders.
Two other buildings were toppled
twenty-five years ago.
So many more reduced to rubble since.

How many
more societies must die?
How many more bombing birds
must fly south for their winters of
discontent? How about
burning down a white building, for a change?

Analysis of ‘Third’

I: Introduction

Third is (as its title already tells us) the third album by the Canterbury Scene/psychedelic/progressive rock/jazz-fusion band, Soft Machine. The album came out in 1970. It’s the first Soft Machine album with saxophonist Elton Dean, and it–with Fourth–is of the two Soft Machine albums with him, original members Mike Ratledge (keyboards) and Robert Wyatt (drums/vocals), and it’s the second album with bassist Hugh Hopper (though he’d previously been their road manager and played bass on one of the tracks on their first album, as well as him getting songwriting credits on three of that album’s tracks).

As with Pink Floyd, Soft Machine (originally The Soft Machine, named after a novel by William S. Burroughs, and which even had briefly included guitarist/vocalist Daevid Allen) was a psychedelic band before venturing into progressive rock and jazz (Floyd having ventured off into what many call progressive rock, but due to the lack of virtuosic musicianship or complexity in their otherwise long songs, I’d just say Pink Floyd’s music is just uniquely their music…defying categorization). Third, though not completing the transition into jazz just yet, is clearly many huge leaps in that direction.

Vestiges of the old trippy, psychedelic sound can be heard at the experimental beginning and ending of “Facelift,” more or less throughout Wyatt’s “Moon in June,” and at the beginning and ending of Ratledge’s “Out-Bloody-Rageous,” with its trippy, repetitive, multi-tracked electric piano parts slowly fading in and out.

The fact that Third is a transitional album between Soft Machine’s original psychedelic rock sound and the jazz-fusion sound they’d eventually settle on is significant, particularly with respect to Wyatt’s place in the band. Significantly, “Moon in June” is not only the sole song on Third to have vocals and lyrics, but it’s also the very last Soft Machine track to have them.

From this point on to Wyatt’s leaving the band after Fourth, he would feel disenchanted about the direction Soft Machine was going in. He wanted to continue as a singer as well as a drummer, while the other three wanted to make purely instrumental jazz. Accordingly, his musical ideas were increasingly rejected by the other three. (Now, while I thoroughly respect Wyatt as a great drummer whose playing was tragically cut short after an accident at a party had left then-drunk Wyatt paralyzed from the waist down, I can understand the wish to play all instrumental music, as–I’m sorry to say this–he wasn’t always a great singer…he tends to sound flat from time to time.) After Fourth, Wyatt cofounded Matching Mole, a band whose name was inspired by, and is a pun on, the French translation of Soft Machine–‘Machine Molle.’ This new band could be seen as Wyatt’s vision of how Soft Machine should have been. They made music for about three years before Wyatt’s accident.

“Moon in June” can thus be seen as the centrepiece of Third, reflecting Wyatt’s “dilemma” of going on making instrumental jazz with Soft Machine, or singing in a different, progressive/psychedelic band.

II: Facelift

This track, being Side A of the double LP, was mostly recorded live at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, on the 4th of January, 1970. The band performing was a short-lived quintet version of Soft Machine, with Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean, and saxist/flautist Lyn Dobson. A brief section was recorded in the Mothers Club, Birmingham, on the 11th of January, 1970. Some recordings are from the 1969 Spaced project. Parts of “Facelift” involve tape collage and speeding up, slowing down, looping, and playing tapes backwards.

The music begins with Ratledge playing a Lowrey organ put through a fuzz box and Wah-wah (It’s clearly of the Spaced musical ideas mentioned above). Later, the saxes, bass, and drums join in. The music is in E minor.

As the drums are banging away in the background, the saxes are playing a convoluted tune that seems almost to go on forever. Next, there’s a tune in seven whose progression in the bass is E, E…F♯-F♯, G-G, F♯-F♯, and back to E to repeat the cycle. On top of this, the saxes play a shrill, grating melody. Over the grating sax, Ratledge does an organ solo.

After this, things slow down, with Ratledge playing low notes on a Hohner Pianet. Some brief sax playing segues into a slow, quieter section with Dobson doing a flute solo. Some of the notes he plays are of the breathy tone we’d expect from Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

As the flute solo continues, the rest of the band comes in, with sax honking and Ratledge’s Hohner Pianet. Eventually, a sax takes over the soloing, Dobson’s soprano sax. This fades a bit in volume.

Finally, there’s a return to the up-and-down chords in E, F♯, G, F♯, E riff, but on the Hohner Pianet. Then there’s a return to that convoluted sax tune, doubled on the Lowrey organ. Then, two treatments of this long riff are heard backwards simultaneously. The music fades out.

III: Slightly All the Time

Here is the first Soft Machine track that is 100% jazz. What was slightly jazzy on Soft Machine’s second album, Volume Two, is now jazzy all the time. The band has given themselves a facelift, of sorts, from psychedelic band to jazz band.

This second track, Side B of the double LP, is a medley of different instrumentals that include Ratledge’s “Backwards” and Hopper’s “Noisette.”

The music begins in D, with a bass line playing roots, fifths, and octaves, up and down: D, A, D. Next, we hear bass harmonics with roots and fifths again, as well as fourths, G. Wyatt starts playing on his hi-hat.

Then, the Hohner Pianet comes in with Dean’s alto sax and the rest of Wyatt’s drum kit. The music switches from chords grounded in D Dorian down to B♭major 7th, then back up to D Dorian. Next, a move up to the subdominant in G Dorian, then to the dominant, in A Dorian. Then, the progression goes up to C Dorian, and back up to the tonic D Dorian.

The band plays a brief passage in 11/8 time (subdivided 3+4+4), then goes back to the original progression, but with Dean soloing instead of playing the composed melody of before. With every return to the D Dorian tonic, there’s an overdubbed, harmonized, ascending sax refrain in triplets, then Dean continues soloing. This cycle goes on several times, then there’s a return to the composed sax melody.

Next is a return to the fast 11/8 passage. Then Ratledge’s Hohner Pianet takes it up to E Dorian, still in 11/8, but it’s subdivided 4+3+4 this time. We hear flute soloing by Jimmy Hastings. The 11/8 part on the Hohner Pianet is usually subdivided as just described, but sometimes it’s subdivided 3+3+3+2, at a ratio of four times to one, then two to one. The flute soloing continues (actually, it’s two overdubbed flute solos).

Next comes a passage in 9/4. We hear improvisations over a chord progression on the Hohner Pianet, going up and down, of A minor ninth and G minor ninth chords. First, Dean solos, then Ratledge does on the organ. You can hear Hastings playing a bass clarinet in the background, ascending notes of G, B♭, and C.

Next, we hear a soft rendition of Hugh Hopper’s “Noisette,” the melody heard on Dean’s sax. Then we hear Ratledge’s “Backwards” chord progression, a beautiful example of jazzy parallel harmony using mostly minor 7th or minor 9th chords. Dean solos over this progression.

After this soft passage, the progression will be done in quick, lively nine-beat cycles of 4+5 or 3+3+3, so an additive metre of 4+5/8 time, and sometimes, 9/8. Dean continues soloing, backed by Ratledge on the Hohner Pianet, then later on the Hammond organ, Hopper’s fingers wandering all over the neck of his bass, and Wyatt’s drums getting more and more aggressive, culminating in a fast roll of triplets on the snare to bring this section to a climactic end.

The track ends with a louder, more intense and powerful return to “Noisette,” and a loud honk from Dean’s sax on a high A.

IV: Moon in June

Side C of the double album, this track begins in E Mixolydian. Here is a link to the complete lyric.

The song is in three parts: Wyatt plays all the instruments for the first part (I suppose this means he even played that high-pitched bass solo early on, rather than Hopper, whose fuzz bass will be clearly demonstrated about ten minutes into the track). The second part, with Ratledge and Hopper, is an instrumental passage of the jazz-oriented style we largely hear on the rest of the album. The third part is a drone featuring Wyatt doing scat singing and violinist Rab Spall, whose playing was recorded separately, with the tape sped up and slowed down to make it fit with the rest of the music.

It’s telling that “Moon in June” is not only the last Soft Machine song with lyrics and vocals, and the last Soft Machine song written by Wyatt, but also largely a solo song of his rather than one played by the whole band from beginning to end (Dean, one of the main forces moving the band in a jazz direction, significantly doesn’t appear on this track at all). I hear in this song a kind of allegorical expression of Wyatt’s increasing alienation from Ratledge, Hopper, and Dean.

Essentially, “Moon in June” (named after a 1929 play, called June Moon, which was made into a movie in 1931, about an aspiring young lyricist who goes to New York City and falls in love with a girl there; evidently from reading Wyatt’s lyric, one can see that he identifies with the lyricist in the play/movie) is about Wyatt being in New York and in an affair with a girl there, yet he also feels homesick for England.

Wyatt’s “dilemma”–about whether to stay with this girl “in New York State” or to be “home again” back in England–I believe can be seen as allegorical of his tough decision about whether to stay in Soft Machine, with its continuing move in the direction of jazz (a music form that originated in the US), or to return to his psychedelic musical roots by leaving the band and starting a new one (i.e., Matching Mole, from England) that will play music allowing him to sing as well as play the drums. (On his debut solo album, End of an Ear (1970), Wyatt described himself as an “Out of work pop singer currently on drums with Soft Machine.”)

The “dilemma between what [he] need[s] and what [he] just want[s]” is between the need to play the kind of music he was meant to play and enjoying the pleasures of being in a band where he can play gigs, make money, party, and chase women. This last pleasure, of course, is described rather explicitly in the next part of the opening verse.

In the second verse, particularly towards the end of it, Wyatt seems confused as to which choice in his dilemma is a need and which is a want (“‘Tis all the thing I want is need”). He also seems confused about his own identity: is he himself, or is he the girl? (“‘Til all the thing I are [sic] I’m you.”) “I are,” as in you are. The girl, in this context, represents Soft Machine, for from the perspective of male lust, a woman’s body is a ‘soft machine’ of sorts. He’s in the band, just as he’s in her sexually (“Between [her] thighs”).

After this second verse, we get the bass solo, which given the skill in playing it, I still have difficulty believing Wyatt played it instead of Hopper; the drums were Wyatt’s main instrument–as a secondary instrument for him, the bass would have been something he presumably little more than dabbled at playing. In any case, this confusion between Wyatt and Hopper reinforces our sense of the former’s enmeshment in the band (“I’m you.”).

In the third verse, Wyatt discusses more of his lovemaking with the girl, and his talk of “needs” and “wanting” sounds like more of the interchangeability of the two, reinforcing the sense of his dilemma: to stay in Soft Machine, or to quit? She, Soft Machine personified, is “on the [phallic] horns of [his] dilemma.”

“Oh, wait a minute” sounds like his Hamlet-like indecisiveness and delaying of an answer to his question: to be or not to be in Soft Machine? It’s “lovely here in New York State” (i.e., touring the US with the band), but he wishes he “were home again” (i.e., with a new British band, playing the kind of music he should be playing–with vocals).

It’s fitting that this album is named Third, not just because it’s the third Soft Machine album, but also because it can be understood to represent the third element of the dialectic—sublation, or a reconciling of opposing ideas. This is not to say that the first two albums respectively must be considered the thesis and negation (i.e., a purely psychedelic album and a purely jazz album; though the first album is purely psychedelic rock, it’s Fourth that’s purely a jazz album, not Volume Two, which is still largely psychedelic with some jazz leanings). So the true psychedelic/jazz dialectic, if you will, of Soft Machine is thesis (the first album–psychedelic), negation (Fourth–jazz), and sublation (Third–jazz and psychedelic rock, as heard especially in “Moon in June”).

This sublated dialectic can also be seen in the title of Wyatt’s song here. Apart from its obvious reference to the play and film mentioned above, “Moon in June” can also represent sublated opposites: the moon during one of the sunniest months of the northern hemisphere (or at least in late June). There’s the darkness of a moonlit night as against a time when the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun. The moon and stars give light in the darkness of the night, at a time when the days are the longest, during the summer solstice, on June 20, 21, or 22. It’s an intensely yin and yang moment.

Wyatt sings, “The sun shines here all summer; it’s nice ’cause you can get quite brown.” Here again we have the dialectic of light and dark with “shines” and “quite brown.” Also, since the song can be seen as an allegory of Wyatt’s conflict over staying in an increasingly jazz-oriented band vs returning to a psychedelic-oriented sound, “quite brown” could be understood as an indirect reference to being more and more of a musician playing a style that is to a great extent associated with African-Americans. Now, getting “quite brown” is “nice,” so Wyatt has nothing against jazz or black people, just so we’re clear. He just doesn’t want that kind of music to be the only thing he ever gets to play.

Yet another dialectical opposition is understood in the shining fire of the sun vs the water of the rain. The “ticky-tacky-ticky” is an onomatopoeia that emphasizes the drops of the rain–rather like the ‘dropping’ of LSD that psychedelic rock tries to provide a soundtrack for…and that’s the kind of music that Wyatt misses playing back in England.

In the fifth verse, Wyatt fittingly discusses the making of music, such as its “normal functions” as “background noise” for people doing anything other than actually listening to it: “scheming, seducing, revolting, teaching.” This trivializing of music as “only leisure time” rather than as serious art is “alright by [him],” which suggests that he wanted to depreciate the serious art of jazz that Soft Machine was moving in the direction of.

His conflict, over whether to stay in the band or quit, continues when he sings in the sixth verse of how he loves the eyes of his girl (Soft Machine personified, recall); yet “she’s learning to hate,” which sounds like the beginning of tensions between him on the one side, and Ratledge, Hopper, and Dean on the other. That “it’s just too late for [Wyatt]” implies that he knew already that his days with Soft Machine were numbered, for “her love…just wasn’t enough for [him].”

In the seventh verse, he addresses her and “you,” as if he is in a love triangle with two jealous women–“she” being Soft Machine, and “you” being the kind of musical project he wants to do, a return to his psychedelic rock roots…or is it the other way around? Is “she” the psychedelic project, and are “you” Soft Machine? In such ambiguity of which woman personifies which kind of music, we can see the full extent of his conflict, his “dilemma.” Which does he prefer, really?

After the end of the seventh verse, there is an instrumental passage, and it is here, about nine and a half minutes into the track, that Ratledge and Hopper finally come in and start playing, with the latter’s distinctive fuzz bass. They play a theme in three bars of 6/8 and one of 4/8, in E: E♭, F♯, D, D♭, B, D, E, D, D♭(2x), D (2x). Then Ratledge does an organ solo in E Dorian with parallel chords above and below that tonality: first F Dorian, then E♭Dorian and C Dorian. Wyatt is vocalizing in the background.

Next, we come to the final “drone” section, also in E. We can hear Ratledge’s Hohner Pianet harmonizing in the whole tone scale, Hopper’s fuzz bass humming in the background, and of course Spall’s sped-up, slowed-down violin. Wyatt’s high-pitched voice is barely audible in the background, the words he sings being references to a pair of Kevin Ayers songs. Such references to a former member of the band, back during its purely psychedelic period, once again demonstrates Wyatt’s wish to return to that kind of music.

V: Out-Bloody-Rageous

Side D of the double album, this instrumental fades in slowly with Ratledge’s overdubbed Hohner Pianet playing repetitive lines in C Dorian. The style is inspired by the music of minimalist composer Terry Riley.

After about five minutes of this, Ratledge’s acoustic piano can be heard playing what will be the bass line of the main theme. Dean will soon come in with overdubbed sax, his lines a fifth apart from each other. The time signatures alternate between a bar in 9/8 and one in 3/4.

Between the playing of this theme in C Dorian will be two brief interruptions of irregular rhythms in A Dorian. At one point, the restatement of the main, C Dorian theme will be heard briefly on acoustic piano, but with the alternating time signatures reversed to 3/4, then 9/8, then it will return to the original sax theme with the original ordering of the time signatures. A third interruption in A Dorian will be heard, with Dean’s saxes honking in three bars of 6/8.

Then Ratledge will do an organ solo in C Dorian, which alternates in parallel harmony in C♯ Dorian. He backs the solo up with acoustic piano chords, along with Hopper and Wyatt, too, all of them playing in the alternating bars of 9/8 and 3/4. Ratledge’s solo will go on for about three and a half minutes, then Dean’s saxes will arrive in the background.

There’s a brief return to the Riley-like Hohner Pianet overdubs, then a moment of Ratledge playing a sedate, yet melancholy tune on the acoustic piano. Dean soon joins in, with Nick Evans‘s trombone, too. Next comes a passage in five, still in C Dorian. Dean solos over this, then he plays harmonized themes in intervals of fourths and fifths, with the energy picking up and reaching a climax.

Finally, before the fade-out outro, there’s a climactic riff in one bar each of 4/8, 5/8, and 6/8: D, C, E♭, D, C, E♭, D, C, B♭, and variations thereof. The Riley-like outro has Hohner Pianet patterns in 6/8, 7/8, 3/4, etc., all in C Dorian. The music slowly fades out as it faded in at the beginning of the track. All so psychedelic and trippy.

VI: Conclusion–After Third

Wyatt would leave Soft Machine soon after the release of Fourth. He was replaced by drummer Phil Howard, then John Marshall. On the album Fifth, Howard is heard on Side One, and Marshall is on Side Two.

Dean quit after that album, and Six would be the last album with Hopper. Karl Jenkins (saxes, oboe, keyboards) would replace Dean, and bassist Roy Babbington would replace Hopper on Seven. Guitarist Allan Holdsworth would join the band for Bundles, then he’d be replaced by John Etheridge for the album Softs, during the sessions of which even Ratledge quit, leaving the band with no original members! (And I thought Robert Fripp had problems with constant personnel changes in King Crimson.)

From then on, Soft Machine would release a live album in 1978, then Land of Cockayne in 1981, and there were breakups and reunions of the band in one form or another over the decades, never with any original members, all of whom (as of this article) have died, except for Wyatt.

The Tanah: Amores–Four More Love Spells

[The following is the thirty-eighth of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, and here is the thirty-seventh–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Comment: apparently, men in the ancient world were as insecure about their size as they are today.

Phallus Enlargement Spell

[Burn a small flame on the ground outside on a windy day. Hold a long, thick rock over the flame, close enough that the flame is almost touching the rock. Recite the following line over and over.]

Drofurb, grow it!

Comment: try not to chuckle as much as we translators did.

Improve Lovemaking Skills Spell

[Put a pot filled with water over a small flame on the ground. Do this outside, on a windy day. As the water begins to boil, start dropping small, spherical rocks into it. Stir the rocks inside slowly with a wooden spoon as you repeatedly chant the following verse.]

Weleb, blow a lover’s skill into me!
Nevil, make my lover burn with desire for me!
Drofurb, ground, solidify our love!
Priff, have effortless pleasure flow through us!

Power Through Vulnerability Spell

[Take a ritual bath in water that has been heated in pots over a large fire. Have round stones placed on the bottom of the bath. Get naked, go in the water, and lie on your back after briefly soaking your head in it. Stay in the water as you chant the following verse slowly, nine times.]

Weleb, in my weakness, give me strength.
Nevil, in my coldness, give me heat.
Drofurb, in my nakedness, clothe me.
Priff, in my thirst, give me drink.

Comment: this spell is one of the most blatant to use the principle of the unity of contraries as a basis of the power of magic. In weakness and vulnerability, one finds strength and power, because these opposites are one, as are all opposites understood to be, for the one always flows toward the other, like Priff’s water.

Because of women’s lack of political power in the ancient world, it was women who usually used this spell to gain some kind of power, however indirectly. Being naked while doing the spell was thus indispensable for this purpose.

Resolving Arguments/Making-up Spell

[If the other party does not wish to take part in this spell, you must make an effigy of him or her, life-sized and as close in likeness to the other as possible, to make this an effective spell. Either you and the other party, or you and the effigy, must embrace tightly while reciting the verses over and over. Recite them twice as many times if with the effigy.]

Weleb, blow the two of us back together!
Nevil, change our fire of hate to love!
Drofurb, make our love as strong as stone!
Priff, make our love flow into each other’s!

Comment: this is one of those rare ‘Amores’ spells that the elders actually approved of.

The Tanah: Amores–Three More Love Spells

[The following is the thirty-seventh of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, and here is the thirty-sixth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Hypnotism Spell

[Lure your lover into a dark place lit only with a small flame on the top of a stick or candle held in your hand. Look your lover in the eyes, recite the verse, and immediately on finishing the recitation, blow the flame out in the direction of his or her face. Your lover should lose consciousness and fall to the ground if you have recited the verse with proper diction and sufficient faith in the Crims.]

[Lover’s name], sleep for me.
[Lover’s name], yield to me.
Weleb, blow Nevil’s fire.
Weleb, give me my desire.

Comment: one of the especially wicked spells that were abominated by the tribal elders, this one was believed to be most effective if particular materials were used for the stick or candlestick: a wood favourable to Drofurb, Crim of the earth, such as silver birch, or tallow whose smoky, foul smell has been somehow minimized. As with so many of these spells, details on what specific materials are to be used are scant. Perhaps a separate, as yet unfound set of writings has these recorded?

Pheromone Perfume Spell

[Mix wood and citrus scents into the soap used for the ritual bath for this spell, a bath to be prepared with the same instructions as those for the anti-aging and sexual attraction spells previously given, but with this new verse.]

Weleb, spread my allure throughout the air!
Of Nevil’s fiery scent be all aware!
May Drofurb’s herbs be all-enticing smells!
May this bath make the best of lovers’ spells!

Comment: though there was of course no such thing as a “pheromone perfume” (i.e., using synthetic chemical compounds, as used today) in the ancient world, we felt that “Pheromone Perfume Spell” was a better translation of Akhnar Wayat Bilm than “Animal Sex Smell,” which though a literal translation, sounded off-puttingly crude to us. While this spell is largely a variation on the “Sexual Attraction Spell” given previously, two differences should be noted: firstly, this one emphasizes the scent, whereas the previous one only briefly refers to fragrance; secondly, where the previous spell is meant only to attract this or that particular lover, this new one doesn’t discriminate–any and all lovers are welcome…to the point of orgies, even.

Commitment Spell

[Make two small wooden figurines as effigies of oneself and the desired lover; their closer resemblance to the actual pair of lovers in real life, the more effective the spell. Use birch bark tar to make the two adhere to each other while repeatedly chanting the following verse.]

Drofurb, make our love as solid as stone!
Nevil, make my love burn in his bones!
Weleb, never blow his love away!
Priff, always have his love flow back my way!

Comment: this spell was generally a woman’s prayer to the four Crims to make her man commit to her, hence, our translated name of it, “Commitment Spell,” as opposed to the “Stick Him to Her Spell,” which is a more literal translation of Guro Shuk Er Im Bah, but also a cruder-sounding one, in our opinion.