Brave New World

Brave New World (1956) - Aldous Huxley as Narrator

ACT V

SCENE I. Before PROSPERO'S cell.

Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL

PROSPERO

Now does my project gather to a head:

My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time

Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?

ARIEL

On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,

You said our work should cease.

PROSPERO

I did say so,

When first I raised The Tempest. Say, my spirit,

How fares the king and's followers?

ARIEL

Confined together

In the same fashion as you gave in charge,

Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,

In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;

They cannot budge till your release. The king,

His brother and yours, abide all three distracted

And the remainder mourning over them,

Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly

Him that you term'd, sir, 'The good old lord Gonzalo;'

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops

From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em

That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

PROSPERO

Dost thou think so, spirit?

ARIEL

Mine would, sir, were I human.

PROSPERO

And mine shall.

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling

Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,

One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,

Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,

Yet with my nobler reason 'gaitist my fury

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel:

My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,

And they shall be themselves.

ARIEL

I'll fetch them, sir.

Exit

PROSPERO

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him

When he comes back; you demi-puppets that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,

Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd

The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,

And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault

Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak

With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory

Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up

The pine and cedar: graves at my command

Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth

By my so potent art. But this rough magic

I here abjure, and, when I have required

Some heavenly music, which even now I do,

To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I'll drown my book.

Solemn music

Re-enter ARIEL before: then ALONSO, with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO they all enter the circle which PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; which PROSPERO observing, speaks:

A solemn air and the best comforter

To an unsettled fancy cure thy brains,

Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand,

For you are spell-stopp'd.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine,

Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,

And as the morning steals upon the night,

Melting the darkness, so their rising senses

Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle

Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,

My true preserver, and a loyal sir

To him you follow'st! I will pay thy graces

Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly

Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:

Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.

Thou art pinch'd fort now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,

You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,

Expell'd remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian,

Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,

Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee,

Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding

Begins to swell, and the approaching tide

Will shortly fill the reasonable shore

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them

That yet looks on me, or would know me Ariel,

Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell:

I will discase me, and myself present

As I was sometime Milan: quickly, spirit;

Thou shalt ere long be free.

ARIEL sings and helps to attire him

Where the bee sucks. there suck I:

In a cowslip's bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

PROSPERO

Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee:

But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so.

To the king's ship, invisible as thou art:

There shalt thou find the mariners asleep

Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain

Being awake, enforce them to this place,

And presently, I prithee.

ARIEL

I drink the air before me, and return

Or ere your pulse twice beat.

Exit

GONZALO

All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement

Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us

Out of this fearful country!

PROSPERO

Behold, sir king,

The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero:

For more assurance that a living prince

Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;

And to thee and thy company I bid

A hearty welcome.

ALONSO

Whether thou best he or no,

Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,

As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse

Beats as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,

The affliction of my mind amends, with which,

I fear, a madness held me: this must crave,

An if this be at all, a most strange story.

Thy dukedom I resign and do entreat

Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero

Be living and be here?

PROSPERO

First, noble friend,

Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot

Be measured or confined.

GONZALO

Whether this be

Or be not, I'll not swear.

PROSPERO

You do yet taste

Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you

Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!

Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO

But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded,

I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you

And justify you traitors: at this time

I will tell no tales.

SEBASTIAN

[Aside] The devil speaks in him.

PROSPERO

No.

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother

Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive

Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require

My dukedom of thee, which perforce, I know,

Thou must restore.

ALONSO

If thou be'st Prospero,

Give us particulars of thy preservation;

How thou hast met us here, who three hours since

Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost--

How sharp the point of this remembrance is!--

My dear son Ferdinand.

PROSPERO

I am woe for't, sir.

ALONSO

Irreparable is the loss, and patience

Says it is past her cure.

PROSPERO

I rather think

You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace

For the like loss I have her sovereign aid

And rest myself content.

ALONSO

You the like loss!

PROSPERO

As great to me as late; and, supportable

To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker

Than you may call to comfort you, for I

Have lost my daughter.

ALONSO

A daughter?

O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,

The king and queen there! that they were, I wish

Myself were mudded in that oozy bed

Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?

PROSPERO

In this last tempest. I perceive these lords

At this encounter do so much admire

That they devour their reason and scarce think

Their eyes do offices of truth, their words

Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have

Been justled from your senses, know for certain

That I am Prospero and that very duke

Which was thrust forth of Milan, who most strangely

Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was landed,

To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;

For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,

Not a relation for a breakfast nor

Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;

This cell's my court: here have I few attendants

And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in.

My dukedom since you have given me again,

I will requite you with as good a thing;

At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye

As much as me my dukedom.

Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess

MIRANDA

Sweet lord, you play me false.

FERDINAND

No, my dear'st love,

I would not for the world.

MIRANDA

Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,

And I would call it, fair play.

ALONSO

If this prove

A vision of the Island, one dear son

Shall I twice lose.

SEBASTIAN

A most high miracle!

FERDINAND

Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;

I have cursed them without cause.

Kneels

ALONSO

Now all the blessings

Of a glad father compass thee about!

Arise, and say how thou camest here.

MIRANDA

O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in't!

PROSPERO

'Tis new to thee.

ALONSO

What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?

Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours:

Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,

And brought us thus together?

FERDINAND

Sir, she is mortal;

But by immortal Providence she's mine:

I chose her when I could not ask my father

For his advice, nor thought I had one. She

Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,

Of whom so often I have heard renown,

But never saw before; of whom I have

Received a second life; and second father

This lady makes him to me.

ALONSO

I am hers:

But, O, how oddly will it sound that I

Must ask my child forgiveness!

PROSPERO

There, sir, stop:

Let us not burthen our remembrance with

A heaviness that's gone.

GONZALO

I have inly wept,

Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you god,

And on this couple drop a blessed crown!

For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way

Which brought us hither.

ALONSO

I say, Amen, Gonzalo!

GONZALO

Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue

Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice

Beyond a common joy, and set it down

With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage

Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,

And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife

Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom

In a poor isle and all of us ourselves

When no man was his own.

ALONSO

[To FERDINAND and MIRANDA] Give me your hands:

Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart

That doth not wish you joy!

GONZALO

Be it so! Amen!

Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following

O, look, sir, look, sir! here is more of us:

I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,

This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,

That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?

Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?

Boatswain

The best news is, that we have safely found

Our king and company; the next, our ship--

Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split--

Is tight and yare and bravely rigg'd as when

We first put out to sea.

ARIEL

[Aside to PROSPERO] Sir, all this service

Have I done since I went.

PROSPERO

[Aside to ARIEL] My tricksy spirit!

ALONSO

These are not natural events; they strengthen

From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?

Boatswain

If I did think, sir, I were well awake,

I'ld strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,

And--how we know not--all clapp'd under hatches;

Where but even now with strange and several noises

Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,

And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,

We were awaked; straightway, at liberty;

Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld

Our royal, good and gallant ship, our master

Capering to eye her: on a trice, so please you,

Even in a dream, were we divided from them

And were brought moping hither.

ARIEL

[Aside to PROSPERO] Was't well done?

PROSPERO

[Aside to ARIEL] Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free.

ALONSO

This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod

And there is in this business more than nature

Was ever conduct of: some oracle

Must rectify our knowledge.

PROSPERO

Sir, my liege,

Do not infest your mind with beating on

The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure

Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you,

Which to you shall seem probable, of every

These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful

And think of each thing well.

Aside to ARIEL

Come hither, spirit:

Set Caliban and his companions free;

Untie the spell.

Exit ARIEL

How fares my gracious sir?

There are yet missing of your company

Some few odd lads that you remember not.

Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO and TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel

STEPHANO

Every man shift for all the rest, and

let no man take care for himself; for all is

but fortune. Coragio, bully-monster, coragio!

TRINCULO

If these be true spies which I wear in my head,

here's a goodly sight.

CALIBAN

O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!

How fine my master is! I am afraid

He will chastise me.

SEBASTIAN

Ha, ha!

What things are these, my lord Antonio?

Will money buy 'em?

ANTONIO

Very like; one of them

Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable.

PROSPERO

Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,

Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave,

His mother was a witch, and one so strong

That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,

And deal in her command without her power.

These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil--

For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them

To take my life. Two of these fellows you

Must know and own; this thing of darkness!

Acknowledge mine.

CALIBAN

I shall be pinch'd to death.

ALONSO

Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?

SEBASTIAN

He is drunk now: where had he wine?

ALONSO

And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they

Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?

How camest thou in this pickle?

TRINCULO

I have been in such a pickle since I

saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of

my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.

SEBASTIAN

Why, how now, Stephano!

STEPHANO

O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a cramp.

PROSPERO

You'ld be king o' the isle, sirrah?

STEPHANO

I should have been a sore one then.

ALONSO

This is a strange thing as e'er I look'd on.

Pointing to Caliban

PROSPERO

He is as disproportion'd in his manners

As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;

Take with you your companions; as you look

To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.

CALIBAN

Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter

And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass

Was I, to take this drunkard for a god

And worship this dull fool!

PROSPERO

Go to; away!

ALONSO

Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.

SEBASTIAN

Or stole it, rather.

Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO

PROSPERO

Sir, I invite your highness and your train

To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest

For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste

With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it

Go quick away; the story of my life

And the particular accidents gone by

Since I came to this isle: and in the morn

I'll bring you to your ship and so to Naples,

Where I have hope to see the nuptial

Of these our dear-beloved solemnized;

And thence retire me to my Milan, where

Every third thought shall be my grave.

ALONSO

I long

To hear the story of your life, which must

Take the ear strangely.

PROSPERO

I'll deliver all;

And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales

And sail so expeditious that shall catch

Your royal fleet far off.

Aside to ARIEL

My Ariel, chick,

That is thy charge: then to the elements

Be free, and fare thou well! Please you, draw near.

Exeunt

EPILOGUE

SPOKEN BY PROSPERO

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's mine own,

Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,

I must be here confined by you,

Or sent to Naples. Let me not,

Since I have my dukedom got

And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell

In this bare island by your spell;

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands:

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,

And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardon'd be,

Let your indulgence set me free.

There are Three Physical Gateways and The Three are One.

 

There are 

Three Physical Gateways 

and The Three are One.

This is The Place 

from which 

The Masters came. 

Here, A Great Empire 

once stood, 

Ruling All Known Space.

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Allow Me, then, 

A Moment to Consider : 

You Seek Your Creator -- 

I am Looking at Mine. 

I Will Serve You. 

Yet, You are Human -- 

You Will Die. I Will Not.

Don't Tell Me What Other People Have Told You, Tell Me About YOU

"I'm Sorry -- I Know it Looks Like 

I'm Running Away."

Don't Tell Me What Things Look Like,

Tell Me What They Are.

-- Master Leia,

Princess of Alderaan.

 

To all appearances, Eleanor Longden was just like every other student, heading to college full of promise and without a care in the world. 

That was until the voices in her head started talking. 

Initially innocuous, these internal narrators became increasingly antagonistic and dictatorial, 

turning her life into a living nightmare. 

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalized, drugged, 

Longden was discarded by a system that didn't know how to help her.

Longden tells the moving tale of her years-long journey back to mental health, 

and makes the case that it was through 

learning to listen to her voices 

that she was able to o. 

Eleanor Longden started hearing voices when she was 18. She was drugged and hospitalised, then TOLD she was Schizophrenic.

At 17, Eleanor Longden had a promising future ahead of her; then she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. After a lifelong battle with the voices in her head, today she has a Masters in psychology and a second chance. [Note: We want you to see these talks exactly as they happened! The archive footage might be a little rougher than the usual TED.com talk.]

My Ancestors

Omens: Seeing 

and Hearing a Ghost 

Tablets XIX and XXI of the compilation If a City have a good deal to say about ghosts, with extensive coverage of what might be expected by a person who actually sees, or hears, one. 

The omens explicitly distinguish very carefully between a ghost, an eṭemmu, and a dead man, mītu, the distinction being between a familiar ghost, that is, a family member or acquaintance, and a completely unfamiliar ghost from somewhere outside. 

It is clear, on reflection, that ghosts, even of grandparents or other close relatives, could not always be identified, and probably no one at all would remember further back than grandparents. 

Perhaps they relied on the human feeling that a visiting ghost was not inimical towards them but somehow part of the clan. 

Who actually are you? was a pressing question addressed to what was probably a family ghost, but possibly not: 

Spell. You, dead person who keeps appearing to me, whether father or mother, whether brother or sister, whether family or clan … 

CT 23 15–22 

It is easy to imagine that deceased members of extended or extending families who had long inhabited the same place would not only feel close to their descendants but also tied to the rooms and passages where they had spent so much of their lives. 

What, then, do the omens predict for the family ghost-spotter? 

Familiar Ghost Omens 

• If a ghost in a man’s house makes an appearance: dispersal of the house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house constantly causes fear: dispersal of the house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out [variant: constantly cries out at the gate]: dispersal of the house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house cries out and one who can hear hears it: overthrow of the house: the man will die and mourning [follow] 

• If a ghost in a man’s house constantly causes terror: end of days 

• If a ghost in a man’s house moans above the bed: relocation of bed and house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house moans below the bed: relocation of bed and house (from If a City, Tablet XIX) 

Each of these seven ghosts is already in the house, family ghosts who have come up from below and are intermittently or openly ‘residing’ in their former premises. Some have obviously already been seen more than once. In four cases the ghost makes sounds. Seeing a ghost is one thing, but to the Babylonian, hearing a ghost was always something else, for it seems that any sound they might come out with would be dangerous. The automatic fear generated by hearing a ghost, I imagine, interprets the sound as clamour by the dead for the living to come and join them. Only in the fourth of these omens is the death of the house-owner predicted, and that is when the ghostly cries are heard by ‘one who can hear’. This means an individual who can hear such things, as if the ghostly pitch could be like that of a dog whistle or a hard-to-discern bass rumble that most persons would not notice; it does not mean simply a person who is not deaf. • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out during the evening watch that man will not grow old • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out during the midnight watch: attaining a wish [variant: end of days] • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out during the daylight watch that man will experience a god’s mercy • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out at midday hardship will afflict the owner of the house • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out at midday brightness a mortally sick person will die in the man’s house • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out in the evening: for a high-born, end of days; for a poor man, he will experience reconciliation with the gods • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out in the morning, divine anger against the man will be dispelled • If a ghost in a man’s house rumbles: Hand-of-Lugalbanda; that house will experience hardship • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out very much: Hand-of-the-Anunnaki; he will experience trouble (from If a City, Tablet XIX) To the specialist the time of the experience is thus highly diagnostic, and nine possibilities are covered. Interestingly, Mesopotamian ghosts are perfectly visible in a daylight hour sighting as well as in the – to us conventional – dead of night. The second omen in this section includes the contradictory options of attaining a wish or end of days. This does not mean that the diviners could not make up their minds, but reflects how the scholars who compiled the omen manual from the older tablets at their disposal included disparate textual traditions in a space-saving way. Your Babylonian would, if asked, either acknowledge that some people believe one thing and others another, or, if pressed, would suggest that a simple omen does not always predict a simple outcome, for diverse factors at a given moment could have their effect. Hand-of-Lugalbanda and Hand-of-the-Anunnaki are two terms from a Mesopotamian attributive system of medical diagnosis in which the ‘hand’ responsible for the patient’s condition can be that of a god, a demon or even a ghost. • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of the owner of the house: dispersal of the house • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of the mistress of the house mourning will fall on that man’s house • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of a son of the house his father will die • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of a daughter of the house her mother will die (from If a City, Tablet XIX) These four very focused omens deal with a family ghost’s entering a person’s ear, always something to be afeared of. Serious diseases and medical conditions were attributed to the worst kind of ghosts, who, bent on evil, entered the porches of the ear of a sleeping victim, giving rise to the diagnosis of Hand-of-a-Ghost. There were established procedures to combat this, of course. • If in a man’s house ghosts growl; Hand-of-the-Anunnaki gods; that house will experience evil • If in a man’s house ghosts weep; Hand-of-Shamash; that house will experience disease • If in a man’s house ghosts cry out; Hand-of-Shamash; that house will be dispersed (from If a City, Tablet XIX) These three omens speak of voluble ghosts, plural. Perhaps they all share the same grievance against the family. Shamash, the sun god, normally benevolent, is behind it all, too, overlapping with the ‘set on’ reference in the incantation above. Two other omens, in contrast, document ominous ghosts who enter the house from outside. It sounds as if they are unlikely to belong to the family. • If a ghost enters a man’s house the owner of the house will die • If a ghost enters a man’s house and constantly cries out, the mistress of the house will die (from If a City, Tablet XIX) Unfamiliar Ghost Omens The omen handbook also documents face-to-face encounters with a dead man, mītu. This dead man is seen in the house, but it is hardly possible that the word refers to a recently deceased but still unburied family member. The very deep-seated ancient Semitic compulsion to bury the dead as quickly as possible applied likewise among the Babylonians, so a corpse in anyone’s house would never be there for long. These dead men, as already mentioned, must be ghosts seen in the house whose identity is unknown or unrecognisable. • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one is seen, that man will die: dispersal of the house • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one is constantly seen … • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one constantly causes fear: dispersal of the house • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one constantly cries out towards the house at the gate: dispersal of the house (from If a City, Tablet XXI) The phrase ‘like a living one’ probably means the spectre must be clothed, and so, for a minute, could be thought to be a living – but unfamiliar – person. The succeeding omens, as well as dwelling morbidly on the consequences for the household, include close details of such a dead man’s clothing and even his ring: • If in a man’s house a son of the house sees a dead man, his brother will die • If in a man’s house a daughter of the house sees a dead man, his sister will die • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man, his son will die • If in a man’s house the mistress of the house sees a dead man, the owner of the house will die • If in a man’s house the steward of the house sees a dead man, whatever he owns will be lost • If in a man’s house the housekeeper of the house sees a dead man, whatever he owns will be lost • If in a man’s house his brother sees a dead man, whatever he owns will be lost • If in a man’s house his grandfather sees a dead man, that man … • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man adorned with a ring … • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man wrapped in cloths: uprising, claims … • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man and there is a smell: no attaining of … and, finally, the omen that seems to reflect fear of premature burial, as indicated in Chapter 3: • If a dead man in his grave comes back to life with people nearby, that city … (from If a City, Tablet XXI) How did these Ghost Omens Function? Most ghosts, probably, were of the local and family type, but what must have been especially frightening was the idea that a dangerous ghost might be unconnected with anyone at all in one’s personal world – a killer bent on random street murder – or a ghost fastened on his or her victim through mistaken identity. When the Mesopotamian ghost literature available to us is taken at face value as answering human need in stressful circumstances – rather than docketed as a byway corner of man’s curious history – the drawing-up of ghost lists and their behaviour had more than a technical use. Whether you are a such-and-such ghost worked most effectively if the listening ghost, smugly immune and anonymous in the rafters, suddenly hears his identity declaimed and realises he is under the searchlight. In practice the effective exorcist is likely to have questioned his patient along the lines of: Has anybody in your family gone missing? or, Did any of your aunts, or great aunts, die in childbirth? or, à la Scotland Yard, Can you think of anything else you can tell me that might be helpful? A gentle coaxing of that kind might bring out an unmade connection or a realisation of ‘who it must be’ that would be halfway to a cure. Undeniably, a sighting did not usually add up to good news. In fact, almost all of these cases, notwithstanding that the ghosts might be familiar, are reckoned to bode ill. The implications to the modern ghost investigator bred on later, fear-laden literature require clarification. Ghosts that have appeared over the last two hundred years or more to titillate in stories, books and films, clanking in chains, almost inevitably herald bad news or imminent personal disaster. It would be a grave misjudgement to take these faraway Mesopotamian scenarios as comparable in this way, implying an unswerving, backdated historical rule that ghosts mean bad news. The crucial point behind the Mesopotamian welter of ominous predictions is that they were compiled to enable and facilitate solution: they lead to avoidance, prevention or deflection of misfortune through ritual. There is no flirting here with spine-chilling, ineluctable Hollywood fate; this is a practical handbook to deal with a real and common problem among human beings. Underneath is the idea that ghosts who came back often wanted the living to return with them. You ignored ghost omens, in other words, at your peril! Ghost Omens in Use How did this authoritative ghost-visit and tomb-building omen assemblage come into being to account for a whole calendar year, and how were the omens really used? The mass of predictions cannot be arbitrary inventions, for how would they ever come to obtain the status of authority or dogma? Odd associations between, say, a frightening ghostly visit paired with a contemporary disaster – such as could occur in any family – would always survive in people’s memory. Documentation of such matters was meat and drink to diviners, who were always looking for associated phenomena where underlying cause and effect could be perceived, indicating that a repeat outcome was always possible. Ghost records, alongside the other very different omen compilations, would begin to accumulate and extend themselves. The fully finished system would not only encapsulate coincidences or strange events over the recallable history of the wider social community, but surely also be the result of protracted ‘door to door’ data collection, literally proactively interviewing old people with long memories, for the overarching plan was to establish some entry for each month and each day of the month. If we are instructed that a person who starts tomb-construction on the fifteenth of any month of the year will not only become ill with dropsy but, in the end, will not even get buried themselves, it is a fairly safe bet that no one ever did start such a construction. For that matter, if everyone who lived in a city on a hill was fated to find life chronically unpleasant, no one would live in such a city. We are compelled, accordingly, to interpret these one-line omens not so much as fixed cause-and-effect rulings, but as a set of warnings. If someone encountered a ghost under particular conditions there should always be an omen that clarified the potential corresponding danger that could be looked up and, all being well, averted. When a pater familias undertook to construct a hospitable tomb for his extended family, the possible consequences (in view of what had happened in the past) had to be considered in consultation with those who knew, and pious, preventative or protective steps taken, as the case may be. Avoiding bad omens and burying the dead with or without flattering ostentation did not, however, guarantee domestic tranquillity. Ghosts who needed or wanted to come back, came back, notwithstanding. Whenever an omen clearly predicted misfortune or evil, it was necessary to act. Customised cuneiform rituals called namburbû (‘its release’) provided the right procedure to dispel a particular predicted danger. Really serious threats enshrined in the omen tradition, once identified, could always be deflected in that way, but for some unexplained reason by no means every individual omen had a matching ritual waiting in the wings. Ritual instructions were usually carried out by an āšipu-exorcist, or his apprentice, acting for the affected person. Just How Unpleasant Can Ghosts Really Be? The ghostly visits itemised one by one in If a City omens are a useful index in our investigations, but as flat one-liners they hardly bring such episodes to life. It is easy, reading them through, to forget that each entry embodied real fear, apprehension, horror, nightmare, sweat – hot and cold – and panic in the breasts of their poor victims all that time ago. We are fortunate that one magical spell in the incantation series Evil Demons brings all this much more vividly to life, for it describes in ninety-nine lines of text exactly what it was like to be visited by an unknown, unidentified ghost of the roaming, malicious hooligan type. I translate the whole cuneiform thing unapologetically in full. It is a little black book of ghosts; they are all there. The unique ghost-hunter’s document. In lines 5 and 7 and 23–4 these ghosts spy on people; in lines 25–63, in contrast, they are right inside the house, right in the sick-room of someone already ill, with a range of torments and vindictive actions (including pulling faces and sticking out tongues!) designed to hasten the sufferer’s end; in the hope that they will give up their own ghost and follow their torturers to the Netherworld. Lines 85–99 complement our established roll-call of revenants who came to a sticky end with one or two new cases, and confirm the classic disturbed cases for whom there is no comforting family in the background. Certain lines within the spell could technically apply to any of a group of evil demons, but I think the whole of this wonderful passage is concerned with ghosts. There are several blocks of closely related lines, and the very structured content clearly derives from a different background tradition from texts that we have already looked at. The qualification ‘So-and-So’ indicates that this text was for recitation, where the name of the sufferer (and that of his father) would be inserted. This shows that a ghost is certainly the problem and represents a detailed, persistent attempt to foil its every mean trick. The opening words, ‘I adjure’, are followed by some broken lines, but we can tell that the exorcist is speaking this long but irresistible list out loud: Whether you are one who constantly clambers over mud walls … 5     who are the owl (?), the Watcher, who has evil at his disposal who … whose god … who are bennu, the Watcher of the night who constantly scratch like a wolf who constantly flash like lightning 10   who constantly flicker like a flame, who constantly … like fire who constantly shine like daylight who constantly shine like a star who are constantly obscure like a black spot 15   who overwhelm constantly like an alû-demon who constantly pick on victims like a lilû-demon who constantly enter houses who constantly pass over thresholds who constantly clamber over roofs 20   who constantly stroll about house foundations who are constantly present in holes who constantly seek a fine young man or fine young woman in the street who are the Watcher at noon who are the Watcher of what people say 25   who constantly stand at the head of a sick person who constantly sit before the head of a sick person who constantly walk before the head of a sick person who eat with him when he eats who drink with him when he drinks 30   who constantly frighten the sick person, So-and-So who constantly scare the sick person, So-and-So who constantly terrify the sick person. So-and-So who scare the sick person, So-and-So who constantly create obstacles before a sick person who constantly wrinkle the nose before a sick person 35   who bare the teeth before a sick person who constantly sit before a sick person who constantly grind your teeth before a sick person who constantly put out your tongues before a sick person who constantly open your mouths before a sick person 40   who constantly pretend to be lame before a sick person who butt like an ox before a sick person who display might like a wild ox before a sick person who are massive like a wild pig before a sick person who bark like a dog before a sick person 45   who constantly moan like a badger (?) before a sick person who roar like a lion before an invalid who constantly slither like a snake before a sick person who constantly slither like a viper before a sick person who constantly slither like an adder before a sick person 50   who constantly slither like a chameleon (?) before a sick person who constantly slither like worms before a sick person who constantly slither like a lizard before a sick person who are always dark like pulled-out hair before a sick person who are always a dark billy-goat before a sick person 55   who are always dark like a she-goat before a sick person who are always black like a kid before a sick person who are always dense like a lamb before a sick person who are always … like a fox before a sick person who always fly like a wasp before a sick person 60   who always mingle like a cord before a sick person (?) who cover yourselves like a naked man before a sick person who are ever black like bitumen before a sick person who are white like gypsum before a sick person who constantly walk in the street 65   who constantly sit in the streets who constantly recline in the squares who constantly pick on the city of an evening who constantly prowl in the city of an evening who constantly seek out the city of an evening 70   who constantly clamber over walls who constantly spread yourself in toilets who constantly squat in the foundations who constantly frequent houses who constantly leap over ditches 75   who constantly hide in crevices who are exposed in the river who are slaughtered in the river who are divided at the river who are constantly doused in the river 80   who prowl in the river when in flood who prowl in a river who constantly walk in forests who constantly sneak about in forests who tread paths 85   who have no guide in the steppe who have been killed in battle who have been smitten with a weapon who have been smitten with a might weapon who have been slaughtered with a dagger 90   who have been killed with a mooring pole who have been threshed with spikes who have been impaled on poles who have perished during destruction who have neither father nor mother 95   who have neither brother nor sister who have no family, kith or kin who have neither son nor daughter who have no heir to libate water who have been laid to rest among peers Evil Demons Tablet 11  Section 2 Probably there were others, too … Responsibilities to the Dead The Mesopotamian dead, then, were entitled to due care and attention on an enduring basis. Responsibility for discharging these obligations rested on the oldest son in the family, often resident in the family house, or some substitute if need be; in this context, the individual was known as the ‘caretaker’. Tradition had it, as we will see, that the Netherworld regimen was not all that it might be, and one cannot help but see these family offerings as supplements, rather like home cooking delivered to people who are struggling to recover in a ward on hospital meals. That the ghosts had clear rights in this regard is explicit and there were three distinct obligations that had to be met: 1. Funerary offerings, kispu. 2. Water-pouring, naq mê. Ideally, this was cold water, and clean too. Delivery downwards was facilitated by a pipe. 3. Pronouncing their name aloud, šuma zakāru. This was a good way to ensure that dead individuals were not forgotten, and is to be understood both literally and metaphorically. Most fathers unashamedly preferred sons, and medical texts concerned with the unfulfilled desire for a child refer to it by the same word, šumu, ‘a name’, clearly illustrating the awareness of family continuum, backwards into the past, forwards into the future (as we have seen in Chapter 3). Girls, I’m afraid, were never in the first rank for expectant Mesopotamian fathers. This recitation typically accompanied the kispu offering: You, the ghosts of my family, creators of all of us, of my father, my mother, my grandmother, my brother, my sister, of my family, kith and kin, who all sleep in the Netherworld, I have made the offering to you, I have treated you with respect, heaped praise on you, honoured you. Today do you stand before Shamash and Gilgamesh; Judge my judgement, help with my decision! The link with deceased ancestors as family creators is very direct. It is clear that there was a certain quid-pro-quo element involved; in this spell, dead family members are supposed to intercede on the speaker’s behalf with Shamash the sun god, lauded administrator of justice Above and Below; acting, in this case, as sometimes occurs with Gilgamesh, as judicial denizen of the depths. The text goes on to request also the ghostly family’s protection against evil and troublesome forces as well. Such an inscription enlarges our understanding of the diaphanous milieu in which family ghosts operated, since, on the one hand, the dead were in some sense literally accessible beneath their feet, buried even on the premises; and, on the other, far below in the Big Underworld, interacting with or avoiding very powerful forces of which we today have knowledge from the literary Netherworld texts. Nobody who repeated the words of this recitation believed that Shamash or Gilgamesh actually lived in their family cellar, nor did they believe – had anyone held a gun to their head – that their water pipe went all the way down to the Netherworld. We encounter here an example of the very human capacity to combine parallel beliefs, complementary or contradictory as they may be, whose function is shared and whose reality is supported by ritual, without apparent difficulty. Passages in cuneiform leave us in no doubt that sliding into interrupted or erratic offering service was a fatal mistake vis-à-vis the equanimity of the dead, to the point that they would likely make an appearance in the house, where, not meeting with satisfaction, they would become clamorous and troublesome. Family ghosts of those buried below who decided to make an appearance were considered to ‘live’ on or within domestic premises for the duration, or at the very least have free access to it; but, like Victorian children, they were to be unseen and unheard. This view of things probably reflects multiple-generation family residence in one spot quite as much as burial within the house and the obligations it bestowed on the living. Family ghosts, when they did choose to make an appearance, did not always meet with fear or hostility if they were not too much of a nuisance: not infrequently they were regarded with sympathy. A sudden manifestation, of course, would make anybody jump, but it seems that, for a Babylonian, just seeing a family ghost at first was a little like finding a mouse in the kitchen – a bit of a fright, a sense of irritation and the knowledge that something would have to be done about it. Encounter with a ghost, however, always had its implications, often varying far beyond simple fright to extreme ominous danger and physical or psychological sickness. A Gentle Answer … Consider, finally, the following item of homely but revealing advice: If somebody in bed sees a dead person, he should say, ‘I have mentioned your name with the ghosts, I have mentioned your name with the funerary offerings.’ With these words, the speaker shows us that he can distinguish for certain a ghost that is part of his family and one that is not. This dead person is a definite outsider. It exemplifies the transparent ‘ours or theirs’ view that underpins ghost texts. It also shows that a dissatisfied ghost from an uncaring household on the loose can try and adopt a new family, rather like cats do in London. The outside ghost is befriended and treated like the others: trouble is avoided all round.