Today We Have To Be Soldiers

Listen to your Gut - 
Even though your gut has shit for brains.


Listen to your Heart - 
You will find there's nothing left to Sacrifice. 
You can't tell me it's not worth fighting for; 
You can't tell me, it's not worth dying for.



Listen to your Head - 
It notices EVERYTHING.

And never fall out of Grace with your Self.

When I Find My Self in Times of Trouble,

Mother-Mary Comes to Me


P.S.

I know You Two

And if I’m gone, I know what you could become.

... because I know who you really are.

A junkie who solves crimes to get high ...

 ... and The Doctor who never came home from the war.

Well, you listen to me: 

Who You Really Are,

It Doesn’t Matter.

It’s all about 

The Legend 

The Stories 

The Adventures.

There is a Last Refuge for 

The Desperate 

The Unloved

The Persecuted

There is a Final Court of Appeal for everyone.

When life gets 

Too Strange

Too Impossible

Too Frightening, 

There is always One Last Hope.

When all else fails ...

... there are two men sitting arguing in a scruffy flat ...
 ... like they’ve always been there ...

 ... and they always will.

The Best and Wisest Men I have ever known.

My Baker Street boys.

 Sherlock Holmes 

and 

Doctor Watson.

SHERLOCK (reassuringly): I’m here, Eurus.
(Still wearing the clothes she wore in Sherrinford, Eurus is sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up in front of her and her hands wrapped around them. Her eyes are closed.
The footage of the girl on the plane goes into fast reverse back through all the scenes we’ve seen of her until she’s back in her seat, looking uneasily out of the window. The footage rapidly reverses even further and slows down to the very first moment where, in reverse of what we first saw, we see a close-up of her eye closing.
Flashback of young Eurus running around the beach with her toy aeroplane.
In her bedroom, adult Eurus keeps her eyes closed and speaks with a child-like voice.)
EURUS: You’re playing with me, Sherlock. We’re playing the game.
SHERLOCK: The game, yes. I get it now. (He steps closer to her.) The song was never a set of directions.
EURUS (her eyes still closed and her voice child-like and frightened): I’m in the plane, and I’m going to crash.
(Sherlock crouches down in front of her.)
EURUS (child-like): And you’re going to save me.
SHERLOCK: Look how brilliant you are. Your mind has created the perfect metaphor. You’re high above us, all alone in the sky, and you understand everything except how to land. (He shifts round and sits down in front of her, breathless and anxious.) Now, I’m just an idiot, but I’m on the ground. (He reaches out and puts his fingers onto her hands.) I can bring you home.
EURUS (her eyes still closed, plaintively): No.
(Her voice reverts to its adult tone.)
EURUS: No, no. (She shivers.) It’s too late now.
SHERLOCK (shifting closer to her and lowering his hand): No it’s not. It’s not too late.
(She cries, her eyes screwed tight and her face twisted with fear.)
EURUS: Every time I close my eyes, I’m on the plane. I’m lost, lost in the sky and ... no-one can hear me.
(She pulls her knees closer to herself, crying silently. Sherlock reaches out and gently puts his hand onto hers again.)
SHERLOCK (in a whisper): Open your eyes. I’m here.
(She opens her eyes and slowly raises her head.)
SHERLOCK (in a whisper): You’re not lost any more.
(He shifts even closer and reaches out to embrace her. She shuffles forward and wraps her arms around him and they hug each other tightly while she cries.)
SHERLOCK (softly, stroking her hair): Now, you ... you just ... you just went the wrong way last time, that’s all. (His voice becomes tearful.) This time, get it right. (Still softly but more clearly) Tell me how to save my friend.
(In the well, John groans with the effort of trying to keep his head above the water.
In the bedroom Sherlock pulls back a little.)
SHERLOCK: Eurus ...
(He cradles his sister’s head with one hand and gazes pleadingly into her eyes.)
SHERLOCK: Help me save John Watson.
(She stares at him, trembling and tearful as he gently strokes her hair.
In the well, John grimaces and then groans, tilting his chin up out of the water as he strains with the effort of trying to pull the chains free. Then a light shines down onto him from the top of the well and a rope is thrown down to him. Gasping with relief, he takes hold of it.)
[Your transcriber butts in here – sorry for the interruption – to frown sternly at the many people online who bitched about what possible use the rope could be and asked snidely whether John was about to rip off his feet and climb up the rope. Even on first viewing it seemed obvious to me that (1) someone was then going to climb down the rope with a bloody great set of bolt cutters and (2) John grabbed the rope because he now had some support to pull himself up just a little – i.e. to the full extent of the chains – and keep above the water until his rescuer arrived. Anyway, moving on ...]

Later, Eurus is being led away from the house by two police officers. She still looks tearful. Police cars and vans are parked all around and a helicopter’s rotors can be heard nearby. Some distance away, Sherlock watches her. John is beside him, wrapped in a grey blanket. Greg walks over to them.
LESTRADE: I just spoke to your brother.
SHERLOCK (as he and John turn to him): How is he?
LESTRADE: He’s a bit shaken up, that’s all. She didn’t hurt him; she just locked him in her old cell.
JOHN: What goes around comes around.
LESTRADE: Yeah. Give me a moment, boys.
(He starts to walk past them but turns back when Sherlock speaks quietly.)
SHERLOCK: Oh, um. Mycroft – make sure he’s looked after. He’s not as strong as he thinks he is.
LESTRADE (nodding): Yeah, I’ll take care of it.
(He turns to walk away again, while Mystrade fans squee so loudly that nearby dogs cower and cover their ears with their paws.)
SHERLOCK: Thanks, Greg.
(John, who has been huddling into his blanket, lifts his head and Greg turns back again and looks at him in surprise before walking away.
Eurus has been loaded into a reinforced cell inside one of the police vans. She sits on a side bench as a police officer closes the door.)
LESTRADE (to a nearby male police officer): The helicopter ready?
POLICE OFFICER: Mm-hm.
LESTRADE: Let’s move her, then.
(The officer nods in the direction of Sherlock.)
POLICE OFFICER: Is that him, sir? Sherlock Holmes?
(Greg looks back to where Sherlock has turned to face John, who looks round at him.)
LESTRADE: Fan, are you?
POLICE OFFICER: Well, he’s a great man, sir.
LESTRADE: No, he’s better than that. (He looks towards Sherlock for a moment.) He’s a good one.
[Your transcriber bursts into tears.]
(The two officers look towards our boys for a little longer, then turn and walk away.)
JOHN (quietly to Sherlock): You okay?
SHERLOCK (quietly, thoughtfully): I said I’d bring her home. I can’t, can I?
JOHN: Well, you gave her what she was looking for: context.
SHERLOCK (looking round at him): Is that good?
JOHN: It’s not good, it’s not bad. It’s ...
(He looks away and screws up his face, searching for the right words, then turns back to his friend.)
JOHN: It is what it is.

MRS HOLMES (offscreen, sounding shocked): Alive?! For all these years?
(She and her husband are in Mycroft’s Diogenes office. Mycroft sits behind his desk and his father is sitting on a chair on the other side while Mrs Holmes stands at the other end of the desk staring in shock at her oldest son. Her younger son is standing at the far end of the room leaning against the closed office door with his arms folded and his head lowered.)
MRS HOLMES (to Mycroft): How is that even possible?!
MYCROFT: What Uncle Rudy began ... (he hesitates slightly, his eyes lowered) ... I thought it best to continue.
MRS HOLMES (angrily): I’m not asking how you did it, idiot boy, I’m asking how could you?
MYCROFT: I was trying to be kind.
(He raises his eyes to hers at the end of his sentence.)
MRS HOLMES: Kind?! (She gasps in a pained breath.) Kind? (She becomes tearful as she continues.) You told us that our daughter was dead.
MYCROFT: Better that than tell you what she had become.
(She stares at him wide-eyed.)
MYCROFT: I’m sorry.
(His father stands up and leans his hands on the table.)
MR HOLMES: Whatever she became, whatever she is now, Mycroft ...
(Cut-away of a helicopter flying towards Sherrinford Island.)
MR HOLMES (offscreen): ... she remains our daughter.
MYCROFT: And my sister.
MRS HOLMES: Then you should have done better.
SHERLOCK (quietly): He did his best.
MRS HOLMES: Then he’s very limited.
(Mycroft looks towards his brother, unable to meet his parents’ eyes.)
MR HOLMES: Where is she?
(Cut-away of the helicopter coming in to land on the beach of the island.)
MYCROFT: Back in Sherrinford; secure, this time. (He looks at his father.) People have died.
(Sherlock gets out of the helicopter, carrying a holdall, and walks away across the beach.)
MYCROFT (offscreen): Without doubt she will kill again if she has the opportunity. There’s no possibility she’ll ever be able to leave.
(Mr Holmes has straightened up a little but now leans down again and speaks firmly.)
MR HOLMES: When can we see her?
(Mycroft looks at him.
At Sherrinford, Sherlock comes out of the lift on the upper level of the Control Room and trots down the stairs.)
MYCROFT (offscreen): There’s no point.
MRS HOLMES (upset): How dare you say that?
MYCROFT (closing his eyes and speaking more firmly): She won’t talk. She won’t communicate with anyone in any way.
(At Sherrinford, Sherlock swipes a card through a card reader and the door in front of him opens. He walks through.)
MYCROFT: She has passed beyond our view.
(Still leaning against Mycroft’s office door, Sherlock gazes down at the floor in front of him.)
MYCROFT (looking at his mother): There are no words that can reach her now.
(She turns to look at her other son.
At Sherrinford, Sherlock walks out of another lift.)
MRS HOLMES (offscreen): Sherlock.
(In Mycroft’s office, Sherlock raises his head.
At Sherrinford, he walks along the long corridor towards the Secure Unit.
In the office, Mrs Holmes shrugs questioningly at Sherlock.)
MRS HOLMES: Well?
(At Sherrinford, Sherlock stops at the end of the corridor and the lights on the scanner above his head begin to oscillate back and forth.)
MRS HOLMES (offscreen): You were always the grown-up.
(Mycroft raises his head a little and looks towards his brother.)
MRS HOLMES (offscreen): What do we do now?
(Sherlock turns his head away slightly, looking thoughtful.
At Sherrinford, the lift door at the front of Eurus’ cell slides open and Sherlock, having presumably left his coat upstairs, walks out. He walks a few paces forward, looking at his sister inside the glass-walled cell. Her face is turned away from him and she doesn’t react to the sound of his footsteps. He bends down and puts the holdall on the floor. Behind him the lift door closes and the green lights in the room turn white. Sitting on the seat at the side of the room, she still doesn’t react. Sherlock unzips the bag and then stands up holding his violin and bow. He plucks at the strings and Eurus blinks. Once he’s sure the violin is tuned properly, he lifts his bow and plays a simple tune. He stops at the end of the first phrase and lifts his bow a little, looking towards Eurus. She doesn’t respond or move in any way.
In the burnt-out living room of 221B Baker Street, Sherlock – in shirt and trousers – walks across the floor, stepping over the ruined books and debris. The sound of him playing the same tune in Eurus’ cell can be heard offscreen as he starts it again and this time continues the tune. In 221B he picks up a random item from the floor, then walks across to where the skull which is usually on the wall between the windows is lying on the burnt rug. John turns around from where he’s standing near the fireplace and holds up what he’s just found – the earphones which usually adorn the skull’s head. Sherlock lifts the skull so that John can put the earphones back onto it and then loop the cable over the top. Sherlock turns away with it and looks for somewhere to put it.
In the cell Sherlock continues playing. After a while, Eurus stands up and turns to face him. Sherlock stops playing, and the two of them look at each other for a long while.
In 221B Sherlock, still holding the skull and headphones, lifts his overturned chair with the other hand and sets it upright. As he gazes upwards, the violin starts up again offscreen.
A helicopter heads towards Sherrinford Island again and, in the cell, Sherlock plays on. Eurus stands silently, watching him with a trace of interest on her face.
In 221B Sherlock picks up one of the dining chairs and sets it on its feet. John is over near the right-hand window.
Sherlock gets out of the helicopter again on the beach at Sherrinford with his holdall in one hand. We start to realise that he is making repeated visits to play to his sister.
In the cell, while he continues to play, Eurus picks up her own violin and bow and walks towards the glass wall. Sherlock stops in mid-phrase. She puts the violin to her chin. Sherlock watches her, and she begins to play the same piece from the beginning. The sound from her violin is richer – either she’s a better player or she has her Strad back. Or possibly it’s a bit of both because she plays the first phrase with more flair than her brother, running the notes together differently at one point. Sherlock blinks rapidly as she ends the phrase and stops, lowering her bow. He lifts his own bow and plays the phrase again, still using his own interpretation of the notes.
While the music continues offscreen, John is standing in his own living room sorting through his mail. He stops when he gets to a white padded envelope sent by Special Delivery.
Shortly afterwards he walks aimlessly around the room while he speaks into his phone.)
JOHN: Uh, yeah, I-I think you’d better get round here.
(In his other hand he is holding what he found in the envelope. Inside a clear plastic wallet is a white DVD. Handwritten on the disc are the words “MISS YOU”.
In the cell, Eurus closes her eyes and begins to play the tune again but this time Sherlock joins in with a counterpart. They stand either side of the glass, harmonising with each other.
At John’s home, the disc slides into the DVD player. Sherlock has now arrived and stands near the sofa, still wearing his coat, while John sits down. They look at each other for a moment, then Sherlock turns away to look towards the TV while John lifts the remote control and starts the playback. Mary’s face smiles at them from the screen. Sherlock blinks and John stares at the TV in surprise, his mouth falling open a little.)
MARY: P.S.
(As the music from the violin duet continues, Sherlock again walks along the corridor towards the Special Unit.)
MARY (voiceover initially, then on the screen): I know you two; and if I’m gone, I know what you could become.
(Sherlock turns to look down at John. John smiles briefly at the screen, his eyes full of tears, and Sherlock turns back to the TV as Mary continues.)
MARY (voiceover): ... because I know who you really are.
(Flashback to our very first sight of Sherlock all those years ago, his face upside down on the screen as he unzips a body bag and looks inside.)
MARY (voiceover): A junkie who solves crimes to get high ...
(In the flashback Sherlock looks down at the body and wrinkles his nose a little as he sniffs.
Flashback to our very first sight of John, jolting up in bed in his lonely bedsit after his latest nightmare.)
MARY (voiceover): ... and the doctor who never came home from the war.
(Sherlock walks to the door of the Secure Unit and swipes his card through the reader.
In the cell, the siblings’ duet becomes more complicated and intricate.)
MARY (on the TV screen): Well, you listen to me: who you really are, it doesn’t matter.
(In the dark burnt ruin of 221B, a workman is sweeping up while another one stuffs rubbish into a black plastic bag. Standing in front of the fireplace, John looks around the room and tiredly rubs the back of his neck as if despairing of ever getting the place back to normal. Oblivious to what’s going on around him, Sherlock is sitting in his chair texting.)
MARY (voiceover): It’s all about the legend, the stories, the adventures.
(At Sherrinford, Sherlock comes out of the lift and walks across the green-lit room towards where his sister is sitting on the seat with her back to the room.
The Holmes siblings face each other through the glass, playing together beautifully.
In 221B, Mrs Hudson comes through the door and looks across the room. While the workmen tidy up and John stands at the fireplace, Sherlock types onto his phone “You know where to find me.” and adds underneath “SH”.)
MARY (voiceover): There is a last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted.
(Again Sherlock walks along the corridor towards the Secure Unit.
In the cell, Eurus and Sherlock play on.)
MARY (voiceover): There is a final court of appeal for everyone.
(In 221B, most of the burnt debris has been removed and workmen are now redecorating. Our boys have decided to restore the flat exactly as it was, and the wallpaper on the fireplace wall is the same as it was before. Sherlock, wearing his camel dressing gown, is standing facing the fireplace. At the sofa wall, John sprays a circle of yellow paint onto the wallpaper and then adds two dots inside near the top of the circle. He turns round and we see that the wallpaper on that wall is also the same as it was before and John has now added the smiley face to it. He looks across expectantly towards Sherlock and then walks out of the way. Sherlock, now facing into the room, raises his long-muzzled pistol, spins the chamber and then flicks it into place, then aims towards the spray-painted face and fires twice. He smiles, then lifts the muzzle and blows across the top.
The siblings’ tune resolves into the familiar “Pursuit” music, now played offscreen by an ensemble of stringed instruments.
Sherlock, now wearing his blue dressing gown, stabs his knife down into an open letter on the mantelpiece as John stands beside him holding the piece of paper in position. They turn as Mrs Hudson comes into the room and looks at them in exasperation. The room is now fully restored to its former glory and all the familiar items have either been repaired or replaced with identical copies.
Sherlock and Eurus play on. Without stopping, he raises his eyes to hers and she looks back at him. For the first time, there is emotion in her eyes as she gazes at her brother. She smiles just a little and they continue their duet.
In 221B a montage of scenes rolls out. Even though there is no segue between them, they clearly take place over a period of time. Sherlock, in his camel dressing gown, walks around behind the client chair. Sitting in the chair is an old-fashioned ventriloquist’s dummy dressed in a black and red jacket with a white shirt and black bowtie. Its operator seems to be crouched behind the chair, as evidenced by a black-sleeved arm poking round from the back of the chair and disappearing into the dummy’s back. John walks through the living room door wearing his jacket and carrying his briefcase. He frowns briefly at the scene as he goes across the room. Sitting down in his chair he looks up at a blackboard set up on an easel in front of the fireplace and frowns at the ‘dancing men’ figures chalked on it [see here for the translation].)
 
MARY (voiceover): When life gets too strange, too impossible ...
(At the other side of the blackboard, sitting in his chair wearing his suit jacket, Sherlock frowns across the room and gets up to walk over and stand at the feet of a man lying on his back in the middle of the floor in front of the door. The man is dressed in Viking costume. His eyes are closed. John, wearing a brown cardigan, is on his knees beside the man, patting his face with one hand and peeling one eyelid open with his other thumb. [For anyone who missed the end credits, the man is played by musician Paul Weller.])
MARY (voiceover): ... too frightening, there is always one last hope.
(Mrs Hudson comes to the living room door holding a can of air freshener. Pulling a face, she sprays the can into the air and then turns to spray another blast towards John’s chair.)
MARY (voiceover): When all else fails ...
(Sitting in his chair and looking down in disgust at something grubby and possibly vomit-soaked in his hands, John – still in his brown cardigan – raises his head as Sherlock picks up Rosie and straightens up. She now has a full head of hair and is dressed in a pink top with denim short-legged dungarees over the top. Her mouth is grubby, so presumably she has just thrown up into whatever John is holding.)
MARY (voiceover): ... there are two men sitting arguing in a scruffy flat ...
(Tucking his goddaughter closely into his body with one hand while she makes a valiant attempt to stick her finger up her nose, Sherlock smiles and points across the room with the other.)
SHERLOCK: Oh, there’s Daddy!
(The music resolves into a fuller, slower and even more orchestral version of “Pursuit”.
Sherlock waves across the room and then walks forward to hand Rosie down to John, who is kneeling on the floor and wearing a pale grey shirt. John smiles in delight as he takes hold of his daughter and kisses her cheek.)
MARY (voiceover): ... like they’ve always been there ...
(Nearby, Greg stands looking towards Sherlock with one hand raised to his head and a harassed look on his face. He gestures beckoningly towards him as he turns to the door.)
MARY (voiceover): ... and they always will.
(In the doorway as Greg leaves, Molly comes in smiling happily and walks across the room.)
MARY (voiceover): The best and wisest men I have ever known.
(In the cell, Sherlock smiles at his sister as he continues to duet with her. Their parents and big brother are sitting on chairs to one side of Sherlock. With her eyes lowered while she listens to her children play, their mother reaches across to take Mycroft’s hand. He looks down at their hands and then turns to look at her.)
MARY (voiceover): My Baker Street boys.
(She smiles from the TV screen.)
MARY: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.
(And in slow motion Sherlock and John – our Baker Street boys – run side-by-side out of the entrance of a large stone building, identified by plaques either side of the porch as “Rathbone Place,” and race off towards their next adventure.)

Transcript and Detailedcommentary courtesy of https://arianedevere.livejournal.com/92287.html

-Many Thanks and Maximum Love

Eurus Holmes and The Tantra — Beyond Good and Evil

There's comfort yet; they are assailable;

Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown

His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons

The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums

Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done

A deed of dreadful note.

ACT I

SCENE I. A desert place.

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

First Witch

When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch

When the hurlyburly's done,

When the battle's lost and won.

Third Witch

That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch

Where the place?

Second Witch

Upon the heath.

Third Witch

There to meet with Macbeth.

First Witch

I come, Graymalkin!

Second Witch

Paddock calls.

Third Witch

Anon.

ALL

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

SCENE V. A Heath.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches meeting HECATE

First Witch

Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly.

HECATE

Have I not reason, beldams as you are,

Saucy and overbold? How did you dare

To trade and traffic with Macbeth

In riddles and affairs of death;

And I, the mistress of your charms,

The close contriver of all harms,

Was never call'd to bear my part,

Or show the glory of our art?

And, which is worse, all you have done

Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,

Loves for his own ends, not for you.

But make amends now: get you gone,

And at the pit of Acheron

Meet me i' the morning: thither he

Will come to know his destiny:

Your vessels and your spells provide,

Your charms and every thing beside.

I am for the air; this night I'll spend

Unto a dismal and a fatal end:

Great business must be wrought ere noon:

Upon the corner of the moon

There hangs a vaporous drop profound;

I'll catch it ere it come to ground:

And that distill'd by magic sleights

Shall raise such artificial sprites

As by the strength of their illusion

Shall draw him on to his confusion:

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

He hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:

And you all know, security

Is mortals' chiefest enemy.

Music and a song within: 'Come away, come away,' & c

Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

Exit

First Witch

Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.

Exeunt

‘ As to you, Watson, you are joining up with your old service, as I understand, so London won’t be out of your way. Stand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet talk that we shall ever have. ‘

The two friends chatted in intimate conversation for the next few minutes, recalling once again the days of the past while their prisoner wriggled vainly to undo the bonds that held him. As they turned to the care Holmes pointed back to the moonlit sea and shook a thoughtful head.

‘ There’s an east wind coming, Watson. ‘

‘ I think not, Holmes. It’s very warm. ‘

‘ Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. 

There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before it's blast. But it is God’s own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when The Storm has cleared.

Start her up, Watson, for it is time we were on our way. ‘

Again, Phoebe came to the desired embrace of Coeus.

Then the goddess through the love of the god conceived and brought forth dark-gowned Leto, always mild, kind to men and to the deathless gods, mild from the beginning, gentlest in all Olympus.

Also she bare Asteria of happy name, whom Perses once led to his great house to be called his dear wife.  

And she conceived and bare Hecate whom Zeus the son of Cronos honoured above all. 

He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea.

She received honour also in starry heaven, and is honoured exceedingly by the deathless gods. For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favour according to custom, he calls upon Hecate.

Great honour comes full easily to him whose prayers the goddess receives favourably, and she bestows wealth upon him; for the power surely is with her.

For as many as were born of Earth and Ocean amongst all these she has her due portion. The son of Cronos did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from The Beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea.

Also, because she is an only child, the goddess receives not less honour, but much more still, for Zeus honours her.

 Whom she will she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people.

And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will.

Good is she also when men contend at the games, for there too the goddess is with them and profits them: and he who by might and strength gets the victory wins the rich prize easily with joy, and brings glory to his parents.

And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will.

She is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock. The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or makes many to be less.

So, then. albeit her mother's only child (17), she is honoured amongst all the deathless gods.

And the son of Cronos made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. 

 So from The Beginning she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honours.

 (17) Van Lennep explains that Hecate, having no brothers to support her claim, might have been slighted.

I am a Song

Every Story ever told really happened;

Stories are where Memories go when they’re forgotten.

Maybe some of them become Songs. 

"Some who cling to the traditional Shakespearean biography sneer at Oxford’s poetry, declaring it too inferior to be written by the great author; what these critics may not realize, however, is that many (if not most) of the earl’s signed poems were actually songs. 

Moreover, most were published in The Paradise of Dainty Devices of 1576, when he was twenty-six, and that he may have written them much earlier. 

Much later, in The Arte of English Poesie of 1589, he would be cited first among “noblemen and gentlemen of Her Majesty’s own servants, who have written excellently well as it would appear if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest.” "

- Hank Whittemore

"Pre-literature people aren’t stupid; 

They just aren’t literate. 

Their brains are organized differently, 

in many ways."

— Jordan Peterson

I that am lost, oh who will find me?

Deep down below the old beech tree.

Help succour me now the east winds blow.

Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!

Be not afraid to walk in the shade

Save one, save all, come try!

My steps - five by seven

Life is closer to Heaven

Look down, with dark gaze, from on high

Without your love, he’ll be gone before.

Save pity for strangers, show love the door.

My soul seek the shade of my willow’s bloom

Inside, brother mine -

Let Death make a room.

Before he was gone - right back over my hill.

Who now will find him?

Why, nobody will.

Doom shall I bring to him, I that am queen.

Lost forever, nine by nineteen




.

The Mounds have been here since The Time of The Titans.
Kings buried in them... Great Kings...
Domains once glittered like The Light on a windy sea.

Fire won't burn there... no Fire at all.
That's why I live Down Here, in The Wind.

Conan:
Do you care for these places?

The Wizard:
I sing to them.
On nights, when they wish,
I sing of the tales of battles, heroes, witches and women.
Nobody bothers me down here.

Not even...

Thulsa Doom.

Conan:
Do flowers grow around here?

Wizard:
Flowers?

[laughs]

Flowers...

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.  "Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said "I suffer most.  Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost.  "My time is nearly gone."

"I will," said Scrooge.  "But don't be hard upon me!  Don't be flowery, Jacob!  Pray!"

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell.  I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day."

It was not an agreeable idea.  Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost.  "I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.  A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge.  "Thank `ee!"

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?"  he demanded, in a faltering voice.

"It is."

"I -- I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.  Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."

"Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?"  hinted Scrooge.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour.  The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate.  Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before.  Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage.  He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.  It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.  When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer.  Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.  The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity.  He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went.  Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.  Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.  He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step.  

The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

 


" When I was first married, I’d have fights with my wife—arguments about this and that. I’m fairly hot-headed, and I’d get all puffed up and agitated about whatever we were arguing about. She’d go to sleep, which was really annoying. It was so annoying, because I couldn’t sleep. I’d be chewing off my fingernails, and she’d be sleeping peacefully beside me. Maddening. But, often, she’d have a dream, and she’d discuss it with me the next morning. We’d unravel what was at the bottom of our argument. That was unbelievably useful, even though it was extraordinary aggravating. I was convinced by Jung. His ideas about the relationship between dreams, mythology, drama, and literature made sense to me, and his ideas about the relationship between man and art.

I know this Native carver. He’s a Kwakwaka’wakw guy. He’s carved a bunch of wooden sculptures, totem poles, and masks that I have in my house. He’s a very interesting person—not particularly literate, and really still steep in this ancient, 13,000-year-old tradition. He’s an original language speaker, and the fact that he isn’t literate has sort of left him with the mind of someone who is pre-literature. Pre-literature people aren’t stupid; they just aren’t literate. Their brains are organized differently, in many ways.

I’ve asked him about his intuition for his carvings, and he’s told me that he dreams. You’ve seen the Haida masks; you know what they look like. His people are closely related to the Haida. It’s the same kind of style. He dreams in those animals, and he can remember his dreams. He also talks to his grandparents, who taught him how to carve, in his dreams. Quite often, if he runs into a problem with carving, his grandparents will come, and he’ll talk to them. He sees the creatures that he’s going to carve, living, in an animated sense, in his imagination. I have no reason to disbelieve him. He’s a very, very straightforward person, and he doesn’t have the motivation—or the guile, I would say—to invent a story like that. There’s just no reason he would possibly do it. I don’t think he’s told that many people about it. He thinks it’s kind of crazy. When he was a kid, he thought he was insane, because he’d had those dreams, all the time, about these creatures, and so forth. It wasn’t something he was trumpeting.

I’ve found it fascinating, because I can see in him part of the manifestation of this unbroken tradition. We have no idea how traditions like that are really passed on for thousands and thousands of years. Part of it is oral and memory, part of it’s acted out and dramatized, and part of it’s going to be imaginative. People who aren’t literate store information quite differently than we do. We don’t remember anything; it’s all written down in books. But if you’re from an oral culture—especially if you’re trained in that way—you have all of that information at hand. It’s so that you can speak it. You can tell the stories, and you really know them. Modern people really don’t know what that’s like, anymore. I doubt there’s more than maybe two of you, in the audience, that could spout from memory a 30-line poem. Poetry was written so that people could do that. That’s why we have that form—so that people could remember it and have it with them. But we don’t do any of that, anymore.

Anyways, back to Jung. Jung was a great believer in the dream. I know that dreams will tell you things that you don’t know. Well, how the hell can that be? How in the world can something you think up tell you something you don’t know? How does that make any sense? First of all, why don’t you understand it? Why does it have to come forth in the form of the dream? It’s like something’s going on inside you that you don’t control. The dream happens to you, just like life happens to you. There is the odd lucid dreamer who can apply a certain amount of conscious control, but most of the time you’re laying there, asleep, and this crazy, complicated world manifests itself inside you, and you don’t know how. You can’t do it when you’re awake, and you don’t know what it means. It’s like, what the hell’s going on?

That’s one of the things that’s so damn frightening about the psychoanalysts—you get this both from Freud and Jung. You really start to understand that there are things inside you that control you, instead of the other way around. You can use a bit of reciprocal control, but there’s manifestations of spirits, so to speak, inside you, that determine the manner in which you walk through life, and you don’t control it. And what does? Is it random? There are people who have claimed that dreams are merely the consequence of random neural firing. I think that theory is absolutely absurd, because there’s nothing random about dreams. They are very, very structured, and very, very complex. They’re not like snow on a television screen or static on a radio. I’ve also seen, so often, that people have very coherent dreams, that have a perfect narrative structure. They’re fully developed, in some sense. So that theory doesn’t go anywhere, with me. I just can’t see that as useful, at all. I’m more likely to take the phenomena seriously.

There’s something to dreams. You dream of the future, then you try to make it into reality. That seems to be an important thing. Or maybe you dream up a nightmare, and try to make that into a reality. People do that, too, if they’re hellbent on revenge, for example, and full of hatred and resentment. That manifests itself in terrible fantasies. Those are dreams, then people go act them out. These things are powerful, and whole nations can get caught up in collective dreams. That’s what happened to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. It was an absolutely remarkable, amazing, horrific, destructive spectacle. The same thing happened in the Soviet Union, and the same thing happened in China. You have to take these things seriously—you try to understand what’s going on.

Jung believed that the dream could contain more information than was yet articulated. I think artists do the same thing. People go to museums and look at paintings—renaissance paintings or modern paintings—and they don’t exactly know why they are there. I was in this room in New York that was full of renaissance art—great painters, the greatest painters. I thought that, maybe, that room was worth a billion dollars, or something outrageous, because there was like 20 paintings in there, priceless. The first thing is, why are those painting worth so much? Why is there a museum, in the biggest city in the world, devoted to them? Why do people from all over the world come and look at them? What the hell are those people doing? One of them was of the Assumption of Mary—a beautifully painted, absolutely glowing work of art. There were like 20 people standing in front of it, and looking at it. What are those people up to? They don’t know. Why did they make a pilgrimage to New York to come and look at that painting? It’s not like they know. Why is it worth so much? I know there’s a status element to it, but that begs the question: why do those items become such high-status items? What is it about them that’s so absolutely remarkable? We’re strange creatures.

Where does the information that’s in the dream come from? It has to come from somewhere. You could think of it as a revelation, because it’s like it springs out of the void, and it’s new knowledge. You didn’t produce it; it just appears. I’m scientifically minded, and I’m quite a rational person. I like to have an explanation of things that’s rational and empirical, before I look for any other kind of explanation. I don’t want to say that everything that's associated with divinity can be reduced, in some manner, to biology, an evolutionary history, or anything like that. But, insofar as it’s possible to do that reduction, I’m going to do that. I’m going to leave the other phenomena floating in the air, because they can’t be pinned down. In that category, I would put the category of mystical or religious experience, which we don’t understand, at all.

Artists observe one another, and they observe people. Then they represent what they see, and transmit the message of what they see, to us. That teaches us to see. We don’t necessarily know what it is that we’re learning from them, but we’re learning something—or, at least, we’re acting like we’re learning something. We go to movies; we watch stories; we immerse ourselves in fiction, constantly. That’s an artistic production, and, for many people, the world of the arts is a living world. That’s particularly true if you’re a creative person.

It’s the creative, artistic people that move the knowledge of humanity forward. They do that with their artistic productions, first. They’re on the edge. The dancers, poets, visual artists, and musicians do that, and we’re not sure what they're doing. We’re not sure what musicians are doing. What the hell are they doing? Why do you like music? It gives you deep intimations of the significance of things, and no one questions it. You go to a concert; you’re thrilled. It’s a quasi-religious experience, particularly if the people really get themselves together, and get the crowd moving. There’s something incredibly intense about it, but it makes no sense whatsoever.

It’s not an easy thing to understand. Music is deeply patterned, and patterned in layers. I think that has something to do with it, because reality is deeply patterned in layers. I think music is representing reality in some fundamental way. We get into the sway of that, and participate in Being. That’s part of what makes it such an uplifting experience, but we don’t really know that’s what we’re doing. We just go do it, and it’s nourishing for people—young people, in particular. Lots of them live for music. It’s where they derive all of their meaning—their cultural identity. Everything that’s nourishing comes from their affiliation with their music. That’s an amazing thing.

The question still remains: where does the information in dreams come from? I think where it comes from is that we watch the patterns that everyone acts out. We watch that forever, and we’ve got some representations of those patterns that’s part of our cultural history. That’s what’s embedded in fictional accounts of stories between good and evil, the bad guy and the good guy, and the romance. These are canonical patterns of Being, for people, and they deeply affect us, because they represent what it is that we will act out in the world. We flesh that out with the individual information we have about ourselves and other people. There’s waves of behavioural patterns that manifest themselves in the crowd, across time. Great dramas are played on the crowd, across time. The artists watch that, and they get intimations of what that is. They write it down, tell us, and we’re a little clearer about what we’re up to.

A great dramatist, like Shakespeare—we know that what he wrote is fiction. Then we say, ‘fiction isn’t true.’ But then you think, ‘well, wait a minute. Maybe it’s true like numbers are true.’ Numbers are an abstraction from the underlying reality, but no one in their right mind would really think that numbers aren’t true. You could even make a case that the numbers are more real than the things that they represent, because the abstraction is so insanely powerful.

Once you have mathematics, you’re just deadly. You can move the world with mathematics. It’s not obvious that the abstraction is less real than the more concrete reality. You take a work of fiction, like Hamlet, and you think, ‘well, it’s not true, because it’s fiction.’ But then you think, ‘wait a minute—what kind of explanation is that?’ Maybe it’s more true than nonfiction. It takes the story that needs to be told about you, and the story that needs to be told about you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and it abstracts that out, and says, ‘here’s something that’s a key part of the human experience as such.’ It’s an abstraction from this underlying, noisy substrate. People are affected by it because they see that the thing that’s represented is part of the pattern of their being. That’s the right way to think about it.

With these old stories—these ancient stories—it seems, to me, like that process has been occurring for thousands of years. It’s like we watched ourselves, and we extracted out some stories. We imitated each other, and we represented that in drama, and then we distilled the drama, and we got a representation of the distillation. And then we did it again, and at the end of that process—it took God only knows how long. They’ve traced some fairy tales back 10,000 years, in relatively unchanged form.

It certainly seems, to me, that the archaeological evidence, for example, suggests that the really old stories that the Bible begins with are at least that old, and are likely embedded in prehistory, which is far older than that. You might say, ‘well, how can you be so sure?’ The answer to that, in part, is that the ancient cultures didn't change fast. They stayed the same; that’s the answer. They keep their information moving from generation to generation. That’s how they stay the same, and that’s how we know. There are archaeological records of rituals that have remained relatively unbroken for up to 20,000 years: it was discovered in caves, in Japan, that were set up for a particular kind of bear worship that was also characteristic of Western Europe. So these things can last for very long periods of time.

We’re watching each other act in the world, and then the question is, how long have we been watching each other? The answer to that, in some sense, is as long as there have been creatures with nervous systems, and that’s a long time. That’s some hundreds of millions of years, perhaps longer than that. We’ve been watching each other, trying to figure out what we’re up to, across that entire span of time. Some of that knowledge is built right into your bodies—which is why we can dance with each other, for example. Understanding isn’t just something that you have as an abstraction. It’s something that you act out. That’s what children are doing, when they’re learning to rough-and-tumble play. They’re learning to integrate their body with the body of someone else in a harmonious way—learning to cooperate and compete. That’s all instantiated right into their body. It’s not abstract knowledge, and they don’t know that they’re doing that. They’re just doing it. We can even use our body as a representational platform. |

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself - I'm a Lady of Rank and Appetites

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself - I'm a Lady of Rank and Appetites

" The story is good enough in itself. It is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; and it has virtues that would be lost in a summary, though they can be perceived when it is read at length: good scenery, urbane or humorous dialogue, and a skilfully ordered narrative. 

Of this the most notable example is the long Third Part with its interlacing of the hunting-scenes and the temptations. By this device all three main characters are kept vividly in view during the three crucial days, while the scenes at home and in the field are linked by the Exchange of Winnings, and we watch the gains of the chase diminish as the gains of Sir Gawain increase and the peril of his testing mounts to a crisis. 

But all this care in formal construction serves also to make the tale a better vehicle of the ‘moral’ which the author has imposed on his antique material. He has re-drawn according to his own faith his ideal of knighthood, making it Christian knighthood, showing that the grace and beauty of its courtesy (which he admires) derive from the Divine generosity and grace, Heavenly Courtesy, of which Mary is the supreme creation: the Queen of Courtesy, as he calls her in Pearl. 

This he exhibits symbolically in mathematical perfection in the Pentangle, which he sets on Gawain’s shield instead of the heraldic lion or eagle found in other romances. 

But while in Pearl he enlarged his vision of his dead daughter among the blessed to an allegory of the Divine generosity, in Sir Gawain he has given life to his ideal by showing it incarnate in a living person, modified by his individual character, so that we can see a man trying to work the ideal out, see its weaknesses (or man’s weaknesses). 

But he has done more. His major point is the rejection of unchastity and adulterous love, and this was an essential part of the original tradition of amour courtois or ‘courtly love’; but this he has complicated again, after the way of morals in real life, by involving it in several minor problems of conduct, of courtly behaviour to women and fidelity to men, of what we might call sportsmanship or playing the game. 

On these problems he has been less explicit, and has left his hearers more or less to form their own views of the scale of their values, and their relation to the governing value of sin and virtue. "