“…Ten days' journey west of the Ammonians, along the belt of sand, there is another similar salt-hill and spring. This place, called Augila, is also inhabited and it is here that the Nasamonians come for their date harvest.
Again at the same distance to the west is a salt-hill and spring, just as before, with date palms of the fruit-bearing kind, as in the other oases; and here live the Garamantes, a very numerous tribe of people, who spread soil over the salt to sow their seed in.
From these people is the shortest route—thirty days' journey—to the Lotophagi; and it is amongst them that the cattle are found which walk backwards as they graze. The reason for this curious habit is provided by the formation of their horns, which bend forwards and downwards; this prevents them from moving forwards in the ordinary way, for, if they tried to do so, their horns would stick in the ground.
In other respects they are just like ordinary cattle—except for the thickness and toughness of their hide.
The Garamantes hunt the Ethiopian hole-men, or troglodytes, in four-horse chariots, for these troglodytes are exceedingly swift of foot—more so than any people of whom we have any information.
They eat snakes and lizards and other reptiles and speak a language like no other, but squeak like bats.”
I thought after living behind these walls for so long that... maybe they couldn't learn.
But today... I saw what they could do, what we could do, if we work together.
We'll rebuild the walls.
We'll expand the walls.
There will be more.
There's gotta be more.
Everything Deanna was talking about... is possible.
It's all possible. I see that now.
When I was out there... with them... when it was over... when I knew we had this place again...
I had this feeling.
It took me a while to remember what it was...
because I haven't felt it since before I woke up in that hospital bed.
( crying )
I want to show you The New World, Carl.
I want to make it a reality for you.
Please, Carl... let me show you.
Plea-- please, son, don't die.
THE PORCH IS NEITHER INSIDE NOR OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE
“The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple.
Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations.
It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them.
Their true explication is reserved for the Adepts,
The Princes of Masonry.
The whole body of the Royal and Sacerdotal Art was hidden so carefully, centuries since, in the High Degrees, as that it is even yet impossible to solve many of the enigmas which they contain.
It is well enough for the mass of those called Masons, to imagine that all is contained in the Blue Degrees; and whoso attempts to undeceive them will labor in vain, and without any true reward violate his obligations as an Adept.
Masonry is the veritable Sphinx, buried to the head in the sands heaped round it by the ages.”
The next thing you're gonna tell me is that you'll go and that I can stay.
Because I know you didn't like hearing yourself just say that,
"Maggie's gotta take care of Maggie."
I know those words are gonna choke in your ears a good, long while and you're gonna wanna make up for even thinking that.
Am I right?
Yeah.
ABRAHAM,
The Father of Nations :
We lay our Big Meaties across the chopping block ahead of someone else's.
It's ALWAYS for Someone Else.
Both of us know, if we're gonna kick, there sure as hell better be a point to it.
So maybe we feel there was a-a point to all of this.
Alpha to Omega.
Whether it's on The Battlefield or The Beach or somewhere out there today.
Maggie -- She's carrying The Future.
You're right.
[Sniffles]
I knew how this was gonna end.
ABRAHAM,
The Father of Nations :
C'mon. Layin' your ass on the line for someone else, tearin' it to shreds for 'em --
You said it before.
Oh, my, that is living.
[Chuckles]
You're an idiot.
ABRAHAM,
The Father of Nations :
I never said otherwise.
[Sighs]
Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
Thou rag of honour! thou detested--
GLOUCESTER
Margaret.
QUEEN MARGARET
Richard!
GLOUCESTER
Ha!
QUEEN MARGARET
I call thee not.
GLOUCESTER
I cry thee mercy then, for I had thought
That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.
QUEEN MARGARET
Why, so I did; but look'd for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse!
GLOUCESTER
'Tis done by me, and ends in 'Margaret.'
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
Well, The First Human Being is a Murderer,
and not only a Murderer, but a Murderer of his own brother.
And so, you know, the Old Testament, that’s a hell of a harsh book. And you might think, well, 'Maybe that’s a little bit too much to bear.'
And then you might think,
And
'Yea, and maybe it’s true, too.'
"And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord."
This is after Adam and Eve have been chased out of the garden of Eden. What’s really cool about this—I really think that the Cain and Abel story is the most profound story I’ve ever read, especially given that you can tell it in 15 seconds. I won’t, because I tend not to tell stories in 15 seconds, as you may have noticed. But you can read the whole thing that quickly. It’s so densely packed that it’s actually unbelievable.
Ok, so the first thing is that Adam and Eve are not the first two human beings. Cain and Abel are the first two human beings. Adam and Eve were made by God, and they were born in paradise. It’s like, what kind of human beings are those? You don’t know any human beings like that. Human beings aren’t born in paradise and made by God. Human beings are born of other human beings. That’s the first thing. It’s post-fall. We’re out in history, now.We’re not in some archetypal beyond—although we are still, to some degree. Not to the degree that was the case with the story of Adam and Eve. We’ve already been thrown out of the garden; we’re already self-conscious; we’re already awake; we’re already covered; we’re already working. We’re full-fledged human beings. So you have the first two human beings: Cain and Abel; prototypical human beings.
What’s cool is that humanity enters history at the end of the story of Adam and Eve, and then the archetypal patterns for human behaviour are instantaneously presented. It’s absolutely mind boggling, and it’s not a very nice story. They’re hostile brothers. They’ve got their hands around each other’s throats, so to speak, or at least that’s the case in one direction. It’s a story of the first two human beings engaged in a fratricidal struggle, that ends in the death of the best one of them. That’s the story of human beings in history. If that doesn’t give you nightmares, you didn’t understand the damn story. Now, in these hostile brother stories, which are very, very common, often the older brother—Cain—has some advantages. He’s the older brother, and, in an agricultural community, the older brother generally inherited the land, and not the younger brothers. And the reason for that was, well, let’s say you have like eight sons, and you have enough land to support a bit of a family, and you divide among your eight sons, and they have eight sons, and they divide it among their eight sons. Soon, everyone has a little postage stamp that they can stand on and starve to death on. And so that just doesn’t work. You hand the land in a piece to the eldest son, and that’s just how it is. It’s tough luck for the rest of them, but at least they know they’re gonna have to go and make their own way. It’s not fair, but there’s no way of making it fair. Well, you might say the oldest son has an additional stake in the stability of the current hierarchy. He has more of a stake in the status quo. That makes him more of an emblematic representative of the status quo, and, perhaps, more likely to be blind in its favor. It’s something like that. That motif creeps up very frequently in the hostile brothers archetypal struggle. The story of Cain and Abel fits this pattern, because Cain is the one who won’t budge, and who won’t move. He’s stubborn. Whereas the younger son, who’s Abel, is often the one who’s more…Not so much of a revolutionary, but, perhaps, more of a balance between the revolutionary and the traditions, whereas the older son tends to be more traditionalist-authoritarian—in these metaphorical representations, at least. "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord."
There’s the first human being: Cain. I told you that the Mesopotamians thought that mankind was made out of the blood of the worst demon that the great goddess of chaos could imagine. Well, the first human being is a murderer, and not only a murderer, but a murderer of his own brother. And so, you know, the Old Testament, that’s a hell of a harsh book. And you might think, well, maybe that’s a little bit too much to bear. And then you might think, yea, and maybe it’s true, too. So that’s something to think about.
Human beings are amazing creatures. To think about us as a plague on the planet is its own kind of bloody catastrophe—malevolent, low, quasi-genocidal metaphor. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t without our problems. The fact that this book, that sits at the cornerstone of our culture, would present the first man as a murderer of his brother, is something that should really set you back on your heels.
