ࡱ> G bjbjَ ] !$  ffffffN4@ C H R O N I C L E O F T H E K I N G S A N D F I R S T A N C I E N T S A N N O 2 1 7 0 Lost Realms Bibliography of Lord Alfred Tennyson, Poet laureate, by Lord Chillingsworth, the Marquis of Gothenburg [This mis-titled opus of the former world-state ruler was, apparently, a work in progress at the time of Lord Chillingsworths demise, so that we have only this fragment of the authors Foreword; whether there was more at one time is a good question, since little survived the collapse of nearly all electronics in the 22nd Century and was apt to fare even worse in succeeding ages as technology rapidly regressed toward the levels known in earliest times. The writer fancied himself something of a poet as well, for he composed oddly archaic verses after the labored, stylized manner of Euphues and Spencer and also the Metaphysical Poets, none of which survived his calamitous times. We have only a few titles of his such as Sicke Rose, Thou Art Dying Apace for Love of Mee!, Of Whom the World is Not Worthee--a Complaint Penned by the Poet in Cruele Exile Amidst Ruines in a Tropick Forest, Foeman and False Friend, Thou Wilt Not Overwhelm the Bright Ascendant Star of My Wondrous Might!, and Citie Like a Jewell Embowelled Within the Darke Lake Under Earthe--a Flyght of Goldene Fancye. Now as to the title. It is either evidence of the extremely duplicitous nature and somewhat paranoid character of the author or a necessary ruse by which he had, previously, protected his writings from malicious deletion by Ibsenite computer espionage-hacks during their world-wide attack on his world-government. There are even grounds for admitting both/and into this inquiry. We know that Chillingsworths chief line of defense, the world computer system, was under constant attack and compromise by Ibsenite agents. That means his precious bibliography was also a target along with military, secret service, treasury, and other highly strategic files. A simple safeguard was not a password, for the Ibsenites showed truly phenomenal facility in cracking Chillingsworths top security passwords, but a mis-title. Let his foes think he was working on Alfred Tennyson, while in actuality he was delving into Sir Walter Scott. But might they not eliminate his bibliography, whatever he chose to call it? Why then the change in title? He must have considered that Sir Walter Scott was a favorite of his chief foe, Commander Nilsson, founder and director of the world-wide Ibsenite Revival terrorist-organization seeking to overthrow the world-government and the rule of Lord Chillingsworth. At Eton a literature instructor had inspired the entire body of students with his love of Walter Scott. For many it was probably the single bright spot in a rather dreary scholastic regimen. Needless to say, the man was born and bred in Scotland and could quote reams of Scott and also Burns to his classes. Highly impressionable at that age, it is quite possible a good percentage of the boys caught the nationalistic spirit of the writers, while others were fascinated and entertained yet remained coldly unmoved in their hearts. Nilsson, however much he loathed his antagonist, was not under any compulsion to attack a similarity when he had so many greater dissimilarities and polarities to vent his spleen upon. Knowing his foes psychology, Chillingsworth knew that a mis-title was enough to direct Nilssons hackers away to other targets. If he had files on estate gardening or on his various collections, the same would have applied. They simply werent of strategic value to the Ibsenites. So they passed over this particular file and it survived--survived quite a long time, but not in its entirety. We have only this portion, which must have been in Chillingsworths possession up to the last day of his life. How the fragment was preserved and reached a place of preservation for so many millennia, it is impossible to know at this late date. Providence, however, has insured the survival and preservation of a number of rare and curious manuscripts. We have Dr. Pikkards researches, for example. We have the great Book of the War of Heaven and Earth. We also have a most ancient alphabetic primer. It may be the prevalence of so much ice acted as the primary preservative. Locked in glacial masses, these rare writings came down to us to enlighten our darkness. Some authorities surmise that angelic agencies were also primary operatives in the preservation process. That may be so. In any case, we have them, and we are forever indebted to whatever and whomever delivered the various books and writings to our generation. The reader will surely be delighted with this piece, for though a fragment it lends valuable insight into a literary question that deserves attention by all who are interested in the lost worlds of Scotland, England, and Continental Europe represented by Chillingsworth and Sir Walter Scott, not to mention the lost worlds referred to in Sir Walter Scotts original draught for The Vision of Don Roderick. But why, the reader is wont to ask, should Chillingsworth devote himself to Sir Walter Scott, one who promoted the nationalistic spirit that Chillingsworth abhorred and anathematized? Is it possible Freudian psychology was correct on one point, that man possesses a suppressed alter ego--the hidden, submerged other self that possesses and cultivates the true, secret feelings, desires, and dreams of the individual? That would explain Chillingsworths fascination with Scott even while, officially, he excoriated nationalism and sought to eradicate it from human society. A final comment on the bibliographer. It is just too bad that Chillingsworth fell into science and government as his primary preoccupations. He might have done even better by himself in literary research, as this quite entertaining and provocative piece indicates. --Ed]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliographers Notes on Certain Irregularities in the Text (Ms. Astor Edition, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, New York and Boston, ANNO 1894) From a number of widely-accepted and verified sources it is clear to those laboring amongst the dry bones and often decayed relics of this significant but sadly-neglected field that Sir Walter Scott (SWS) worked ordinarily on a number of poetry and prose projects at the same time. His resources--from those of his own extensive manse library and those of his numberless friends--were enormous for the times. He had full access to the Bodlean and other large collections of national caliber. His travels, though not exceptional for the well-traveled gentlemen of his times, brought him into contact with Continental culture and, no doubt, its wellsprings--the great libraries of the nobility, intelligentsia and literati. His writings, not surprisingly, evoke a knowledge and familiarity that extends well beyond England and his Scottish antecedents. He felt, in fact, almost at home writing a Spanish historical poem as he did paeans to the noble Graeme. His passion for eclectic accumulations or curiosities, artifacts, rare books, and all sorts of authentic and also bogus legends and heraldry filled every waking hour and many of his dreams, no doubt. Perhaps, he was too much given to these passions, for passions they were. His heroic-themed poetry and his novels--IVANHOE, and the anonymous WAVERLY series as prime examples--have often been attacked for pronounced romantic eclecticism, which ranges about the curious and grotesque relics of millennia and includes all sorts of personages and circumstances with no apparent regard for historical period. The truth may well be, SWS loved every bit of the past so much he could not find it in himself to leave any of it out. Slavish accuracy, reeking of lamp oil and musty scholasticism, was never his guiding principle. Only carping, hair-splitting pedants were primarily concerned with keeping Arthur and Charlemagne and Helen of Troy apart in their respective milieus--to SWS, they made the piece all the more exciting, so why not invite them all to his garden party and gala masque ball? Pedants aside, the public adored SWS and supported him royally. Not concerned with the fine points of the exacting scholar, they enjoyed the rousing tales spun out of the most colorful and heroic elements SWS could find in his wide readings. What they failed to give to his writing, he invented without any qualms whatsoever. The wealth of notes appended to every poem, not merely those in the body of the poem, show what he was capable of assimilating with his poetic fancy. They also provide ample insights into the poets feelings that, despite the sometimes outrageous liberties he took with texts and personages and events, furnish solid proofs he could write his own apologia if he chose and it would be quite as good as anything to the contrary the pedants and critics could produce. How is to say which fiction was truer? He was the embodiment of his native Scotlands ethos, and thus he spoke, which few can deny, with a true sons passionate love for her. His wildly poetic nature permitted him license. He did not have to ask anyones permission to move this personage, say, from the 5th century to the 11th, if he so had a mind. Then, to show that the move was not mistaken or an error of judgment, he embellished the social and political milieu with incredibly comprehensive facts and legends and place-nomenclature and customs the like of which were sufficient to convince almost everyone that he, SWS, was the proud progenitor of Scotland, which, in a literary sense, he certainly was. SWS, more than any other person, birthed Scotland as she came to be known to her own people, and the English, and the wider world. Until SWS, Scotland was a geopolitical nebulosity. The borders were clearly marked. You could say without much challenge that Scotland comprised the upper, northern portion of the British Isles and was bordered by England in the south and Ireland along Irish Sea in the north, but what lay beyond was anyones conjecture. Poor Scotland! It might have formed part of Ultima Thule for all its nebulosity in the minds of Scotts forebears. There was good reason for it remaining that way indefinitely, too, if Walter Scott had not happened on the scene as Scotlands geopolitical champion. Scots--what people could that be? The land was a colorful but chaotic stew of warring clans, which individually thought each, bar all, was the best that Scotland could be. Put them together and you had a terrific fight to be top tartan! Even if one clan should beat down all the others, it had no idea it had created a Scottish nation as a result. It wanted nothing of the sort. Rather, it sought its own glory in fray, and everyone elses acknowledgment of that fact was a feather in its cap. So as for a national identity, it was unthinkable if you intended to use these clans. Yet SWSs poetic genius and romantic spirit welded together something that struck a deep chord in the hearts of millions of his contemporaries. Nearly the whole of the population rose up to proclaim, Yes, Sir Walter, youve portrayed us truly! We are what you say we are! Viva Scotland! Viva Caledonia! Thus, the perpetually, inveterately Balkanizing clans, at long last, laid down their respective, all-exclusive standards, and championed the banner of Scotland. It was a phenomenon, and the world (at least adjacent lands in Northern Europe) was soon apprised of the event. Writers, politicians, and statesmen, were forced to take note of that Great Scottish Awakening from the doldrums of divisibility. It was SWSs greatest achievement, when laid beside his notable literary efforts. Toward the middle and later parts of his life and career he was fully conscious of what he had created, and he felt quite justified in doing so much violence to facts, since it had vitally awakened a Scottish national soul and literally put Scotland on the map, in a way it had certainly never figured before. It is quite tragic, however, that the mortal vice of nationalism was a direct result, but at that time he did not see nationalism as a poisonous product of man the political animal To him, nationalism was a chief good, on par with Religion and Liberty and a Gentlemans Comfortable Income of 3,000 pounds a year. And, to be fair, we cannot at this date hold him responsible for nationalism, which had got going well before his time with the fatally democratic and divided Greeks and their ever-wrangling leagues and counter-leagues of rival city-states. SWS and his fellow romantic poet Robert Burns came along quite late in the process, at a time when all the worlds major nationalisms had been established for hundreds and even thousands of years. But, then, thanks to my retirement from the world of active affairs, it is not the political aspect but the literary and bibliographic that I have chosen as my elective province. Now as to the irregularities, now that the stage has been set. What SWS had done for his native land of Scotland, did he think he would do for Spain? He had translated many pieces from the German. He was intrigued by Spanish history as well. But Spain already had its identity. Cervantes and an imported El Greco and numberless saints and kings and leaders had made certain that Spain knew herself as an accomplished fact. Spain, in fact, had consolidated as an idea as early as the Roman period, and the mighty Roman legions, seeking to supplant Rome in place of Carthage, were hard put to subdue the Spanish national spirit, though it was only then in its infancy. Rome subdued Iberia but the spirit of this proud and ancient people smoldered beneath the shackles, finally erupting into full-blown nationalism when a weakened Rome began falling back while under attack by various barbarian tribes. No, Spain did not need or want SWSs poetic ministrations. She boasted her own national poets, many of them first-rate. Yet this did not daunt the intrepid SWS, who, in one sense a forerunner of the internationalist writer, regarded all legends, folk story, and romantic tales as his natal province. His own romantic and poetic genius was purely Scottish in another sense, this one barbaric and medieval, inherited by Scott but flourishing long before the revival of nationalist identity. This trait caused him to regard borders as mere fences to leap with his charger. Well, internationalist and medievalist that he was, he leaped upon Spain, intending to write a lay about her that would spark interest among his readers, who by this time were quite accustomed to his wide-ranging, unfettered poesy. But his surprise came when he found the materials could not be worked into the usual, highly popular Scottian molds. In truth, they utterly refused to adapt themselves to his chosen plot, the linear delineation of Spanish development from Creation to the Moslem sultanates to Toledo and Seville. Loving the grand sweep rather niggling over particular points and prospects, he rushed into his project and got about half-way when it became apparent that something was stuck and would not get out of the way of his habitually rapid versification. What was thrusting a wrench in his gears was the contents of a manuscript that we shall have to call Codex X, since it has not survived. Whether SWS, in vexation or a moments anger, destroyed it, we do not know. But it existed, and SWS might have had the only extant copy, since he was known to buy rare manuscripts in out-of-the-way book shops and various impoverished monasteries and abbeys. The manuscript, detailing a portion of the well-known vision of the ill-starred Don Roderick afforded a look into the past that did not favor his forward, progressive approach at all. Without much pause, the poet tried to incorporate a few features of the manuscripts account in the final published work, and we see them in the giant Mizraicized figures that stand in the cave as heralds of the future events to come. With this accomplished, SWS sailed on to the conclusion, which he set with the invasions and depredations of Napoleon and the noble forces of Wellington coming into the fray on the side of Spain and freedom. This version has come down to us, without anyone besides the bibliographer suspecting the crisis that substituted an entirely different account from the one that preceded it. The bibliographer might never have suspected the existence of Codex X and the suppressed manuscript and the quandary it put SWS into if he had not been struck by the pair of male Mizraic Sibyls. Superficially, they resemble much that SWS fancied, and few readers would think them foreign to his style. They were more than life-sized, they were golden, and they spoke of great struggles of antique, pre-Roman realms and godlike rulers--the usual stock and trade of SWS--yet since they had never appeared in SWSs poems before I wondered what prototypes he was employing. Working back through his previous works, I found none. I also discovered they were not Mizraic either, though they carried the royal Ancient Mizraic insigne of crook (or sickle) and mace. Where did he find such figures? Either he found them in the now missing Codex X or he created them purely out of his imagination while giving them a certain look of Ancient Misr, or Mizraim. Or, he had a third resource, some account of the Titans, who are said to have originated these particular insigne for their Royals. Suspecting that SWS had worked from the X codex and perhaps a tale or book on the Atlantean Titans, the bibliographer made thorough search of all SWS collections, and his labor was rewarded after several years. The early, suppressed draft of The Vision of Don Roderick turned up in same Mount Horeb monastery library that produced the Bibles Sinai codex. As it had happened earlier, the author was on the site and happened to find the monks burning some badly deteriorated, non-computerized codices in a stove in the refectory kitchen. Since the bibliographer was following the travels of a certain British noblewoman of pronounced romantic inclination, Lady Helena Anne Fidelity Clements-Sissington, Duchess of Milford, who happened to be bearing a trunk of first edition SWS books and poetry that always accompanied her, the bibliographer was strongly led to think that some unbound portion of SWSs poetry might have been left behind. In her diary she had described how a Bedouin tribe had ceremonially invested the kindly, much-beloved monastery, making its yearly raid, and the monks had gone to present their customary tribute of a basket of fresh garden fruits and vegetables, some bread loaves, and a few trinkets. This time the monks had come up short, and needed something to add to the basket to satisfy the tribesmen, who were gathered down below the rock on which the monastery perched. Anxious to be of some service to her hosts, Lady Helena Anne offered some of her precious books, but had second thoughts and gave them only some unbound manuscripts that she thought of lesser value that would, to her thinking, service the purpose just as well as rare editions now worth thousands of pounds. In the understandable confusion compounded by haste, some of the manuscripts, mixed with codices as well as some French chocolates Lady Helena Anne cast in as a bonus bribe, did not go to the Bedouin. Rather, they ended up in the library! Now, generations later, yet once again the monks turned to the library archives for flammable materials and, thus, Lady Helena Annes oddments of Scottian ms. and stale chocolates saw the light of day as they were raked into a large basket and pulled outdoors into the little, open-air courtyard where a bread oven was situated. Passing by at that moment, this bibliographer bought them on the spot, and the monks were not at all inclined to give them up until the bibliographer furnished other flammable material--his entire wardrobe and even his suitcases--so that the monks bread-baking could continue. One of the fragments he purchased (one he pulled out himself from the fire, mostly burnt) turned out to be in SWSs handwriting. And it represented a tiny portion of the Vision of Don Roderick. This was a very muddled version, indeed. No wonder SWS lay it aside and continued with his original format, taking only the Mizraic figures. He knew instinctively that his reading public, formerly indulgent for all sorts of indulgences on his part, could not be led to believe this version, for no amount of money or poetic virtuosity. This is also quite possibly the reason why the duchess set so little value on the manuscript as to include it with others in order to placate the Bedouin. She herself saw no reason to believe the account, since she had his published version and quite agreed with his treatment of classic Hispanic themes. As for this draft, it must have seemed incomprehensible and utterly unlike SWS. What could he have meant by including such wild and preposterous tales of Atlantis, the Titans, and the destruction of an island-continent that everybody knew couldnt have existed, despite Platos words on the subject. Since Troy was just as fabulous and all the scholars were in agreement that Homer could not have meant an actual, living city, this Atlantean mother-civilization and continent was sheer nonsense as well to her thinking. The bibliographer is, thus, indebted to her prejudice and presuppositions, for her summary disposing of the manuscript at St. Catherines of the Sinai, Mount Horeb monastery, led to its preservation and ultimate discovery in the bibliographers era. If Lady Clements-Sissington had not disposed of it precisely where she did, it is highly unlikely it would have survived a decade more. In the extremely dry and rarefied desert climate, it stood good chance of survival for many decades, even hundreds of years, as long as the monks did not light upon it for burning in their bread ovens. And so it happened, that the manuscript was cast back into the neglected library into some dark corner, where it lay undisturbed until the biographer came searching for it like a bloodhound, nose close to the scent of the track. And the pieces of the puzzle might have lain there hundreds of years more, except that the monks had another mouth to fill with bread and so they needed additional provender for their fiery bread furnace! As for the accuracy of the account, whether the pre-Adamic civilizations, Mukalia and Atlantis, actually existed or were as morality-challenged as the manuscript portrays, that is not the province of this bibiliography or these notes. Suffice it to say, neither scholar or scientist takes such things seriously. We can ascertain that SWS, at least in this draft, essayed to rewrite Spanish events, beginning with fabled Fall of Man in the primal Garden of Eden and working in an ambitious portrayal of the antediluvian world of, primarily it seems, the Atlantean civilization, and then proceeding to the Ark of Noah and the Deluge and by degrees on to the later time of Don Roderick. This plan was most ambitious. It appears that Scott realized at some point in his rapid composition (shown by the drafts irregular meters and lack of the usual quaint place-names and Scottish phraseologies) that he had bitten off too much to handle with any reasonable hope it would reach a finished enough state for the press in his lifetime. This happens to any working writer, whose ambition exceeds his craft or his energies and disposable time. Scott quickly abandoned the draft, returning to his original idea. There were larger considerations as well behind his decision. A reading of the manuscript clearly indicates that the account requires a different treatment than the one he was prepared to give. That Spain had devolved, starting with a mother-civilization, placed Spain, not to mention England, in a peculiar most peculiar and ancillary light. It would be reversing events in a most outrageous fashion, causing the advanced commonwealth of England to be seen as a mere, barbaric Stone Age culture floating in the stream of time as a cast-off fragment of a once great mother-civilization that would never have recognized England as legitimate offspring. Add to this, how would Scottish aspirations and newly-found feelings of nationality fare if he were to show, from the old account, that they were mere lumps of insignificance spreading like bits of flotsam and jetsam on the widening ripples of the cataclysms that swallowed up first Mukalia and, later, Atlantis? The Vision horrified him. He could not give it to his public, and he knew they would reject it. It would be turning against all he had built up over the years, to present such a picture of history and human development. The Paradise of Eden and the fall of our species into depravity, when treated with a certain amount of good taste and refinement, could be accepted by people of culture and sensibility. After all, mankind has progressed, particularly since the 16th Century, and had manufactures and world-wide shipping and growing prosperity to prove mankind had finally overcome the ancient curse of the Divine Creator. But a humanity that was a base remnant, psychologically, mentally, intellectually, and materially, compared to the original civilization? Horrors! SWS himself abhorred the idea, since he loved Progress, especially the kind that could include his own views and then go on to fling up Titan-sized mills across the landscape, launch transatlantic arks of commerce, ford every stream and chasm with iron bridges, concoct prodigious amounts of money with great bustling ports and emporia such as London and Antwerp, entertain and gratify the higher senses of gentlemen with elegant promenades and fountained squares and triumphal arches, and expedite the public with public roads set with efficient stagecoaches and inns stretching ten ands even twenty miles at a stretch. With a mind set comfortably within the perimeters of a progressive and enlightened Europe, or so it appeared to him, he was not at all prepared to measure his philosophical assumptions against the shocking disclosures of Codex X . When we judge him as any man of the early to mid parts of the 18th century, his behavior cannot be blamed, for he had done much to revolutionize thinking regarding his native Scotland. To ask him to go further and revolutionize the worlds thinking concerning the Mukalian-Atlantean origins of civilization was entirely too much and beyond reasonable expectation. Since inclusion of the X is not warranted by a bibliography, it hardly matters to the readers of this work that only this remnant can be offered, since this is all that survived the fire and the ravages of damp, mildew, and age in the monks library at St. Catherine Monastery on Mount Horeb in the Sinai. This fragment is produced with the specific aim of satisfying a reasonable amount of curiosity that has perhaps been excited by these slight prefatory remarks. As we have indicated, the draft was rapidly improvised and remains rough, for the reason the author found just cause to abandon it and, thus, declined to give it customary vetting and polish, so that many blemishes remain in the original, both in choice of words and in meter. Original Suppressed Draught of the THE VISION OF DON RODERICK, as Drawn by Sir Walter Scott from the Codex X __________________________ to PLATO ESQ., AND TO ALL NOW PECULIARLY NEGLECTED AND ANONYMOUS AUTHORS AND SCHOLARS WHO LABORED IN THE THANKLESS TASK OF PRESERVING SIMILAR RELICS OF THE PAST AND MOST HOARY ANTIQUITIE THIS POEM, The Vision of Don Roderick Composed for the Benefit of the Gentle Readers of the English, Scotch, and Continental publics by WALTER SCOTT _________________________ PREFACE The following Poem is founded upon an ancient Spanish Tradition, a flower plucked by the Poet in the northwest domains of the noble Peninsula commonly inhabited by a people of fetching singularity, the venerable Basques, who have resided in those parts since mans earliest reckoning. Don Roderick, the last, ill-starred Gothic king of Spain, when the Invasion of the Moors was impending, had the temerity to descend into an ancient vault in the Basque country near San Bastion, the Roman foundation being Magna Cicerona, a thing the local citizenry bravely reminded him it was forbidden to do. Why ought not I, your Sovereign Monarch, open this vault? he demanded, twirling the perfumed and ribboned tips of his long moustaches. Local elders were prevailed upon at spear-point to reply to the hasty king, and one of their company replied: Great king, we have nothing but what you see here--these meager flocks, and poor villages, and a mountain brook or two to water them. Why must we imperil what little goods and livestock the Almighty has seen fit to allow us wretches in this life? Have mercy on your servants! Give us a little time to talk among ourselves, and we will answer you on this important matter. Don Roderick was not impressed, since he had already given the order to provision his troops at the expense of these very villagers, but he wanted one more thing besides: the truth, why he should not open the vault. The elders knew very well Don Roderick, by the general account of his administration, was bloody, grasping, venal, and cruel in dealings with his subjects, so they reasoned amongst themselves in their own language before they answered the king in Spanish. The conference must have gone something like this: This backside of an old goat intends to lay our land waste, so why should we tell him anything, since we get nothing from telling him? Yes, tell him nothing! If he is annoyed, we only ask for the raping of our wives and daughters and our own heads being set upon pikes at our village gates. Forsooth, he will do as you say, but we have nothing to lose in the bargain anyway, since this sort--may he feed the flames of hell forever!-- will take all, whether or not we tell him. And, submitted the oldest of the elders, why not heap manure on his head, since he will no doubt do the opposite of the old saying and will not allow anything to stand in the way of his will? Just like the Goat-Dropping Hats [reference to the Romans, whose distinctive helmet with neck-guard resembled the said goat-droppings] and the Cow-Vulvas [the reference is to the Carthagians, predecessors of the Romans, who worshipped the Cow Goddess of the Numidians among the many of their own] before them, this stinking goat arse will not brook reasonable warning, so that is what we should impart to him, to goad him into certain ruin. Having nothing to lose that they had not already lost, the chief elders words seemed quite good to the gathering, and so they turned and told Don Roderick all he wished to hear of the matter. Great and Good Sovereign and Master of the Earths wide realms, live forever in peace and prosperity! Let your ewes drop young at every turn of your royal foot. Let your goats flood the rivers with sweet milk! Let all come to you that you have richly deserved! Now our tradition concerning this most holy and ancient shrine of our people, quoth the elder speaking for them all, is that any king who bursts the seals and goes in seeking to drink unbidden of the knowledge and wisdom of the First Ancients, he is unwise, since the tradition warns that kings throne will pass to his enemies. If you be the king that wishes to lose a kingdom, so be it! We, your loving, obedient subjects, have warned you, Great King and Sovereign of all these lands! Fountain of all plenitude and prosperity, your blood be upon your own head! Enraged, the king ordered the impudent elders slain, their venerable heads piked, and he went on to more pressing matters. It was not long before the temptation proved too great for the royal will to master. After scarcely a moment of reflection on any possible injury to himself, Don Roderick ordered the vault and repository of ancient wisdom and knowledge unsealed and opened. The seals were broken, and the door prised apart with iron bars and swords. The blocking rubble was cleared away, and then the king went in. The elders were quite correct in their prognosis of the kings prospects. We know that a short time later Sultan Tarik of the Moors invaded from the coasts of Morocco. He landed at Gibraltar, which is named after him, and he proceeded victoriously against Don Roderick, sweeping all before him. Some accounts say the hapless Roderick was drowned in trying to escape across a river. In any event, he disappeared, and the country remained Moslem until the forces of Castile and Aragon re-united Spain and drove out Boabdil and his court from Toledo, just as Don Roderick had been driven out by Tarik. But this is not the substance of our Poem. We have the true account in our hands, and know dreadful things, by which Don Roderick surely was so disheartened he found no spark of resistance when the test came of his might and resolve. What could have reduced so cunning and strong a monarch as Don Roderick to a craven coward who lost all effectual command of his armies? He had viewed the forbidden picture of the past, and it had slain his manly instincts and even his desire to grasp the scepter of the Spanish dominions against all comers. Tarik had only to present himself on Spanish soil, and Don Rodericks effete, corrupted, dispirited forces crumbled before him. This, then, is the truth of the cause, not the kings reputed despoiling of Florinda. Let the Gentle Reader now view the dreadful wisdom and knowledge of the First Ancients of the Basques, the oracles of the estranged heretical Priest of the Royal Archives of Poseidon, Meno, interwoven with the poets own reflections, until the fatal sixteenth canto when the quill pen of poesy broke in two. EDINBURGH, January 4, 18ll INTRODUCTION I. Good Meno shows us Forebears two, Adam the man and rib-mate Eve; No angel wings, brightest gold in hue graced their shoulders, nor did weave airy motions Fancy may conceive. But footed solid on the earth they roamed free, only sans leave to eat the fruit of sins own birth, while round the Tree twined Satans girth. II. Unclothed, yet finely garbed in purity the pair were lords of fair Eden. Strange! No great strength claimed he or she, but Gods own Word kept the Garden; Safe, too, the serpent throve without weapon, until the day its innocence was suborned, and Cunning spun a fatal gin round the woman, whom husband warned, yet took counsel in a subtle serpent horned. III. No angel sword could fend this peril-- Obedience, in truth, guarded Eden well; Nothing then could maim or kill to turn their Paradise to howling Hell; Yet the wife first, then Adam fell, together erred in eating fruit --no sadder story man can tell, how Adam and his wife turned brute, the consequence that followed suit! IV. The taller Tree of Life they spurned, the fruit set high and berrylike; Too late their folly was discerned when sin shot through each heart a spike that rent their innocence like fallen dike; Into their souls a darksome flood of fear and shame, and een worse like-- murder that men chewed like cud, and Death and Sickness thick as mud. V. Satan said, Nay, you wont die, and so they broke Gods one command; They fled in fear, their trust a lie-- like the builder on the sand, their house fell as soon as storm struck land. Feeling naked, they sewed leaves of fig with frantic, fumbling hand, to cover up the shame sin weaves round each sinner for whom God grieves. VI. Free to choose what hurt them most, they reaped the fruit of their mistake. We be as God!--that ancient boast twould later fill with slain a burning lake, tarred and quenchless, in which to bake. Free to fellowship with their Creator, also free to choose sins ache, yet they chose ill, swung wide the door to all unhappiness, to Death, and War. VII. On Edens east side rose a ridge, there a gate pierced through the wall. Down to it the despisers of Gods image fled the flaming sword that barred all from the Tree of Life Eternal, lest men sin and wax most hideous, unleashed from Death and godly fear, to blaspheme Heavens holiness, and never seek divine forgiveness. VIII. Quibblers, early on to last view the Creators ways in vain; The creature thinks his logics fast when he presumes to be more sane than One who foresaw sin and pain, Eden on to Armegeddon; Who promised Adam, Eve, and Cain a Healing Balm and Rose of Sharon Saving them from all theyd done. IX. Veiled with sin, their eye is dark, the Holy One is lost to view. They reach out lightly to His ark. Why charge our Forebears mortal due for nibbling fruitage fair in hue? They themselves are damaged fruit, heirs of moral decay too; Round them stretches branch and root, the deadly Tree that turned man brute. X. Such fault the Maker of lost man, demean the Heart that broke and bled, passing judgment on the Hand that snatched up newlyweds in bed, and suckling infant as he fed, and swept them off to certain death-- His mighty flood in which the dead filled all the earth, of life bereft except for eight, as Moses saith. XI. Dismissing thought of sins full cost-- to pay, Gods Son became Gods Lamb-- they peer askance at what was lost when rebellion rose against I AM; Tut tut! they say. A breaking dam is not our fear, we will not die. No cause for Christ, or Abrams ram, weve grown gentler far, by and by, with Atonement severed tie. XII. Life for life, death for death--no more! So they thought till rain first fell, and waters seeped through every door of palace proud or mean hovel. What is this? They could not tell though a century of Noahs work reared a boat--they knew it well. How they scoffed, called him berserk, till floods oerwhelmed them with dread murk. _______________ I. Nothing learned from the Great Flood, foolish men rose up in pride; On the Plain of Shinars mud Nimrod built his city wide. If I be Lord, then woe betide the man who brooks my mighty power! And so mankind built up each tall side of a bricked, many-storyed tower until the day his plans turned sour. II. Almighty Eyes looked on their plan to reach the stars, and fix their throne. Kronos too, lord once of Mukal Land, sought to regain realms full-grown; Let Nimrod build till seed is sown, then I will reap our royal right. A Titan first in rank he would own the earth beyond his grasp yet still fair, bright-- thus thought the Titan trusting might. III. Crystals lifted Titan birds, speeding them cross land and sea. Crystals also spoke mens words and mirrors pictured distant views of horrors staged in vivid hues. And within the earth itself Poseidons priests hid crystal twos-- orbs of power, mind-got wealth-- no Croesus dreamed of so much pelf! IV. From beast mixed into human seed monsters spawned to fill up parks so royalty could watch them feed on captive slaves like meadow larks. Some looked cat-like, yet had barks of dogs, others serpent-formed with deadly cobra marks raised human faces, much deformed, and--horrors!--also horned. V. He lost his realm though-- again there flowered every vice. Evil spewed like ripened cess, whateer was vile was deemed nice. Mothers dressed to sons entice, and Father couched in Daughters bed; Hearts skewed hard and cold as ice, all goodly morals long since dead, sin now reaped what sin had bred. VI. Unwalled thoughts raced mind to mind, Free to riot and to tryst; Men swung swords no eye could find, as Evil laughed and coldly hissed. Above the cities rose a mist, the stench of offerings to base gods; Babes were burned, tied wrist to wrist. as priests heaped on them carob pods-- Cain-spawned fuit become Nimrods. VII. Statecraft wed to sorcery, oracles of the demon tongue, counselled kings for a rich fee-- secrets drawn from entrails, lung, liver from a slave fresh hung, guided mighty tyrants all, flattered as their poets sung, while they feasted in each hall on artful dishes cannibal. VIII. Human blood their goblets filled, thickly laced with drugging herb; Insensate rich men struck and killed for elixirs thought superb. Vampires, they waxed uncurbed, thousands bled slow death for them, dungeoned lest their cries disturb the banqueters fine abdomen, and wilt his flowered diadem. IX. Magic held the mass in thrall, lovers won by witchs spell spun in mortars with a caul from a fresh, miscarried camel; Or were told, Buy now! No, sell!-- Fortunes hanging on a die or drop of ink that fell in a diviners cup that could not die, though no one stopped to question why. X. Priests with powers dark, arcane, lifted quarry blocks immense; Beating time on hollow cane, they set them up in walled fortress, or where a king desired a fence no thief could climb except he fall; Temples huge beyond all sense, just as broad as they were tall, rivalled Heavens noblest hall. XI. Mothers forsook their own houses, drowned their children to get free. Divorced husbands took new spouses, one, two, one to three. What mattered most was youthful beauty, and doctors reaped great fortunes quick as former beauties paid their fee to trim their lamps and light the wick of passions flame once fierce and thick. XII. Men no longer sought out womens love in married sanctity; They caged young lads in padded pens, or dressed in their best finery, granting use of each his body, or, by doctors art, turned full harlot, granting favors for no fee, waxing lewd most violently, murdered, murdering just as freely. XIII. Children ruled from tyrant thrones, sceptered fools ran fullest riot. Youth for money married crones, everywhere signs said, Why not try it? Portraying vices as good diet, Pied Pipers led off foolish young, producing music so theyd buy it, magic crystals in which theyd sung roared with sound, on each neck hung. XIV. With God grown dim, themselves too great, the Titans schemed to set their name beyond twin earths--fast fell their fate! For their rebuff, themselves earned blame, realm on realm was lost, all gilt with fame As later Shinars tongue divided, work all stopped, and people scattered, lost single aim; for many years their Tongue was lopped-- for God had willed it never topped. XV. O world! Swelled great and fell, birthed from sins fruit lethal! The lyre here grows loath to tell more former things so ignoble that shame prevents a story whole! Against such things old Noah built the ark the righteous few would fill until the flood shrank down to silt, and God had washed away all guilt. XVI. Alas! This wont do. I cannot go on!!!!!!  It is a great pity that the Vision of Don Roderick, Codex X, has come down to us unfinished, for it seems to have a most promising start. Sir Walter Scott was an insatiable antiquarian, as is well known. His Abbotsbury manse was a collection point for curios from India, China, Greece, Roma, and even the more esoteric cultures and defunct kingdoms of Assyria, Sumer, and Eskual Herria, the long-deceased realm of the Basque people in Spain which once knew more glorious days than the present. From a remark of Scotts to a visitor, Monsignor Valle de Pupienus Bombin, a don from the north of Spain, a certain antiquity was ascribed to the Basques legacy taking the form of a primitive Mercator, if you will. From it the following scheme for the globe is deduced, which, we trust, can shed some pale gleam on the subject matter of the Vision as it depicted pre-Adamic races [Ed.]: The Atlantean Hegemonic Model for the Co-Prosperity Sphere Governing Earth II after the Donation of Iskander Lords and Ladies of Atlantis [Oligarchic Golden Ruling Head] ------------------------- Algol East-West Rom [Two Serpentine Pillars of the World State] ------------------------------- Human races, not including the Romany [Base: The World Tortoise: Subjects being forced Human Labor and Plasma Source] Secondly, a chronological system can be achieved from the Vision together with other sources at hand that may prove helpful to the student of the pre-Adamic races and civilisations [Ed.]: Timeline for Bibliographical Fragment of Poem, First Draft, The Visions of Don Roderick by Sir Walter Scott 100,000 BC-? Mukalia destroyed----------------Garden of Eden------------------9,500 BC Atlantis destroyed -------------------------4000BC ? Noah and the World Flood----------------3000 BC ? Tower of Babel/Confusion of Mans Languages-------------------2000 BC? 1900? 1800BC? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph----------------1200-1100 BC? 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