The Forerunner

April 4th, 2006

God’s Fool

Once there came from the desert to the great city of Sharia a man who was a dreamer, and he had naught but his garment and staff.
And as he walked through the streets he gazed with awe and wonder at the temples and towers and palaces, for the city of Sharia was of surpassing beauty. [...]

April 4th, 2006

Love

They say the jackal and the mole
Drink from the self-same stream
Where the lion comes to drink.
And they say the eagle and the vulture
Dig their beaks into the same carcass,
And are at peace, one with the other,
In the presence of the dead thing.
O love, whose lordly hand
Has bridled my desires,
And raised my hunger and my thirst
To [...]

April 4th, 2006

The King Hermit

They told me that in a forest among the mountains lives a young man in solitude who once was a king of a vast country beyond the Two Rivers. And they also said that he, of his own will, had left his throne and the land of his glory and come to dwell in the [...]

April 4th, 2006

The Lion’s Daughter

Four slaves stood fanning an old queen who was asleep upon her throne. And she was snoring. And upon the queen’s lap a cat lay purring and gazing lazily at the slaves.
The first slave spoke, and said, “How ugly this old woman is in her sleep. See her mouth droop; and she breathes as if [...]

April 4th, 2006

Tyranny

Thus sings the She-Dragon that guards the seven caves by the sea:

"My mate shall come riding on the waves. His thundering roar shall fill the earth with fear, and the flames of his nostrils shall set the sky afire. At the eclipse of the moon we shall be wedded, and at the eclipse of the [...]

April 4th, 2006

The Saint

In my youth I once visited a saint in his silent grove beyond the hills; and as we were conversing upon the nature of virtue a brigand came limping wearily up the ridge. When he reached the grove he knelt down before the saint and said, "O saint, I would be comforted! My sins are [...]

April 4th, 2006

The Plutocrat

In my wanderings I once saw upon an island a man-headed, iron-hoofed monster who ate of the earth and drank of the sea incessantly. And for a long while I watched him. Then I approached him and said, "Have you never enough; is your hunger never satisfied and your thirst never quenched?"

And he answered saying, [...]

April 4th, 2006

The Greater Self

This came to pass. After the coronation of Nufsibaäl, King of Byblus, he retired to his bedchamber — the very room which the three hermit-magicians of the mountains had built for him. He took off his crown and his royal raiment, and stood in the centre of the room thinking of himself, now the all-powerful [...]