Thom Shaw 2004

Below is the translation of an engraving, found in 1843 by Golda Herzfeld, discovered by chance in cave systems at the foot of Mount Sinai. The original text was in an unknown language and the secrets of its translation died with Herzfeld in 1878, when she was consumed by fire. There are no other records of this discovery. The engraving itself was lost three years after its discovery.

"Praise be! The Lord is One!"

"THE WORLD IS MY THOUGHT, AND IN THE THOUGHT IS THE BECOMING. SO; BECOMES! AND IN THE BECOMING CAME ME. THE WORLD RAN THROUGH THE CRACKS OF ME AND WAS!"

"Praise be! The Lord is One!"

"THE LAMENT IS MY THOUGHT; THE WORLD’S FLATULENCE* BLOWS ME AND I SHAKE. BETWEEN ME IS THE IS AND THE WAS. AND IN THE WORLD IS THE WILL. THE FIRES OF THOUGHT BURN LONG, AND BURN WILL INTO THE WORLD. THIS IS THE LAMENT!"

"Praise be! The Lord is One!"

"THE WILL IS MY THOUGHT; IT IS IN THE SONS OF FATHERS OF THE WORLD, IN THE SONGS OF THE WINDS OF THE WORLD. IT IS THE WORLD. THE WHEEL OF ME TURNED AND THE BLACK WAS WHITE. AND WILL BE SO! IN THE BLACK OF THE EYE OF THAT WHICH SEES IS THE FIRE OF THOUGHT; THE BURNING WILL. I BEAR THE WILL AND SHOW IT TO THE WORLD. SEE! THE WILL IS SHOWN AND THE WORLD CANNOT FORGET. THE WORLD BEARS THE WILL AND SHOWS IT TO MAN. SEEK! THE WILL IS FOUND AND MAN CANNOT FORGET. IN THE BLACK OF THE EYE OF THAT WHICH SEES SEEK THE WILL. AND AT ITS FEET SEEK THE PATH!"

* Editor’s note: Flatulence, possibly "windiness".

I discovered this article whilst examining the discontinuity in the number of pages in two differing reproductions of volume XLVI of The Revised Anglo-American Cyclopaedia, after observing that one copy had 917 pages and the other 922. One the missing pages was the above translation, and various shards of information regarding its discovery, its loss, and the refutation from the Blessed Pope of its existence. Of the remaining three the subject was a country named Uqbar, of which I had never heard before or since. The following day I travelled to stay with a theologian, Yu Tsun. I have endeavoured to meet Tsun on many occasions, but the utterance of his name flashes terror on faces and tears on cheeks. Even on the very edges of a meeting he evades me, but he always gets his message through, in some way or other.

I was to meet Him at his country retreat in Gloucestershire. I went, he did not, nor did he ever; the land where the meeting was supposed to take place was owned by a wildlife sanctuary of sorts, and Tsun had no part in it. I had hoped to talk with him of the Will, and of the destruction of all the evidence for the text. Tsun was the answer to the question, but not all answers are spoken. I toured the sanctuary with the engraving on my mind and I chanced on a Tawny owl watching, and fire was in its eyes. It told me it was called Golda. She said the engraving would never make sense, but that the world alludes to The Will and for this reason she thought that her feet would interest me. In its I.D. ring was a small piece of yellow paper with the following written, in black ink, on it:

Fremder:

Wir sind alle wir eine Reihenfolge der Stillen, die in Bewegung auf dem Radder Tätigkeit verwischen.

Stranger:

We are all of us a succession of stillnesses blurring into motion on the wheel of action.

- from Fremder

I let the bird go and it flew. Golda, with the path at her feet and the will in her eyes, is probably still flying around in Chedworth Woods. The owner of the sanctuary claims that a schoolboy came to I.D. Golda on the fourth of November with a sheet of yellow paper, doing some Birthday celebration or other.