© Gunnar Tómasson

21 May 2017

I. Blaise Pascal – Man as a Thinking Reed¹

(Pensées, fragment # 347)

289976

17017 = Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature,

9549 = but he is a thinking reed.

18400 = There is no need for the whole universe

13637 = to take up arms to crush him:

20794 = a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him.

20856 = But even if the universe were to crush him,

18499 = man would still be nobler than his slayer,

14204 = because he knows that he is dying

17770 = and the advantage the universe has over him.

16655 = The universe knows none of this.

21212 = Thus all our dignity consists in thought.

27096 = It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery,

21645 = not on space and time, which we could never fill.

17297 = Let us then strive to think well;

17207 = that is the basic principle of morality.

Thought

18138 = „At the level of Man, God is Consciousness.“

289976

II + III = 273997 + 15979 = 289976

IV + V = 8703 + 281273 = 289976

II. Sturla Þórðarson – Saga Myth²

(Grettissaga, Chapter 93)

273997

25951 = Hefir Sturla lögmaðr svá sagt, at engi sekr maðr þykki honum

24513 = jafnmikill fyrir sér hafa verit sem Grettir inn sterki.

15728 = Finnr hann til þess þrjár greinir.

23501 = Þá fyrst, at honum þykkir hann vitrastr verit hafa,

22841 = því at hann hefir verit lengst í sekð einnhverr manna

15979 = ok varð aldri unninn, meðan hann var heill;                                                     

21611 = þá aðra, at hann var sterkastr á landinu sinna jafnaldra

21697 = ok meir til lagðr at koma af aftrgöngum ok reimleikum

5070 = en aðrir menn;

19024 = sú in þriðja, at hans var hefnt út í Miklagarði

20288 = sem einskis annars íslenzks manns, ok þat með,

20657 = hverr giftumaðr Þorsteinn drómundr varð

18975 = á sínum efstu dögum, sá inn sami, er hans hefndi.

18162 = Lýkr hér sögu Grettis Ásmundarsonar.

273997

III. …ok varð aldri unninn, meðan hann var heill

(And was never overcome while he was hale)

Cipher Value 15979

(Construction G. T.)

Saga Holy Sepulchre

  5979 = Girth House – Orkney Islands

Spiritual Wisdom

  5596 = Andlig spekðin

Earthly Understanding

 -6960 = Jarðlig skilning

Brennu-Njálssaga

Perfect Man/Brave New World

11364 = Þorgeirr skorargeirr

15979

IV. Locus of Pagan/Man-Beast‘s Transformation

(Construction G. T.)

8703

 6067 = Miðeyjarhólmr – Mid-island islet

Holy Sepulchre

Opens

 4000 = Flaming Sword – Cosmic Creative Power

Spiritual Wisdom

 5596 = Andlig spekðin

Earthly Understanding

-6960 = Jarðlig skilning

  8703

V. A New Breed of Men Sent Down From Heaven³

(Virgil, Fourth Eclogue)

281273

16609 = Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas;

20087 = Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

18681 = Iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna,

18584 = Iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.

20229 = Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum

18431 = Desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,

17698 = Casta fave Lucina: tuus iam regnat Apollo.

18480 = Teque adeo decus hoc aevi te consule, inibit,

18919 = Pollio, et incipient magni procedere menses;

22004 = Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,

20495 = Inrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.

18330 = Ille deum vitam accipiet divisque videbit

20448 = Permixtos heroas et ipse videbitur illis

22153 = Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.

A New Breed of Men

True Man and True God

10125 = Sannr Maðr ok Sannr Guð*

281273

* 13th century Icelandic term for Jesus Christ

VI. Edward Oxenford – Man in God‘s Image

(Shakespeare Authorship Issue)

885864

Let There Be Light

  1000 = Light of the World

Consciousness

289976 = I

289976 = II/III

289976 = IV/V

Edward de Vere‘s Transformation

    7936 = Edward Oxenford

Man in God‘s Image

    7000 = Microcosmos

885864

VII. The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke.

(Act III, Sc. i, First Folio, 1623)

885864

  5415 = Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

18050 = To be, or not to be, that is the Question:

19549 = Whether ’tis Nobler in the minde to suffer

23467 = The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,

17893 = Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,

16211 = And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe

13853 = No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end

20133 = The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes

19800 = That Flesh is heyre too?  ‘Tis a consummation

17421 = Deuoutly to be wish’d. To dye to sleepe,

19236 = To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there’s the rub,

19794 = For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,

21218 = When we haue shufflel’d off this mortall coile,

20087 = Must giue vs pawse. There’s the respect

13898 = That makes Calamity of so long life:

24656 = For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,

24952 = The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,

18734 = The pangs of dispriz’d Loue, the Lawes delay,

16768 = The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes

20720 = That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,

17879 = When he himselfe might his Quietus make

21696 = With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare

17807 = To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,

17426 = But that the dread of something after death,

21935 = The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne

20927 = No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,

19000 = And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,

20119 = Then flye to others that we know not of.

20260 = Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,

18787 = And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution

21086 = Is sicklied o’re, with the pale cast of Thought,

17836 = And enterprizes of great pith and moment,

22968 = With this regard their Currants turne away,

18723 = And loose the name of Action.  Soft you now,

16746 = The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons

9726 = Be all my sinnes remembred.

Ophelia

5047 = Good my Lord,

17675 = How does your Honor for this many a day?

Hamlet

17391 = I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.

Ophelia

15437 = My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours,

14927 = That I haue longed long to re-deliuer.

12985 = I pray you now, receiue them.

Hamlet

12520 = No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.

Ophelia

19402 = My honor’d Lord, I know right well you did,

24384 = And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d,

19172 = As made the things more rich, then perfume left:

14959 = Take these againe, for to the Noble minde

24436 = Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.

5753 = There my Lord.

Consummation Deuoutly to be Wish´d

Hamlet/Ophelia

    7000 = Microcosmos – Man in God´s Image

885864

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm

¹ Penguin Classics, 1966, reprint 1973, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer, p. 95.

²Grettissaga – Loose translation

Sturla law-speaker has said that in his view no outlaw as been as mighty as Grettir the strong. He gives three reasons for that view. First, he deems him to have been the wisest man because he had been an outlaw longer than anyone else and was never overcome while he was hale; second, that he was stronger than all his peers and better able to handle spectres and hauntings than other men; and third, that his death was avenged in Constantinople, as no other Icelander has been, and also how fortunate [his brother] Þorsteinn dómundr became in his final days, the same as avenged him.  Here ends the saga of Grettir Ásmundarson.

³A New Breed of Men Sent Down From Heaven

Now the last age by Cumae’s Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn’s reign, with a new breed of men send down from heaven.  Only do thou, at the boy’s birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; ‘tis thine own Apollo reigns.  And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march.  Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear.  He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father’s worth reign o’er a world of peace.

ADDENDUM

The Once And Future King

(Giorgio Santillana)

This is meant to be only an essay.  It is a first reconnaissance of a realm well-nigh unexplored and uncharted.  From whichever way one enters it, one is caught in the same bewildering circular complexity, as in a labyrinth, for it has no deductive order in the abstract sense, but instead resembles an organism tightly closed in itself, or even better, a monumental „Art of the Fugue.“

The figure of Hamlet as a favorable starting point came by chance.  Many other avenues offered themselves, rich in strange symbols and beckoning with great images, but the choice went to Hamlet because he led the mind on a truly inductive quest through a familiar landscape – and one which has the merit of its literary setting.  Here is a character deeply present to our awareness, in whom ambiguities and uncertainties, tormented self-questioning and dispassionate insight give a presentiment of the modern mind.  His personal drama was that he had to be a hero, but still try to avoid the role Destiny assigned him.  His lucid intellect remained above the conflict of motives – in other words, his was and is a truly contemporary consciousness.  And yet this character whom the poet made one of us, the first unhappy intellectual, concealed a past as a legendary being, his features predetermined, preshaped by long-standing myth.  There was a numinous aura around him, and many clues led up to him.  But it was a surprise to find behind the mask an ancient and all-embracing cosmic power – the original master of the dreamed-of first age of the world.

Yet in all his guises he remained strangely himself.  The original Amlóði, as his name was in Icelandic legend, shows the same characteristics of melancholy and high intellect.  He, too, is a son dedicated to avenge his father, a speaker of cryptic but inescapable truths, an elusive carrier of Fate who must yield once his mission is accomplished and sink once more into concealment in the depths of time to which he belongs:  Lord of the Golden Age, the Once and Future King.

This essay will follow the figure farther and farther afield, from the Northland to Rome, from there to Finland, Iran, and India; he will appear again unmistakably in Polynesian legend.  Many other Dominions and Powers will materialize to frame him within the proper order.

Amlóði was identified, in the crude and vivid imagery of the Norse, by the ownership of a fabled mill which, in his own time, ground out peace and plenty.  Later, in decaying times, it ground out salt; and now finally, having landed at the bottom of the sea, it is grinding rock and sand, creating a vast whirlpool, the Maelstrom (i.e. the grinding stream, from the [Icelandic] verb mala, „to grind“), which is supposed to be a way to the land of the dead.  This imagery stands, as the evidence develops, for an astronomical process, the secular shifting of the sun through the signs of the zodiac which determines world-ages, each numbering thousands of years.  Each age brings a World Era, a Twilight of the Gods.  Great structures collapse; pillars topple which supported the great fabric; floods and cataclysms herald the shaping of a new world. (Hamlet’s Mill – An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time, 1969; Second Paperback Edition, David R. Godine, Publisher, Boston, 1983, pp. 1-2.)