Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

meets in Tomar, after forty-six years of silence.It had met in 1573, only eleven years before 1584, probably toprepare, along with the English, the Paris journey, but after thebusiness of the Rosicrucian manifestoes it meets again, to decidewhat line to take, whether to join the English operation or try adifferent path."

"Yes," Belbo said,"these are now people lost in a maze: some choose one path, someanother; some shout for help, and there's no telling if the repliesthey hear are other voices or the echo of their own...They all aregroping. And what are the Paulicians and the Jerusalemites doing inthe meantime?"

"If we only knew,"Diotallevi said. "But consider, too, that this is the period whenLurianic cabala spreads and the talk about the Breaking of theVessels begins...And the idea that the Torah is an incompletemessage. There is a Polish Hasidic document that says: If anotherevent takes place, other combinations of letters will be born. Butremember this: the cabalists aren't happy that the Germans chose tojump the gun. The proper succession and order of the Torah haveremained hidden, and they are known only by the Holy One, praisedbe He. But you make me talk nonsense. If cabala becomes involved inthe Plan...."

"If the Plan exists, itmust involve everything. Either it explains all or it explainsnothing," Belbo said. "But Casaubon mentioned a clue."

"Yes. Actually, it's aseries of clues. Even before that 1584 meeting fails, John Dee hasbegun devoting himself to the study of maps and the promotion ofnaval expeditions. And who is his associate? Pedro Nunes, the royalcosmographer of Portugal...Dee has a hand in the voyages todiscover the Northwest Passage to Cathay; he invests money in theexpedition of a certain Frobisher, who ventures toward the Pole andreturns with an Eskimo, whom everybody takes for a Mongol. Deefires up Francis Drake and encourages him to make his voyage aroundthe world. However, he wants the explorers to sail east, becausethe East is the source of all occult knowledge, and at thedeparture of one expedition¡XI forget which¡Xhe summons theangels."

"And what does thismean?"

"Dee, I think, isn'treally interested so much in the actual discovery of places, as intheir cartographic depiction, and for this reason he consultsMercator and Ortelius, the great cartographers. It's as if thefragments of the message in his possession have convinced him thatthe final whole will be a map, and he is attempting to discover iton his own. Indeed, I'll say more, like Signer Garamond. Is itreally likely that a scholar of his standing would have missed thediscrepancy between the calendars? Perhaps Dee wants to reconstructthe message himself, without the other groups. Perhaps he thinksthe message can be reconstructed by magic or scientific means,instead of waiting for the Plan to be achieved. Impatience, greed.The bourgeois conqueror is born, and the principle of solidaritythat sustained the spiritual knighthood is breaking down. If thiswas Dee's idea, you can imagine what Bacon thought. From Dee on,the English try to discover the message by using all the secrets ofthe new learning."

"And theGermans?"

"The Germans....We'dbetter have them stick to the path of Tradition. That way we canexplain at least two centuries of their history of philosophy.Anglo-Saxon empiricism versus romantic idealism..."

"Chapter by chapter, weare reconstructing the history of the world," Diotallevi said. "Weare rewriting the Book. I like it, I really like it."

73

Another curious case ofcryptography was presented to the public in 1917 by one of the bestBacon scholars, Dr. Alfred von Weber Ebenhoff of Vienna. Employingthe same systems previously applied to the works of Shakespeare, hebegan to examine the works of Cervantes...Pursuing theinvestigation, he discovered overwhelming material evidence: thefirst English translation of Don Quixote bears corrections inBacon's hand. He concluded that this English version was theoriginal of the novel and that Cervantes had published a Spanishtranslation of it.

¡XJ. Duchaussoy, Bacon,Shakespeare ou Saint-Germain?, Paris, La Colombe, 1962, p.122

It seemed obvious to methat in the days that followed Jacopo Belbo immersed himself inhistorical works on the Rosy Cross period. But when he reported hisfindings, he gave us only the bare outline of his fantasies, fromwhich we drew valuable suggestions. I know now that in fact he wascreating a far richer narrative on Abulafia, one in which a wildplay of quotations mingled with his private myths. The opportunityof combining fragments of other stories spurred him to write hisown. He never mentioned this to us. I still think he was, quitecourageously, testing his talent in the realm of fiction. Or elsehe was defining himself in the Great Story he was distorting likeany ordinary Diabolical.

FILENAME: The Cabinet ofDr. Dee

For a long time I forgotI was Talbot. From the time, at least, of my decision to callmyself Kelley. All I had done, really, was to falsify somedocuments, like everybody else. The queen's men were merciless. Tocover what's left of my poor severed ears I am forced to wear thispointed black cap, and people murmur that I am a sorcerer. So beit. Dr. Dee, with a similar reputation, flourishes.

I went to see him inMortlake. He was examining a map. He was evasive, the diabolicalold man. Sinister glints in his shrewd eyes. His bony hand strokinghis little goatee.

"It's a manuscript ofRoger Bacon," he said to me, "and was lent me by the EmperorRudolf. Do you know Prague? I advise you to visit it. You may findsomething there that will change your life. Tabula locorum rerum etthesaurorum absconditorum Menabani..."

Stealing a glance, I sawsomething written in a secret alphabet. But the doctor immediatelyhid the manuscript under a pile of other yellowed pages. Howbeautiful to live in a period where every page, even if it has justcome from the papermaker's workshop, is yellowed.

I showed Dr. Dee some ofmy efforts, mainly my poems about the Dark Lady¡Xradiant image ofmy childhood, dark because reclaimed by the shadow of time andsnatched from my possession¡Xand a tragic sketch, the story ofSeven Seas Jim, who returns to England in the train of Sir WalterRalegh and learns that his father has been murdered by his ownincestuous brother. Henbane.

"You're gifted, Kelley,"Dee said to me. "And you need money. There's a young man, thenatural son of someone you couldn't dare imagine, and I want tohelp