Stories[]
Dying Earth[]
Ramayana[]
The Lamplighter[]
The Odyssey[]
Tales[]
The Pigeons of Old Earth[]
The Pigeons of Old Earth is a story Quinn once told Roque when he was feeling lost. in turn, Roque shared the story with Darrow when he was feeling lost shortly before the Gala.[1]
"Once, in the days of Old Earth, there were two pigeons who were greatly in love. In those days, they raised such animals to carry messages across great distances. These two were born in the same cage, raised by the same man, and sold on the same day to different men on the eve of a great war.
The pigeons suffered apart from on each other, each incomplete without their lover. Far and wide their masters took them, and the pigeons feared they would never again find each other, for they began to see how vast the world was, and how terrible the things in it. For months and months, they carried messages for their masters, flying over battle lines, through the air over men who killed one another for land. When the war ended, the pigeons were set free by their masters. But neither knew where to go, neither knew what to do, so each flew home. And there they found each other again, as they were always destined to return home and find, instead of their past, their future."
Golback the Dark Creeper[]
Golback the Dark Creeper is an old ghost story in Red culture.[2]
The Blind Copper[]
The Story of the Blind Copper was told to a young Glirastes by his instructing Master Maker, to inspire him on the importance in the beauty of architecture.
"When I was a young apprentice, my Master Maker told me of a Copper with a disease of the eye. One which surpassed even our civilization's ingenuity to cure. When he felt his vision finally fading, he went to a bench and sat before the Library of Heliopolis. Each day he went, and his world grew smaller and darker until one day his sight was gone entirely. For years afterward, he would go to that bench and sit, and in the darkness he could still see the green copper dome, the Philsopher Kings in their marbled glory, the Water Gardens and the Orbital Torch. Of all the things he wanted to remember, it was the beauty of architecture."
After Glirastes unveiled his greatest design, The Water Colossus, he felt empty. Discovering that the Blind Copper was still alive, he went to visit him. When asked about the story, the Copper replied:
"I didn't go for the building. I went to feed the pigeons, and watch the children play in the water, and the families line up for sweets, and to see boys flirt with girls."
Glirastes then understood what his Master had told him was wrong. The Copper went to see life, not buildings, and adjusted his architectural designs to instead celebrate life.[3]
Poems[]
Paradise Lost[]
Paradise Lost is an epic poem by 17th-century English poet John Milton, and is highly revered in Gold culture. The epic poem is separated in ten books (later revised into twelve) and follows the Fall of Man and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
Kavax told Virginia to memorize all of it before meeting his son, Daxo. Adrius quotes the following line to his father before killing him:[4]
"So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear.
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good."
Till the Last[]
"Brothers, sisters, till the last
Woe that this has come to pass,
By your grave, I shall weep
For it was I who made you sleep."[5]
Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun[]
Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun is a poem by William Shakspeare from his play "Cymbeline." It is one of Roque's favorites, and a section was spoken by Darrow during his funeral.[6]
"Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."
Cancelled Fragments of Julian and Maddalo[]
The Cancelled Fragments of Julian and Maddalo is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Kalindora au San shares the following line while she and Lysander au Lune exchange poetry in the Waste of Ladon.[7]
"What think you the dead are? Why, dust and clay,
What should they be? 'Tis the last hour of day.
Look on the west, how beautiful it is
Vaulted with radiant vapours! The deep bliss
of that unutterable light
Is the unheeded clanking of my chains,
The which I make, and call it melody. "
Prometheus Unbound[]
Prometheus Unbound is a four-act play by Percy Bysshe Shelley published in 1820, which follows the Roman God of fire, Prometheus. Lysander au Lune shares the following line while he and Kalindora au San exchange poetry in the Waste of Ladon.[7]
"While the lips are calm and the eyes cold, the spirit weeps within."
To the True Romance[]
To the True Romance is an 1891 poem by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling is the favorite poet of Seneca au Cern, and the following passage is quoted to him before Lysander decapitates him.[8]
"Time hath no tide but must abide
The servant of Thy will;
Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme
The ranging stars and still-
Regent of spheres that lock our fears
Our hopes invisible,
Oh 'twas certes at Thy decree
We fashioned Heaven and Hell!
Cities and Thrones and Powers[]
Cities and Thrones and Powers is another poem by Rudyard Kipling. It is one of the favorite poem of Glirastes, and Lysander quotes the following when commenting on a city he designed off Lysander's eye, Oculus.[3]
"Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,
The Cities rise again."
Priapeia[]
Priapeia is a Latin poem by Catullus. It was considered such an inappropriate poem that it didn't get a Modern English translation until 1999. It was spoken first in Latin by Atlas au Raa to Darrow, who translated it into Old English for Screwface. [9]
| Latin Translation | Old English Translation | Modern English Translation |
|---|---|---|
| Pedicabere, fur, semel; sed idem si deprensus eris bis, irrumabo. quod si tertia furta molieris, ut poenam patiare et hanc et illam, pedicaberis irrumaberisque. |
Thief, for first thieving shalt be swived, but an Again arrested shalt be irrumate; And, shouldst attempt to plunder time the third, This and that penalty thou shalt endure, Being both pedicate and irrumate. |
You’ll get ass-raped, thief, for the first time. If you’re caught again, I'll face-fuck you. Should you try a third incursion, just to suffer both together, you’ll give me a fuck and fellatio in sequence. |
Prometheus Bound[]
Prometheus Bound is a play by Aeschylus written in 430 BCE. Lysander recites the following section to Alexandar au Arcos before killing him.[10]
"Ye labour for your fall
With your own hands! Not by surprise
Nor yet by stealth, but with clear eyes,
Knowing the thing ye do."