[fable] The True Story of Atlantis
There once was a very great realm called Atlantis, the ultimate sinking of which beneath the sea is a renown tragedy shrouded in the mists of legend.
Atlantis was founded by a great magus, whose name has been lost to the waves. He sailed forth upon the ocean and, under the appropriate conjunctions of stars, by a great working of lore called up from the deeps a Leviathan. He spake unto this sea monster in the Old Tongue, and said, "I have bound you by charms of star and sun and moon, I have bound you by charms of name. I shall set my tower upon your vast back, and you shall bear me and mine on the waters."
"I shall bear thee, yea, but down into the deep. For do you not know that if I do not eat a pearl from each of the seven seas in every year, I shall perish? Bind your fate to me and you seal your doom."
"This I have reckoned," replied the magus. "Every year I shall have for you your seven pearls from the seven seas -- seven times! No more must you wander the ocean in striving, but I shall bring to you a feast."
"Ah, for such a feast, I would gladly bear you upon my back, wheresoever you would go, charms or no."
So the magus raised his tower upon the Behemoth's back. He returned, then, in his own ship to the port from which he sailed, and he went unto a prince of the king that was there. "Oh Young Prince," he said, "You have no inheritance of your father the king, for that you are not first born. But for a simple price, I shall give you a new land."
"What is this land? And what is this price?" asked the prince.
"This land is a new land, and empty; it is to you to bring what people you may. The price is seven pearls, each one from a different of the seven seas, in every year that you abide there. No more fealty would you e'er owe."
"That is a modest price!" The prince went before the king, and sought the king's blessing for this endeavor; the king was glad of it. So the prince returned with the magus to the tower upon the sea monster, and lo! there were green fields upon the scale back of the beast. The prince and his people found that is was a good land and settled upon it.
The magus then bid the beast to take them to a different sea; there, he sailed to another port, and spoke to another prince. Thus it was in each of the seven seas, that he struck the pact of the seven pearls from seven seas with a prince, and thus it was that seven realms we founded upon the back of the Leviathan.
At the ending of the year, the magus called the seven princes to his tower with their tribute. Each arrived in splendid procession. Each vied with the others to show that his seven pearls were larger, finer, and more beautiful than those of the others.
The magus told to them the terms under which the Leviathan bore them. "Should you fail to bring your seven pearls, the beast which bears us will fail in strength, and sink to the bottom of the sea, and all us with it." With that, he took the seven-times-seven pearls, and he cast them into the beast's maw. The humbled princes swore that they would never fail, and that they would set up temples and priests to forever keep holy this pact.
So it was that the seven realms of Atlantis were founded, and there they flourished. The temples raised up by the princes and the priests therein kept as a holy rite the seeking of the seven pearls of tribute, for many centuries.
Though great in arcane mysteries, the magus was but mortal, and went the way of all mortals in his time.
It was hundreds of years later that first a prince of Atlantis sent false tribute. A slovenly priest decided, "What great expense it is to send ships to the seven seas! And for what? One pearl is very like another. And do not all the seas share waters?" Thus satisfied, he had but one ship go forth to procure seven pearls, and saved to himself the expense of the other six journeys.
So that year, of the seven tributes, one did not consist of a pearl from each of the seven seas. But since there was (in each of the others) a pearl of every sea, the beast that bore them did not sicken and fail.
It was only after the tribute had been made, that the priest told his prince that the tribute had been false. At first the prince was furious with fear. "Why are you angry, my prince?" said the priest, "Are we not still whole and well? What ill came of it?" Seeing this was true, the prince burst out laughing, in relief and delight at the priest's cleverness. His delight was all the greater when the priest made to him a magnificent gift from the horded wealth. From then on, that prince's realm sent seven pearls more easily gotten, and much of the wealth gleaned by the temple flowed into the prince's coffers.
In time, the other princes noted how prosperous was this one among them. And in time, the secret was shared. Each of the seven realms came to send pearls from but a single sea. But since each prince was tied by ties of blood to an earthly kingdom by a different sea, they each sought their pearls from a different sea. And so the Leviathan did not sicken.
So it was for many more centuries.
Then came a priest who wanted power, and to this end he bade the seven princes of the seven realms that there should be but one temple, not seven, and that he should be the priest of priests. The pact of the pearls was too important, he argued, to be left to seven different temples. What if one should fail? Better by far to have a single temple to ensure that all the pearls were gotten in time.
The princes laughed in his face and bid him be gone. They did not wish to lose wealth their temples brought!
But the people remembered this idea of there being but one temple, a temple of temples. And when rebellion next stirred, as it does from time to time, in the breasts of men, it raised the banner of a single temple. The seven temples, the rebels claimed, were the tools of the seven princes -- and they were not wholly wrong in saying so. It was under the banner of piety and "uniting" the temples that the reigning princes were overthrown, and new princes set up in their place; and so the seven temples were made one.
It was decided, then, that since there were no longer seven temples, there need be no longer seven tributes. But, for that it was tradition, the temple sent out seven ships, each to the ancestral origins of each of the seven realms.
No longer was tribute made of seven-times-seven pearls, but since each pearl was of a different one of the seven seas, the behemoth did not sicken. If he resented his feast not served, he had not the language of man to make his displeasure known. Indeed, over all the long centuries of prosperousness, the Atlantese had builded up great cities and farms, and nowhere could the nature of their isle be seen. The citizens of Atlantis had quite forgotten why it was they paid tribute; some knew the stories, but took them for fancies, or edifying allegories. Few of Atlantis believed their land to be upon the back of a great sea monster.
And for all that, the magus' charms held the beast to his purpose, though the magus was long dead.
Need the sorrowful tale be told out? Can the dismal end not be seen from here? Ah, but it could not from there, could it? Had they seen from that time the waves of the future crashing down upon their walls and roofs, their fields and arbors, their libraries and markets, and the dark, dark deep swallowing them all up, would not they have done other than they did? And they did not.
In the end, it was the weakness of a single ship's captain which brought the cold thundering waters up over Atlantis. The season was near ended; time grew short as the weather grew foul. He chose to make a nearer port, and he swore his men to secrecy. He made his deal thinking himself an enlightened man for throwing off the yoke of superstition, and bought a fine showy pearl for the rite. They bided there in comfort for long enough to cover for the journey they did not make, then returned to Atlantis.
At first nothing happened. The pearls were cast into the sea, and the ceremony completed with all its traditional pomp. The good people of Atlantis went back to their homes to greet the start of a new year. They smiled and laughed along their way, wishing their neighbors well for the coming year, all unwitting that they were already numbered among dead.
But on the turn of the year, the ground beneath their feet trembled. A groan deeper and more terrible than the grinding of stone rose up from beneath them. The beast shuddered with its fate, and the spires and walls began to tumble. The earth heaved and the buildings fell.
Then the beast cried out its last, and sank beneath the waves, and Atlantis perished and was no more.
Wherein may we find the fault? With the founders for building upon so unstable a rock? They knowing full well found it not so. With those fools who fooled themselves in first thinking they fooled others? None died by their hands. With those who were turned from their sacred responsibilities by political aspiration? They knew not the purpose of what they dismantled. With those upon whom greater responsibility rested than rightly they understood or believed?
Is that not, in the end, all of them?
Those who went to their deaths drew their last watery breath bewildered and betrayed, thinking they had kept their pact. Had not their society done as the generation before had? Had they not done as that generation told them they must? Through their history, each change for the ill which made their seat more perilous was accepted because its ill was not felt, so it was embraced; once accepted, it became tradition itself.
Atlantis was founded by a great magus, whose name has been lost to the waves. He sailed forth upon the ocean and, under the appropriate conjunctions of stars, by a great working of lore called up from the deeps a Leviathan. He spake unto this sea monster in the Old Tongue, and said, "I have bound you by charms of star and sun and moon, I have bound you by charms of name. I shall set my tower upon your vast back, and you shall bear me and mine on the waters."
"I shall bear thee, yea, but down into the deep. For do you not know that if I do not eat a pearl from each of the seven seas in every year, I shall perish? Bind your fate to me and you seal your doom."
"This I have reckoned," replied the magus. "Every year I shall have for you your seven pearls from the seven seas -- seven times! No more must you wander the ocean in striving, but I shall bring to you a feast."
"Ah, for such a feast, I would gladly bear you upon my back, wheresoever you would go, charms or no."
So the magus raised his tower upon the Behemoth's back. He returned, then, in his own ship to the port from which he sailed, and he went unto a prince of the king that was there. "Oh Young Prince," he said, "You have no inheritance of your father the king, for that you are not first born. But for a simple price, I shall give you a new land."
"What is this land? And what is this price?" asked the prince.
"This land is a new land, and empty; it is to you to bring what people you may. The price is seven pearls, each one from a different of the seven seas, in every year that you abide there. No more fealty would you e'er owe."
"That is a modest price!" The prince went before the king, and sought the king's blessing for this endeavor; the king was glad of it. So the prince returned with the magus to the tower upon the sea monster, and lo! there were green fields upon the scale back of the beast. The prince and his people found that is was a good land and settled upon it.
The magus then bid the beast to take them to a different sea; there, he sailed to another port, and spoke to another prince. Thus it was in each of the seven seas, that he struck the pact of the seven pearls from seven seas with a prince, and thus it was that seven realms we founded upon the back of the Leviathan.
At the ending of the year, the magus called the seven princes to his tower with their tribute. Each arrived in splendid procession. Each vied with the others to show that his seven pearls were larger, finer, and more beautiful than those of the others.
The magus told to them the terms under which the Leviathan bore them. "Should you fail to bring your seven pearls, the beast which bears us will fail in strength, and sink to the bottom of the sea, and all us with it." With that, he took the seven-times-seven pearls, and he cast them into the beast's maw. The humbled princes swore that they would never fail, and that they would set up temples and priests to forever keep holy this pact.
So it was that the seven realms of Atlantis were founded, and there they flourished. The temples raised up by the princes and the priests therein kept as a holy rite the seeking of the seven pearls of tribute, for many centuries.
Though great in arcane mysteries, the magus was but mortal, and went the way of all mortals in his time.
It was hundreds of years later that first a prince of Atlantis sent false tribute. A slovenly priest decided, "What great expense it is to send ships to the seven seas! And for what? One pearl is very like another. And do not all the seas share waters?" Thus satisfied, he had but one ship go forth to procure seven pearls, and saved to himself the expense of the other six journeys.
So that year, of the seven tributes, one did not consist of a pearl from each of the seven seas. But since there was (in each of the others) a pearl of every sea, the beast that bore them did not sicken and fail.
It was only after the tribute had been made, that the priest told his prince that the tribute had been false. At first the prince was furious with fear. "Why are you angry, my prince?" said the priest, "Are we not still whole and well? What ill came of it?" Seeing this was true, the prince burst out laughing, in relief and delight at the priest's cleverness. His delight was all the greater when the priest made to him a magnificent gift from the horded wealth. From then on, that prince's realm sent seven pearls more easily gotten, and much of the wealth gleaned by the temple flowed into the prince's coffers.
In time, the other princes noted how prosperous was this one among them. And in time, the secret was shared. Each of the seven realms came to send pearls from but a single sea. But since each prince was tied by ties of blood to an earthly kingdom by a different sea, they each sought their pearls from a different sea. And so the Leviathan did not sicken.
So it was for many more centuries.
Then came a priest who wanted power, and to this end he bade the seven princes of the seven realms that there should be but one temple, not seven, and that he should be the priest of priests. The pact of the pearls was too important, he argued, to be left to seven different temples. What if one should fail? Better by far to have a single temple to ensure that all the pearls were gotten in time.
The princes laughed in his face and bid him be gone. They did not wish to lose wealth their temples brought!
But the people remembered this idea of there being but one temple, a temple of temples. And when rebellion next stirred, as it does from time to time, in the breasts of men, it raised the banner of a single temple. The seven temples, the rebels claimed, were the tools of the seven princes -- and they were not wholly wrong in saying so. It was under the banner of piety and "uniting" the temples that the reigning princes were overthrown, and new princes set up in their place; and so the seven temples were made one.
It was decided, then, that since there were no longer seven temples, there need be no longer seven tributes. But, for that it was tradition, the temple sent out seven ships, each to the ancestral origins of each of the seven realms.
No longer was tribute made of seven-times-seven pearls, but since each pearl was of a different one of the seven seas, the behemoth did not sicken. If he resented his feast not served, he had not the language of man to make his displeasure known. Indeed, over all the long centuries of prosperousness, the Atlantese had builded up great cities and farms, and nowhere could the nature of their isle be seen. The citizens of Atlantis had quite forgotten why it was they paid tribute; some knew the stories, but took them for fancies, or edifying allegories. Few of Atlantis believed their land to be upon the back of a great sea monster.
And for all that, the magus' charms held the beast to his purpose, though the magus was long dead.
Need the sorrowful tale be told out? Can the dismal end not be seen from here? Ah, but it could not from there, could it? Had they seen from that time the waves of the future crashing down upon their walls and roofs, their fields and arbors, their libraries and markets, and the dark, dark deep swallowing them all up, would not they have done other than they did? And they did not.
In the end, it was the weakness of a single ship's captain which brought the cold thundering waters up over Atlantis. The season was near ended; time grew short as the weather grew foul. He chose to make a nearer port, and he swore his men to secrecy. He made his deal thinking himself an enlightened man for throwing off the yoke of superstition, and bought a fine showy pearl for the rite. They bided there in comfort for long enough to cover for the journey they did not make, then returned to Atlantis.
At first nothing happened. The pearls were cast into the sea, and the ceremony completed with all its traditional pomp. The good people of Atlantis went back to their homes to greet the start of a new year. They smiled and laughed along their way, wishing their neighbors well for the coming year, all unwitting that they were already numbered among dead.
But on the turn of the year, the ground beneath their feet trembled. A groan deeper and more terrible than the grinding of stone rose up from beneath them. The beast shuddered with its fate, and the spires and walls began to tumble. The earth heaved and the buildings fell.
Then the beast cried out its last, and sank beneath the waves, and Atlantis perished and was no more.
Wherein may we find the fault? With the founders for building upon so unstable a rock? They knowing full well found it not so. With those fools who fooled themselves in first thinking they fooled others? None died by their hands. With those who were turned from their sacred responsibilities by political aspiration? They knew not the purpose of what they dismantled. With those upon whom greater responsibility rested than rightly they understood or believed?
Is that not, in the end, all of them?
Those who went to their deaths drew their last watery breath bewildered and betrayed, thinking they had kept their pact. Had not their society done as the generation before had? Had they not done as that generation told them they must? Through their history, each change for the ill which made their seat more perilous was accepted because its ill was not felt, so it was embraced; once accepted, it became tradition itself.