LiteraryAllusions

For now, as a stub, I will only list a few things I have noticed; these should be filled out with complete references.

• http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mayday_Text#Flea.27s_Naked_Foot Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

• 1 US Army Survival Manual FM21-76

• 1 Herman Mellville, Moby Dick

• 1 William Shakespeare, The Tempest

• 1 Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

• 1 John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

• "Your poet Eliot was wrong: this is the way the world ends" :T.S. Eliot, "Wasteland" (Cortana Letters)

• "That is the law and the whole of the law" - potentially an allusion to Alistair Crowley's famous quote "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

• I saw this a while ago, and started looking through the source of the quote, Liber AL vel Legis (Book of the Law), and found the following interesting quotes:

• This one was found while searching for "Queen:" 33. "Then the priest fell into a deep trance or swoon, & said unto the Queen of Heaven; Write unto us the ordeals; write unto us the rituals; write unto us the law! 34. But she said: the ordeals I write not: the rituals shall be half known and half concealed: the Law is for all. 35. This that thou writest is the threefold book of Law."

• Three AIs; three axon arcs; three phases - three parts of the law. Rituals shall be half-concealed - well, we're certainly in the dark on a lot of stuff.

• The next bit's long, so I'll paraphrase: I ran a search for honey, and found a passage describing how to make cakes that, burned to ash and eaten [Cakes of sand?] would make you mighty in war, or, if left out, would "become full of beetles as it were and creeping things sacred unto me." [Like, say, spiders and fleas and bees.] It goes on to say how badass this cake will make you, leading up to verse 34, which contains the quote: "Another prophet shall arise, and bring fresh fever from the skies; another woman shall awake the lust & worship of the Snake;". Prophets from the skies is such an oblique reference to Halo that I have trouble believing it's just coincidence, particularly since Crowley was referenced in the Cortana letters. There's some more, but I don't want to make this all messy based just on my theories. If anyone's interested, I'll be happy to go more in-depth. Here's a copy of the Liber AL vel Legis. --Salvation122

• KillerJpgKiller uses the first sentence from Laurence Stern, The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Weeping and gnashing of teeth

KillerJpgKiller includes "weeping and gnashing of teeth", which is from The Bible: Matthew 8:12, Matthew 22:13, Matthew 24:48, Matthew 25:30, Luke 13:28.

A monstrous verminous bug

• Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis (as translated by Ian Johnston), first sentence: One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.

• This is referenced in KillerJpgKiller.

• It is also the description for Dana's blog; see TheCommentary.

• Note that the Project Gutenberg text of Metamorphosis does not include this phrase; it is translated by David Wyllie as "a horrible vermin".

Tongues of flame...dove descending

• Little Gidding, one of the Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.

• The passage in the AugustThText is a jumbled reference to several parts of the poem: "After the dark dove with the flickering tongue had passed below the horizon of his homing"
  "The dove descending breaks the air with flame of incandescent terror"
  "When the tongues of flame are in-folded into the crowned knot of fire"
  

• Also sounds like Biblical references of God's Spirit inhabiting people‰??

• Revelations is an account of the apocalyptic return of God to Earth.

• Acts 2:3-4 features the Spirit of God descending in ‰??tongues of flame‰?? and inhabiting believers.

• Matt. 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, and John 1:32 account the Spirit of God filling Jesus in the form of a white dove descending from the sky.

Deep as a well, wide as a church door

• Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare

• Refers to a fatal wound inflicted on Mercutio: "No 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door. But 'tis enough. 'Twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man."

Sylvia Plath

Refer to the SylviaPlath page for connections to ILB --UserZedix 07:15, 6 Aug 2004 (PDT)

See also GreekMythology --jellyfish_green

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