The Man of Quality
A man dressed in white robes with two golden stripes stepped into the GHQ pavilion one day in the Zeroth. He spake, saying, "As you are antinomians, tell me. My brother's uke disrespected our family, by eating at the same table as his wife. Shall I then transgress the old laws, and kill him?"
Deneskerva began, "That's not what-"
The Living Goddess rose from her chair. "I've got this, honey," she said. "You can keep working on the grain dole with sweetcheeks here." And she did lightly smack Etyries upon her ziggurat of repose. Teelo Estara faced the man of quality, and plucked some cherries from a bowl. "You can do whatever you feel like in life," she said, eating them. She smiled, teeth stained red with their juices. "Such have I said, but it is a simple truth. I suppose a man of quality like you understands the necessity of one speech for the lowly and another for the mediocre orders and still another for the high and mighty. Just as you might beat a lowly slave girl to the point of death for mixing up the robe of authority with the robe of dominion, but merely deliver ten lashes with the whip to a scribe who fumbles his B's."
Eserela closed her eyes and covered her mouth. Doskalos stuck his head in, saw what was happening, and turned and walked out immediately. The man of quality shifted uneasily, for the first and second manumissions had happened already. "I suppose," he said, thinking that perhaps this fraud was also a hypocrite.
"So, then, here is a speech for a man of quality such as yourself." Teelo Estara spat one of the cherry pits into a wooden spittoon. "Behold the prison of the conventional order!" she said. "The pit of the cherry is the seed of the tree, and yet we gather them into one place where they cannot be sown. Should they not instead be scattered freely, such that many trees could grow and their fragrant flowers blossom? I imagine many maidens of virtuous heart would agree with the proposition, that they ought to scatter seed more freely." And Eserela choked at this.
In a moment, though, she raised up one hand and said, "I'm fine, I'm fine, Teelo you don't need to squeeze me so tightly, I'm not going anywhere."
And the man of quality avoided looking at anyone else while this was happening. Finally, when all was settled, he said, "I suppose it is hard to disagree with the reasoning there."
Teelo Estara spat the other cherry pit at his face, where it hit the bridge of his nose and bounced off, leaving stains of red. "And yet," she said, "It has brought you nothing but hurt and loss of dignity. Perhaps the prison of the conventional order is only such because of the chains, and not because the building is built wicked, yes?" She sighed at the expression on the man of quality's face. "Pick the pit up."
He did so, and at her further direction, put it in the spittoon.
"Now as for ukes and other catamites, they have the privilege of favor, and of defiance, and so it is well and good for them to sit at the high table and make merry with their seme's wife. But for a man of quality, defiance is not a privilege but rather a crime, a blasphemy against the gods. So, are you a man of quality and a blasphemer?" The Living Goddess smiled.
The man of quality looked around. No help was to be found. "I'm a catamite," he said, helplessly.
"An unattached, desperate catamite, too," Teelo Estara said. "A pitiful and lonesome being." She smiled. "Accept this boon from me," she proclaimed, "That you will go unattached no more! Doskalos, get in here."
Her son scrabbled in and saluted his mother. She said, "Rouge your cheeks. Stain your lips. Outline your eyes. And when you're done, take this newly appointed catamite somewhere and bless him repeatedly. With rest breaks, if necessary."
Doskalos looked at the man, who looked back at him. He smiled gently. The man cringed. "Oh, look at that," Teelo Estara said, "he looks like a naughty puppy! After you've blown out his back walls, get him a collar too."
And the man of quality lost his quality and became, after some exploration of his self, a very happy catamite and uke.
Taraltara
(Still a Gloranthan document!)
Interpretation 1: Taraltara is equivalent to the Gnostic Christ in the Pistis Sophia
Taraltara interacts with the Red Goddess (using politically correct language here with a minimum of teeloi) at the moment of the Red Goddess's transcendence and awareness of her true nature as the returned power of the Turner/Changer, granting her the capacity to spread her enlightenment and the knowledge to assert her authority over the material world. Taraltara is thus a spirit or entity from beyond materiality who bestows the gifts of enlightened/illuminated/sevened awareness onto the person who achieves that mystic state.
Interpretation 2: Taraltara is equivalent to the Buddhadhātu or Buddha-substance
Taraltara in the Lives of Sedenya has Sedenya's own face, hidden beneath the mask of terror and death. That is, she *is* Sedenya, but a part that Sedenya can only see as representing a state worse than death. The Red Goddess is constantly changing and altering, and so it would be sensible to understand Taraltara as the eternal component of Sedenya, the part which does not change, and so to the unenlightened mind means eternal stasis and annihilation. Enlightenment means accepting that an unchanging and an eternally changing nature are compatible with one another. Taraltara is thus a contradictory piece of Sedenya which you approach through mystical practices.
Interpretation 3: Taraltara is equivalent to the Christian concept of prevenient grace
Taraltara, liberation and enlightenment, approaches in the shape of the Devil. Within even the most vile of beings exists the capacity for liberation and goodness which can only be revealed through compassionate action but only achieved through their free choice. Taraltara represents or is that capacity within all people, a universal connection.
Interpretation 4: Taraltara is the ultimate power of Chaos
Taraltara appears at the edge of Gloranthan reality, in the vicinity of the Chaosium, behind the Devil, using the Devil as a mask. Taraltara grants the Red Goddess the power of creation, the capacity to introduce something new into Glorantha, something which was necessarily from the Void, and the Red Goddess returns riding the Crimson Bat. Taraltara threatened the annihilation of the Red Goddess. Creation and destruction, the twin powers to alter Glorantha in a lasting way. Thus, Taraltara is the ultimate wound in the consistent reality of Glorantha which connects it to everything which is not-Glorantha and the means of healing Glorantha's wounds, an obstacle and a helper.
Coda (or C0DA)
"Sapient beings are numberless," Teelo Estara said, "But I will carry them all over." Taraltara remained silent. "Afflictions and mental poisons are infinite, but I will cure them one by one until none are left." Teelo Imara shrugged. "The mystic worlds go on forever, but I will visit them all." Taraltara's silence went on forever and yet further.
Her heart filled, Sedenya took Taraltara's hand and went along. We must imagine her happy.
Where is this from?
It is from the discourse on the white lotus flower to be found in the "Myth of the Goat-Skinned", and it is a thing of Chaos, and it is from the heart.
-(a traditional riddle accompanying this piece).
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