A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z #

ULVER lyrics : "A Memorable Fancy 4"

[plates 17-20]
An angel came to me and said: 'O pitiable foolish young man! O
horrible! O

dreadful state! Consider the hot burning dungeon thou art
preparing for
thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in such career.

'I said:
'Perhaps you will be willing to shew me my eternal lot & we
will

contemplate together upon it and see whether your lot or mine is
most
desirable. ' So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church &

down into the
church vault. At the end of which was a mill: thro' the mill we
went, and

came to a cave: down the winding cavern we groped our tedious
way, till a
void boundless as a nether sky appear'd beneath us.& we held by

the roots
of trees and hung over this immensity; but I said: 'If you
please we will

commit ourselves to this void, and see whether providence is
here also: if
you will not, I will? ' But he answered: 'Do not presume, o

young-man, but
as we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when
the darkness

passes away. ' So I remain'd with him, sitting in a twisted root
of an
oak; he was suspended in a fungus, which hung with the head

downward into
the deep. By degrees we beheld the infinite abyss, fiery as the
smoke of a

burning city; beneath us, at an immense distance, was the sun,
black but
shinning; round it were fiery tracks on which revolv'd vast

spiders,
crawling after their prey, which flew, or rather swum, in the
infinite

deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals sprung from
corruption;& the
air was full of them,& seem'd composed of them: these are

devils, and are
called powers of the air. I now asked my companion which was my
eternal

lot? He said: 'Between the black & white spiders' but now, from
between
the black & white spiders, a cloud and fire burst and rolled

thro' the
deep. Black'ning all beneath, so that the nether deep grew black
as a

sea,& rolled with a terrible noise; beneath us was nothing now
to be seen
but a black tempest, till looking east between the cloudes &

waves, we saw
a cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many stones' throw
from us

appear'd and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent;
at last, to
the east, distant about three degrees, appear'd a fiery crest

above the
waves; slowly it reared like a ridge of golden rocks, till we
discover'd

two globes of crimson fire, from which the sea fled away in
clouds of
smoke; and now we saw it was the head of Leviathan; his forehead

was
divided into streaks of green & purple like those on a tyger's
forehead:

soon we saw his mouth & red gills hung just above the raging
foam, tinging
the black deep with beams of blood, advancing towards us with

all the fury
of a spiritual existence. My friend the angel climb'd up from
his station

into the mill; I remain'd alone;& then this appearance was no
more, but I
found myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by
moonlight
hearing a harper, who sung to the harp;& his theme was: 'The man

who never
alters his opinion is like standing water,& breeds reptiles of
the mind. '
But I apose and sought for the mill,& there I found my angel,
who,

surprised asked me how I escaped? I answer'd: 'All that we saw
was owing
to your metaphysics; for when you ran away, I found myself on a
bank by
moonlight hearing a harper. But now we have seen my eternal lot,

shall I
shew you yours? ' He lugh'd at my proposal; but I by force
suddenly caught
him in my arms,& flew westerly thro' the night, till we were
elevated

above the earth's shadow; then I flung myself with him directly
into the
body of the sun; here I clothed myself in white & taking in my
hand
Swedenborg's volumes, sunk from the glorious clime, and passed
all the

planets till we came to Saturn: here I staid to rest,& then
leap'd into
the void between Saturn & fixed stars. 'Here', said I, 'Is your
lot, in
this space, if space it may be call'd. ' Soon we saw the stable
and the
church,& I took him to the altar and open'd the bible, and lo!

It was a
deep pit, into which I descended, driving the angel before me;
soon we saw
seven houses of brick; one we enter'd; in it were a number of
monkeys,
baboons,& all of that species, chain'd by the middle, grinning
and

snatching at one another, but witheld by the shortness of their
chains:
however, I saw that they sometimes grew numerous; and then the
weak were
caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect, first coupled
with,&
then devour'd, by plucking off first one limb and then another,

till the
body was left a helpless trunk; this, after grinning & kissing
it with
seeming fondness, they devour'd too; and here & there I saw one
savourily
picking the flesh off of his own tail; as the stench terribly
annoy'd us

both, we went into the mill,& in my hand brought the skeleton of
a body,
which in the mill was Aristotele's !@#^itycs. So the angel said:
'Thy
phantasy has imposed upon me,& thou oughtest to be ashamed. 'I
answered:
'We impose on one another, & it is but lost time to converse

with you
whose works are only !@#^ytics. ' Opposition is true
friendship.

[plates 21-22]
I have always found that angels have the vanity to speak of
themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident
insolence
sprouting from systematic reasoning, Swedenborg boasts that what
he writes
is new; Tho' it is only the contents or index of already
publish'd books.
A man carried a monkey about for a shew,& because he was a
little wiser
than the monkey, grew vain, and conciev'd himself as much wiser
than seven
men. It is so with Swedenborg: He shews the folly of churches &
exposes
hypocrites, till he imagines that all religious,& himself the
single one
on earth that ever broke a net. Now hear a plain fact:
Swedenborg has not
written one net truth, now hear another: he has written all the
old
falsehoods. And now hear the reason. He conversed with angels
who are all
religious & conversed not with devils who all hate religion. For
he was
incapable thro' his conceited notions. Thus Swedenborg writings
are a
recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an !@#^ysis of
the more
sublime but not further. Have now another plain fact. Any man
of
mechanical talents may, from the writings of Paracelus or Jacob
Behmen,
produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's,
and from
those of Dante or Shakespear an infinite number. But when he has
done
this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for
he only
holds a candle in sunshine.

Submit Corrections