#but it has some of the lyrics of perfect harmony engraved

[legolasghosty]

recreating your first/favorite date

for juke <3

Okay... whew, here it is. Sorry this took forever to actually respond to. Hope you like it!

“Am I allowed to know where we’re going yet?” Luke laughed from the passenger seat of Julie’s SUV.

“Nope,” she answered, giving him a smirk and hoping he couldn’t see her nerves.

It wasn’t like she was unsure as to what he would say. They’d talked about this dozens of times. There were certain things that they had to be totally on the same page about, especially since Luke had only been alive (sort of) for 6 years. She knew they wanted the same thing in the end on this. That didn’t stop it from being terrifying though.

“But I wanna know,” Luke whined, grinning and lacing his fingers with hers when she stopped at a red light. “Also, I could just poof us there, it’d be faster.”

“You got a problem with my driving, Patterson?” she teased.

“No,” he said quickly.

She laughed and turned left when the light turned green. Luke turned up the radio and they sang along to the random pop songs playing as the streets got more and more familiar. As Julie turned onto the street she grew up on, Edge of Great started playing. Luke smirked and started singing her parts. She giggled and hummed that funky guitar riff he only ever played live over the sound of his voice. Julie was still a bit in awe every time she heard it on the radio. They’d first played it almost seven years ago, and the official version had been on their first album, now just over four years old. And yet it still played on the radio from time to time. Because people loved it that much. It was nuts.

As the song ended, Julie pulled into her dad’s driveway. She turned the car off and climbed out, making sure that she still had the little box in the pocket of her lavender sundress. When she got around to Luke’s side of the car, he was giving her a confused look.

“Did your dad invite us over for dinner?” he asked.

“No, I just…” she started nervously, then shook her head. “Come one, I’ll explain in a few minutes.”

Luke still seemed perplexed, but let her take his hand and guide him down the path to the garage. When she arrived at the doors, she glanced back at him, her stomach a bundle of nerves.

“You got this,” he said, giving her that same confident smile he’d given her right before they performed together for the first time and every time since.

She nodded and pushed open the doors. They entered the space together. It had changed a lot since Julie was in high school, but the chairs were still firmly attached to the ceiling. The piano sat quietly under its drop cloth now that Julie wasn’t here to play it every day. The battered couch that really should go to the dump at this point was in its place, leaning against the wall that still held her mom’s favorite acoustic and a bunch of photos.

But there were still changes. Since Luke, Reggie, and Alex had become a part of Julie’s life, the photos on the walls had changed to reflect the new additions to the Molina family. The plants growing in the windows on the back wall were in much better condition thanks to her dad’s constant watering and care. The threadbare rug that had covered the floor since before the boys died had been replaced by a soft, light brown one during Julie’s senior year of high school.

Julie had been there the day before to make sure everything was clean, but she still felt the odd twitch of melancholy as she entered. She felt a bit like this studio when she thought about the girl she’d been when she met Luke. So many things were the same, she was still bold and kind and silly, but she’d grown as well, becoming stronger and more skilled as the years went by.

And then she looked back at Luke, who was right behind her with that confused but encouraging smile. His hair was a bit neater, the life story in his eyes a bit longer, but he was the same boy she’d met all those years ago in so many ways.

“Okay, um, you stay there,” she told him, a bit uncertain as she nudged him toward the empty space below the loft.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he chuckled, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans while he waited.

Julie smiled and crossed to the old stereo. She slipped in a CD and skipped ahead to the track she wanted. Technically, it had just been playing the first song when they were first here, but Lakeside Reflection fit the vibe she wanted better. It was close enough.

She returned to Luke, standing before him and taking his hands in hers. “Luke,” she started, “almost seven years ago, you and Reggie and Alex appeared right here and changed my life. And I know we talk all the time about how you guys brought music back to me and became my family in a way I didn’t know was possible, but it’s so much more than that.”

She took a deep breath and plowed on, looking Luke right in the eye. “You showed me what it means to live like tomorrow might not come. You inspire me to work hard and keep growing every single day. I finally understand how my parents always managed to keep loving each other, even when they argued. Because I love you. Always, even when I’m mad at you. And I want to keep loving you for as long as we have.”

Tears were starting to form in the corners of Luke’s eyes, but he bit his lip. Julie could see in his eyes that he had a good idea where this was going and was trying not to interrupt her. She’d planned to say more, but suddenly she couldn’t remember what. Her eyes were starting to water and she hadn’t even asked yet. And suddenly, the nerves are gone, replaced with pure anticipation. There will be time for all the words she is too choked up to stay later. Only a few of them matter right now.

Julie steps back and drops to one knee. “Luke Edward Patterson, will you marry me?” she breathed, pulling the little black box out of her pocket and opening it so Luke could see the silver band.

“Yes!” Luke exclaimed almost before she finished speaking.

And then she’s in his arms and they’re kissing and she can taste salt on his lips from his tears. Or maybe they’re hers. Both of them are crying, so it’s anyone’s guess. She doesn’t really care though. Yes, marrying someone who died and came back to reality 25 years later wasn’t without its complications, but it was Luke. They’d figure it out. Together. For as long as they could be.

[dreamywriterinthedark]

Museum Dates: part 2

Part one

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader (no specific pronouns used, Reader wears a dress)

Resume: Reader surprises Spencer for their first year anniversary, the same way he did with Reader, at an art gallery at night. They dance and it’s just too romantic (dream with me💕).

Category: so fluffy!

Trigger warnings: mention of alcohol (please let me know if i forgot something)

It has been one year since you and Spencer have been together. You have been together ever since you went on a date at that nocturne exhibition. To honour your love, he gifted you a bracelet with the time of when you first kissed engraved on it with a heart. This time you were the one who decided to surprise him. Your friend has this art gallery in the historic center; therefore, close to the historical museum where you originally went on your first date. You made her an offer to rent the gallery for the night, an offer she gladly accepted excited to hear your updates the next morning. 

It took weeks of preparation since you wanted it to be perfect. It was highly challenging for you to keep this surprise a surprise; you were dating a profiler! He asked you to move in with him which you half declined. It would have been impossible to plan your surprise and move in with him at the same time especially if he gave you a hand, which he most definitely would’ve. He would’ve noticed all of the evidence therefore it would’ve been ruined! No body, no crime… Plus him feeling disappointed or left out was perfect to amplify the joy overcoming him when he discovers your entire mascarade just like in movies when the characters would pretend to forget someone’s birthday to surprise them later on. You told him you simply weren’t ready to move in with him which he completely understood. 

However, since you were scared of getting profiled by him at work, you would make excuses to decline plans, you would panic and avoid to answer questions. It most definitely did not go unnoticed by him who took it as a clue you didn’t trust him or worse. Each time you lied to him a little piece of his heart broke. So he sat there at the edge of his desk hands in his pocket staring blankly at the ground, the last one in the bureau illuminated by the static flickering light above him. Those lights reminded him of hospitals, specifically the one where he stayed after getting shot, you would bring him jello and would read to him his favorite books. 

He sat there, deep in thoughts, swallowing the lump in his throat. His eyes slightly open as if the truth was right in front of his eyes but he just couldn’t see it clearly and it was. His phone buzzed, it was you; “John Keats, p113.” He rose to his feet to grab the copy of poetry collection on his desk. The title of the poem was “An ode to autumn” and that’s when it hit him. In between the pages was a raven wax sealed envelope. He opened it full of apprehension, it read in your beautiful italic handwriting; “Meet me at the Melrose art gallery at 10PM sharp.” He grabbed his coat hurrying out of the office, a small smile displayed on his face as the elevator door slowly shut.

Once Spencer arrived he texted you because there was no way in, the doors were locked (safety measures). You started panicking adjusting the lights so they were dimmed. You checked your reflection, you were stunning. You wore a black dress with some sultry perfume that could be smelled from across the room. He waited in front of the door hearing your Mary Jane clicks progressively louder as you made your way to the door opening it up for him. 

He walked in his eyes fixated on you, his cheeks flushed, you flet the tip of his nose cold on your cheek when he leaned in to kiss you. You turned your head grabbing his hand to lead him toward the biggest room in the entire gallery. There were peonies in white and blue vases along with many vanilla candles. The record player played soft muffled sounds, the song it was on was “Old enough to love” by Ricky Nelson. It matched you well, being the babies of the BAU.

“Will you dance with me ?” he responded by nodding because he was smiling too hard to be able to form any word. There you were slow dancing in the dimly lit room. He held your hand squeezing it from time to time, you felt his warm breathe fan over your neck. He pulled you in closer thanks to his arm being snaked around your waist. The next song to play was “Say Yes To Heaven” by Lana Del Rey. It reminded you of him, you found the lyrics quite touching; if you fight, I’ll fight//Give peace a chance, let the fear you have fall away. Spencer made you twirl watching your dress move gracefully in sink with your body. You almost fell from tripping on your shoes but he reaffirmed his gentle grip on you. You both chuckled. 

Once the music stopped, the one you carefully chose since each part of your romantic evening was planned. You sat down on a pile of pillows while sipping on peach white wine. You handed him a heart shaped box that recollected all your favorite memories, from the museum tickets, to pressed flowers you made with the bouquets he would gift you (you made a journal of them where you would analyse them: the etymology behind their names, what they meant, for example lilies were symbolised death), to pictures, to love letters. Until he found a remote, you asked him to click on it, nothing happened. 

You got up helping him up as well. You hand turned the lights off. The room didn’t have a ceiling but tinted windows in a sphere shape which was perfect for what he turned on; a projection of the sky on the night you first kissed. He looked up at the stars in awe of the beauty right in front of his eyes. You explained to him where this sky was from and why you were projecting it.

“Spencer, what time is it ?” You asked.

“11:29PM” he shut his eyes a second too long; again, it hit him, you first kissed at 11:31PM. He made his way toward you cupping your cheeks in hands while your hands rested on his waist. The kiss was passionate, slow, harmonious; everything you wanted it to be. You smiled out of it pointing at a constellation; “Look, it’s Cygnus!” Purposely expecting him to start his rambling.

“Cygnus is a northern constellation lying on the plane of the Milky Way, deriving its name from the Latinized Greek word for swan. Cygnus is one of the most recognizable constellations of the northern summer and autumn. It is symbolises weddings, romance, love, anniversaries…” his gaze drifted back to you. You were already staring at him an eyebrow cocked smirking at him. Again, it hit him. This date night was a game of chess which you were many moves ahead of him.

“I have to say, I’m impressed.”

“Oh but I’m not done yet!”

“What? Seriously?!”

You nodded leaving, he froze for a second before trotting to you like a lost puppy. He followed you to a staircase which led to the roof. There was not much space on the roof since it was mostly occupied by the sphere like windows but the edges were big enough to let you walk through them, sit and even for a telescope…

“See the sparkly dot right next to Scorpio ?”

“I guess…”

“Here take a look” you said to him gesturing toward the telescope.

“It is beautiful, Y/n, it truly is but what about it ?” He knew you weren’t the one that was going to give him a class on the universe. Spencer was one of kind, the most brilliant scientist you’ve ever met, he gave you the scientific facts about the stars and constellations, you would give him the spiritual meanings behind them. You would complete each other in knowledge just like that. You fished out a tube of paper with a bow tied around it. He took it and after a split second of shock which showed on his face started freaking out. He squeezed you so tight.

“Oh my god, Y/n, I can’t believe you got me a star! This is the best gift I’ve ever received!” His voice was so high from the excitement he almost squealed.

“The brightest star for the brightest mind.”

To top it off, you saw a shooting star and you could swear in this instance you both made the same wish.

[jewlwpet]

Let’s dissect the titles of each track on Seazer’s upcoming new Utena album!!

(EDIT: IMPORTANT UPDATE: J. A. Seazer made some last-minute changes to the tracklist after I made this post; I discussed those changes here).

1) 青銅製の人形俳優譚 オルフェウス洞窟劇場/Chant of Bronze Puppet Actors: Orpheus Grotto Theatre

There was a famous real-life “Grotto of Orpheus” that Seazer is most likely referencing! It doesn’t exist anymore, but you can see a detailed engraving of it here. It was made by Tommasso and Alessandro Francini for Henri IV of France. You can read about it and see another engraving here.

My guess as to what the song will be about: The grotto of Orpheus existed to glorify the prince by showing that he had so much power at his command, he could create a marvel like this. However, the object of wonder was a mechanical illusion: empty movement, so to speak. This was around the same time that some scientists began voicing the idea that perhaps the whole cosmos was like a machine built by God. This suggests the question, though it went unvoiced, of whether we ourselves are merely puppet-actors upon a cosmic stage.

(More under the cut--this will be long).

2)  宇宙卵プロトゴノス ―すなわちアンドロギュヌスのポラリザシオン(分極作用)―/Cosmic Egg Protogonos ―Namely Androgynous Polarization (Polarizing Action)―

This one is actually pretty straightforward if you understand Seazer’s language.

This song makes use of the Orphic creation narrative. Seazer used it before in a now lost version of Absolute Destiny Apocalypse (original source now here). Note: At the time when I posted that translation, I was under the mistaken impression that it was the same as the version on the Ohtori Kuruhi CD (because Seazer frequently does use pronunciation totally different from how something’s written). It is not; that set of lyrics is in fact the one used again more recently in the “complete version” in the Barbara CD.

Protogonos (literally “first-born”), also called Phanes (“bring to light”) ( "You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes.") was described by Damascius as “the first [god] expressible and acceptable to human ears.” They hatched from the primordial Cosmic Egg, generated by Time (Chronos) and sometimes also Inevitability (Ananke).

Another tradition claims that a triad of the first three “intelligible principles” hatched from the egg. “What is this triad, then? The egg; the dyad of the two natures inside it--male and female--[Ouranos... and Gaia... Heaven and Earth], and the plurality of the various seeds between; and thirdly an incorporeal god with golden wings on his shoulders, bulls' heads growing upon his flanks, and on his head a monstrous serpent, presenting the appearance of all kinds of animal forms . . . And the third god of the third triad this theology too celebrates as Protogonos (First-Born).”

Another fact about Protogonos: They were a dying-and-rising god.

Since the title seems to focus on the severance of male from female (androgynous polarization), here are some passages that focus on that (source).

And he [Epicurus] says that the world began in the likeness of an egg, and the Wind [the entwined forms of Khronos (Chronos, Time) and Ananke (Inevitability)] encircling the egg serpent-fashion like a wreath or a belt then began to constrict nature. As it tried to squeeze all the matter with greater force, it divided the world into the two hemispheres, and after that the atoms sorted themselves out, the lighter and finer ones in the universe floating above and becoming the Bright Air [Aither (Aether)] and the most rarefied Wind [probably Khaos (Chaos, Air)], while the heaviest and dirtiest have veered down, become the Earth (Ge) [Gaia], both the dry land and the fluid waters [Pontos the Sea]. And the atoms move by themselves and through themselves within the revolution of the Sky and the Stars, everything still being driven round by the serpentiform wind [of Khronos and Ananke].

Ere land and sea and the all-covering sky were made, in the whole world the countenance of nature was the same, all one, well named Chaos, a raw and undivided mass, naught but a lifeless bulk, with warring seeds of ill-joined elements compressed together.... Though there were land and sea and air, the land no foot could tread, no creature swim the sea, the air was lightless; nothing kept its form, all objects were at odds, since in one mass cold essence fought with hot, and moist with dry, and hard with soft and light with things of weight. This strife a God (Deus) [probably Phanes], with nature's blessing, solved; who severed land from sky and sea from land, and from the denser vapours set apart the ethereal sky; and, each from the blind heap resolved and freed, he fastened in its place appropriate in peace and harmony. The fiery weightless force of heaven's vault flashed up and claimed the topmost citadel; next came the air in lightness and in place; the thicker earth with grosser elements sank burdened by its weight; lowest and last the girdling waters pent the solid globe. So into shape whatever god it was reduced the primal matter and prescribed its several parts.

Incidentally, the repeated severance and rejoining (solve et coagula) of male/female and above/below, was a key component of alchemy (of course, the materials they worked with were inanimate, but the alchemists insisted on gendering and even sexualizing them, always).

Protogonos bears some resemblance to the Gnostic demiurge, (shaper of the material world, creator of humans, associated with severance and procreation). However, the Gnostics denigrated the demiurge, whereas Protogonos was venerated. One could also make

3) ミッシング&ブーピープ ―快楽の園の修道院のイメージ―  /Missing and Bo-Peep -Image of the Monastery’s Garden of Earthly Delights-

Okay. Bo-Peep is, of course, a little girl in a nursery rhyme who’s lost her sheep but gets them back, wagging their tails behind them (wagging meant bringing). There’s an extended version where it’s specified that they’d actually lost their tails (but she found those too and reattached them). Before all that, “bo-peep” was used to refer to the children’s game of peekaboo, and in the Middle Ages, it was also a euphemism for being stood in a pillory. The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych by Bosch (viewable in detail here--arguably technically safe for work but only because it’s Art [tm]). From Wikipedia:

As so little is known of Bosch's life or intentions, interpretations of his intent have ranged from an admonition of worldly fleshy indulgence, to a dire warning on the perils of life's temptations, to an evocation of ultimate sexual joy. The intricacy of its symbolism, particularly that of the central panel, has led to a wide range of scholarly interpretations over the centuries. Twentieth-century art historians are divided as to whether the triptych's central panel is a moral warning or a panorama of paradise lost.

There’s also speculation that Bosch’s art (as a whole) is based on “esoteric knowledge lost to history.” The ambiguity is perfect for RGU.

I like this interpretation:

According to art historian Virginia Tuttle, the scene is "highly unconventional [and] cannot be identified as any of the events from the Book of Genesis traditionally depicted in Western art". Some of the images contradict the innocence expected in the Garden of Eden. Tuttle and other critics have interpreted the gaze of Adam upon his wife as lustful, and indicative of the Christian belief that humanity was doomed from the beginning...  Art historian Charles de Tolnay believed that, through the seductive gaze of Adam, the left panel already shows God's waning influence upon the newly created earth. This view is reinforced by the rendering of God in the outer panels as a tiny figure in comparison to the immensity of the earth. According to Hans Belting, the three inner panels seek to broadly convey the Old Testament notion that, before the Fall, there was no defined boundary between good and evil; humanity in its innocence was unaware of consequence.

This is of course very different from the traditional Christian view of Genesis, which is that before the Fall, there was no sexual desire. In many Gnostic texts, however, “original sin” is something that existed before the creation of the world; thus there was no innocence of any kind in Eden. The “original sinner” in this view was generally said to be Sophia (Wisdom, an Anthylike figure sometimes known as “the Bride,” who was both revered and maligned), an attribute of the Godhead, which was made up of syzygies, complementary pairs of principles, described variously as spouses and/or siblings, who (because they were God) reproduced without lust. But it was this same Sophia who breathed life and spirit into humanity, making them more than just bodies.

In this belief humans were inherently sinful creatures from the very beginning; it was also said that it was wrong for the demiurge to separate Eve from Adam (I believe this was the same text that said “This world is a mistake”--by the way, the demiurge was supposedly brought into existence by Sophia, but they’re enemies).

There’s also this idea that Bosch followed the ideas attributed to a Gnostic sect called the Adamites (unfortunately, the only contemporary sources we have on them are anti-Gnostic propaganda, so we cannot know how much of it is based in reality), which basically advocated freedom from all moral laws; the last image seems to suggest otherwise, but it certainly is, at least, a theme.

Incidentally, this triptych has been used for the covers of at least two books by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whose works Seazer draws on extensively according to my research.

Anyway, for my attempt at putting the pieces of the title together... However you interpret the triptych, it’s not something you’d expect to see in a monastery. Wikipedia indicates a general consensus that it was probably commissioned by a lay person, not a member of the clergy. So the title suggests a contrast, or a confluence of opposites, rather like that title from his last Utena album, “Monastic Life is a Flesh Apocalypse.”

4) 幾何学とエロス/Geometry and Eros

This is, word-for-word, the title of a 1974 essay by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whom, as I said before, I have known Seazer to draw from very frequently. It was published in this book, which also contains an essay on the “cosmic egg” concept and an essay on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

I have it from book reviews that “Geometry and Eros” discusses the 18th-century French Neoclassical architext Ledoux and the supposed “spiritual analogy” between his works and those of his contemporaries Fourier and Sade. Now, unfortunately, there are two different “Fourier”s from this time period that are both feasible candidates: the mathematician Joseph Fourier and the utopian socialist philosopher Charles Fourier. I lean towards the latter, however, because Shibusawa had published a translation of his essay “Archibras,” which Seazer drew on for Tsuwabuki’s duel song, Conical Absolute Egg Archibras. I suppose Ledoux would represent “geometry” and the other two “eros,” assuming I have the right Fourier.

Apparently, Shibusawa criticized Emil Kaufmann’s commentary on Ledoux, but I don’t know specifics on that.

5) 少女錬金術師/Girl Alchemist

The main question is whether this is Utena or Anthy, because the meaning would be different in either case. But alchemy is about unifying opposites, and they both do embody opposites, just in different ways. And they are opposites of each other, even though traditionally, in alchemy, the union of opposites is exclusively framed in heterosexual terms--think Angel Androgynous. This heterosexual union--often, incidentally, described as one of brother and sister--is meant to lead to the birth of the “philosophical child,” which can be interpreted as a new self. It’s kind of like Nanami’s Egg, actually, though that did not use the incest metaphor since one of RGU’s themes is how incest inhibits individuation.

Interestingly, while almost(?) all the surviving alchemical texts (at least in the Western tradition, which is what I’ve studied) were written by men, many of them stated that the first alchemist was a woman, and a Jewish woman at that. Unfortunately, all we know of her is from what men wrote about her.

There’s a quotation attributed to her that has an interesting interpretation by Jung, which you can read about here. Alchemy as a metaphor for psychological individuation is something he wrote about extensively, and it definitely makes sense in this context although it’s not, imo, the only meaning alchemy has in RGU. Marie Louise von Franz wrote about it extensively also! The two of them worked closely together as well as individually.

6) 人間人形 ―空想・イン・ザ・架空―/Human Puppet -Fantasy in the Imaginary-

(I’ve got nothing, other than the metaphor of puppets which I already touched on).

7) 絶対天秤卵/Absolute Balance Egg

This is not a new song. It’s taken from 2006 Banyu Inryoku production, Illusion-Flesh Verse Drama “Black in the Dark.” Of course, this is nothing new; even the duel songs were recycled (and this was Ikuhara’s idea, not Seazer’s), so this is just an extension of that. I found its tracklist in this review; it’s described as an “improvised reverberation poem of flesh burning up in the dark,” which must be from a playbill or something because it’s such a Seazer description.

Apparently, the “intro” (written in katakana) to this song was taken directly from “Paint it Black.” I can’t guarantee this will carry into our version, but if you hear anything that sounds suspiciously like The Rolling Stones... I called it.

Actually, I should note: It’s possible that Absolute Balance Egg is from an even older Seazer production and was recycled in both this play and this CD. One can never rule that out.

8) 人間人形 ―空想・イン・ザ・架空―/Philosophical Bread (?) Seed

This sounds like an alchemy thing, and I’m not ruling that out, but the results that I found searching “philosophical bread” showed me it’s a very common metaphor used in many contexts. Generally it refers to “higher learning” of spiritual matters, sometimes specifically “to know the mind of God.” Sometimes it’s treated as the ultimate endeavor, sometimes as pointless. Seeds, I suppose, would be the beginning of that.

Note: "Bread,” in Japanese, is パン (pan) , and the Greek god Pan sometimes has his name written the same way. It’s very possible that  パン is actually referring to the god here and shouldn’t be translated as “bread,” but we don’t know at this point. Either is plausible.

9) 法王驢馬寓意画意オペレッタ1 ―その声は人間の鳴き声に似る―/The Pope Ass Allegory Symbolism Operetta 1 -That Voice Is Like the Cry of a Human Being

The Papal Ass or Pope Ass, known from its use in a highly influential pamphlet by Martin Luther and Melanchthon, is often described as a caricature of the Pope. However, it’s not satirical like most modern political cartoons.It’s in fact based on the “monstrous birth” reports that were very popular at the time; this genre was referenced in the Rose Egg Sophia CD. To fully understand what the Papal Ass meant to its original audience, it’s necessary to have some understanding of the genre, so I’ll go into that. 

It’s important to understand that such records are not always made-up, although they are frequently exaggerated. For instance, researching the term  クシュポデュメー (no, I don’t know how to spell it) from Rose Egg Sophia’s Puchibanshou song (doragon no kodomo, offspring of a dragon) led me to a description of a “dragon” born with two heads, four arms, two legs, and one pelvis, said to have been part of the court of James III of Scotland. As a matter of fact, this bodily description corresponds to contemporary reports of a pair of conjoined twins known as the Scottish brothers, who were part of this king’s court. Many so-called “monsters,” from medieval times up until the xth century, were people. This particular one, however, was an animal, an actual donkey (or ass).

Luther wrote this for an updated 1535 version of the pamphlet:

The Papal Ass is itself a dreadful, ugly, terrifying picture, and the longer one looks at it, the more terrifying it seems. However nothing is so completely terrifying as the fact that God himself made and revealed such a wonder and such a monstrous image. If a human had invented, carved or painted it, one would scorn or laugh at it. However since the highest Majesty himself created and depicted it, the whole world should be dismayed and quake, for from it one fully understands what he thought of and intended.

From Monstrous Births and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Germany by Jennifer Spinks:

I was able to find a book, Monstrous Births and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Germany, that goes into great detail on how this was used by the early Protestant movement and has an entire chapter on this pamphlet: “Monstrous births could be viewed in positive and sympathetic terms, as the previous chapters have demonstrated. Yet this 1523 pamphlet by the two most important figures of the Lutheran Reformation forms a decisive shift in attitude, in which interpretation and representation became not only more polemical – and particularly anti-papal – but took on a notably apocalyptic aspect.” Of the Papal Ass and one of its contemporaries, the moon-calf, the author says, “The bodies of the monsters became texts to be read and argumentatively decoded using highly visual language.”

Notably, Luther and his coauthor did not invent the Papal Ass; they only named it. As Jennifer Spinks writes in this book:

The Papal Ass, washed up on the banks of the Tiber in Rome in 1495, made its way to Germany in visual form via an engraving by the Bohemian artist Wenzel von Olmutz, published in the late fifteenth century. Several decades later, and perhaps prompted by his colleague Melanchthon... Luther first became intrigued by the then-nameless monstrous birth and sought to incorporate it into his eschatological world view. He wrote a homiletic epistle that year (on the second Sunday in  Advent, concerning Luke 21:25–33)  titled ‘A Christian and well-substantiated proof of the Day of Judgement, and of the signs that it cannot now be far off ’. Although they were not referred to in Luke, Luther explicitly added monstrous creatures to his list and framed this addition as an attack on Rome and the papacy.

As for the pamphlet that made the Papal Ass famous, however, the section devoted to the Papal Ass was written by Luther’s coauthor, not Luther himself. Spinks states:

Melanchthon analyses the creature one body part at a time, utilizing biblical references, and conveying a central message about the corruption of the church in Rome as revealed by its bizarre physical structure. He begins his analysis of the Papal Ass with a reference to the Book of Daniel: ‘God has always indicated his grace or wrath by many signs, and in particular He has used such miracles for speaking to the rulers, as we see in Daniel’.

Melanchthon, she writes, “presents God in the guise of an artist who uses his creations to convey visual messages.”

The Papal Ass... has an almost jarring, collage-like combination of sharply delineated but ill-matching body parts. Step by step, Melanchthon describes and interprets these individual elements. He begins with... ‘Firstly, the head of the ass represents the Pope’. The Pope, he indicates... has brought the church into a worldly and physical, rather than spiritual, state. The low state of the ass in the animal kingdom is underscored through a reference to Exodus 13:13, in which first-born children and animals are consecrated to God: ‘but every fi rst-born donkey you will redeem with a lamb or kid; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck’. That is, God does not value donkeys (or asses) as he does other creatures. That the head of the Papal Ass is formed in this way is a true sign of the creature’s low state.

Next, Melanchthon addresses one hand, which ‘like an elephant’s foot rep-resents the spiritual regime of the Pope’. As forcefully as an elephant, the Pope’s ‘regime’ makes its way into and corrupts souls with innumerable and intolerable laws. Melanchthon adds, in a metaphor that it is easy to imagine seizing the imagination of audiences: ‘like the great heavy elephant it tramples and grinds down everything that it comes across’. The human-shaped other hand of the Papal Ass, in turn, represented the Pope’s worldly ‘regiment’; that is, those secular rulers who gave support to the papal office. In Cranach’s woodcut accompanying the text, these hands are neatly displayed one above the other, emphasizing through contrast the peculiarity of the elephant hand. The right foot of the creature, in the form of the foot of an ox, is aligned by Melanchthon with the elephant-shaped right hand. The foot represents the servants of the church: ‘the papal teachers, preachers, priests and confessors, and particularly the scholastic theologians’. That is, it refers to those responsible, in the Pope’s name, for oppressing the ‘poor folk’ (‘arme volck’) with their activities. Identifying papal supporters with the End Times, Melanchthon refers the reader to Matthew 24:4: ‘There will come false Christians and false prophets’. The other foot, in the shape of a claw, is aligned with the human-shaped hand. It represents canons, as worldly servants of the popes. Melanchthon’s language becomes still more physical in the next section, in which the female belly and breasts of the Papal Ass are described: “[these] represent the body of the papacy: that is Cardinals, bishops, clerics, monks, students ... their life is simply guzzling food, boozing, unchaste lechery, and leading the ‘good life’ on earth.”

Melanchthon’s understanding of the belly and breasts as especially potent symbols was to be intensified in a revised 1535 edition of the pamphlet... In this 1523 version, however, he turns fairly rapidly to the arms, legs and back of the creature, with a metaphor that is a little less obvious: the scales on these body parts represent secular rulers, who tolerate the failings of the papal system, effectively protecting it as they cling on to its ‘body’. This passage makes a particularly intriguing visual appeal to the reader or listener. The innocuous scales represented in the woodcut must be imaginatively reconfigured by the reader into a multitude of earthly rulers. Much more anthropomorphic in form are the faces of the old man and dragon (‘trach’) that emerge from the Papal Ass’s backside. The man represents the coming end of the papacy, already growing old; the dragon represents the bulls and books published by popes with the purpose of universally enforcing their will. Melanchthon’s tenth and final point shifts away from the body of the creature and to the location where it was found: Rome... The distinctive shape of the Castel Sant Angelo in Rome is carefully delineated, and for those not familiar with the famous tower, the fluttering flag with the crossed papal keys could inform even the least educated of the connection with Rome and the papacy. The tower to the right is the Tor di nona, used as the papal prison. Dramatically, in his final point, Melanchthon claims that finding the creature dead, ‘confirms that the papacy is coming to an end’.

Also:

In 1535 Melanchthon prepared a new edition of his text on the Papal Ass, still illustrated by the original Cranach image. Melanchthon’s expanded text takes sharper, more polemical aim at the papacy in a number of short new passages, including one on the ass’s head as a demonstration of the foolishness of the Pope, and another on the human hand as a sign the worldly, aggressive ambitions of the Pope. Two particularly substantial new sections dramatically increase the anti-papal and also the apocalyptic import of the Papal Ass. Several new pages on the breasts and belly of the creature emphasize the themes of whoring and sin (and implicitly, perhaps, refer to the whore of Babylon), while the ‘shameless female belly’ (‘vnuerschampt frawen bauch’) represents the Antichrist’s worst excesses.

More from Spinks about what made this method of symbolism unique:

Some pre-Reformation publications had ascribed specific meanings to individual body parts in monstrous births, like the conjoined foreheads of the Worms twins. Yet none had so rigorously and polemically done so as Luther and Melanchthon’s publication. This pamphlet is at the heart of a tangible shift in the representation and interpretation of monstrous births, and one that fitted the aggressively polemical culture of the early Reformation... This period saw the rise of vigorous debates and fundamental shifts in visual culture. The most famous of these developments was the wave of iconoclasm, which saw the destruction of religious images and objects. More moderate ‘reforms’ of imagery included a move to remove any hint of lasciviousness (especially in female figures) in the images on church walls. Martin Luther had a pragmatic attitude towards the use of religious images, and contributed to a culture of visual propaganda that stood on the borderline of the religious and the secular. One of the most important aspects of the visual culture of the Reformation was the vigorous use of printed propaganda, deployed.. with remarkable success. Robert Scribner observed that ‘Luther and other reformers spoke of pious images as masks (larvae) behind which the devil lurked, hoping to lure souls to damnation’. This did not mean that Luther rejected the use of images, and Scribner provided examples of how what he called the ‘semiology of arousal’ (which went well beyond the sensual) could be ‘employed also for its revelatory effect, especially in Reformation propaganda, putting into practice Luther’s notion of the masks of the devil disguising diabolical reality’... Religious imagery nonetheless increasingly moved outside relatively controlled environments like church walls and elite manuscripts, and into the turbulent new world created by the widely available printed image.... Luther’s ideas about visual images are closely bound up with his views on the apocalyptic Book of Revelation – a connection seen in microcosm in the 1523 pamphlet.

The Apocalypse While Albrecht Dürer had created what many regard as the definitive illustrated series of the Apocalypse in 1498, a flood of other versions appeared in the first half of the sixteenth century.74 The increasing popularity of the Book of Revelation as a subject for illustration during the sixteenth century was evidently connected to the growth of an apocalyptic world view... In this environment there was a tangible value in giving shape to apocalyptic imagery, and a ready audience for the new editions that came onto the market. As Bernd Moeller has identified, the End Times (‘Endzeit’) were one of the four most popular subjects for sermons preached in German towns in the early Reformation period.

Another updated version was published in 1549 without Melanchthon’s permission, edited to include past writings of his that he had since renounced in favor of compromise.

Flacius... uses Melanchthon’s text on the Papal Ass... as a springboard to oppose any religious compromise... In an introductory text, Flacius argues that the papacy can be represented in both words and images as worse than the devil or the whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation. He maintains the highly visual language used by Luther and Melanchthon, and even concludes by claiming that the arts of geometrical and arithmetical proportions are inadequate for the present times, which demanded instead a ‘new swinish art’ (‘newen Sewkunst’). Later in the pamphlet, Flacius adds additional texts that talk of the disastrous events leading up to the Last Days, specifically identifying the Pope as the Whore of Babylon, holding up her goblet, drunk on the blood of Christ, and seated on the back of the seven-headed beast which represented Rome itself (and also the ‘Roemische Reich’, or Roman Empire) and its support of the papacy. The increasingly voluptuous body of the Papal Ass accords with this emphasis on the Babylonian woman.

After this point, “wonder books,” which “collected together monstrous births and various other wonders and disasters across decades, centuries or even millennia,” became more and more common. Apparently, “negative and also apocalyptic rhetoric about monstrous births became still more deeply entrenched in this genre.” By 1569 (when Catholics started appropriating this trend for their counter-Reformation), “Monstrous births and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation were closely enmeshed, and overwhelmingly presented as such in German Reformation and Counter-Reformation print culture.”

Final note: The way “Pope Ass” is written in the title is nonstandard, which is why I went with the literal translation rather than the more common phrase “Papal Ass.” I did find one search result for this phrase that wasn’t about this album, indicating that it’s used in yet another Shibusawa book,  夢の宇宙誌 (this was also the only pre-Seazerian source I could find for  クシュポデュメー).

未来のヒユネロトマキア ―狂恋夢・薔薇物語・愛の秘法伝授―/The Future Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Love in a Dream・The Tale of the Rose・Love’s Secret Initiation -

So... there are many parts to this.

The Future Hypnerotomachia:

That's a reference to the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (”The Strife of Love in a Dream” is included at the end of the title in some editions; it’s a translation of hypnerotomachia) and possibly also The Future Eve (referenced in the Rose Egg Sophia CD, specifically in its version of Saionji’s duel song). You can look in my tag on tumblr for my thoughts as to what that book might signify in relation to Utena.

As for The Tale of the Rose, we all know it as the play in episode 34, but there’s another “Tale of the Rose” I think Seazer is referencing here as well. Seazer mentioned “the medieval Tale of the Rose” as one of the inspirations for the Rose Egg Sophia in its liner notes (I’m working on a translation, off and on). It’s this book. The Japanese title is written the same was as the title of the play is written on the tickets in episode 34; it does not have much in common with the play, but you can think of it as “a way duelists look at Anthy.” You can also think of it as something possibly taught uncritically at Ohtori; you can certainly see its worldview reflected in, say, Miki.

The last part of the title isn’t a specific text, as far as I know, but it does have a traceable origin in, once again, Shibusawa, specifically his essay collection 胡��の中の世界.

Since this title is about the themes of two or three entire books, I think I will make a Separate post for how those texts relate to Utena--and, of course, a new, updated one once we have the actual lyrics. And possibly another one several years from now when I inevitably translate 胡桃の中の世界.