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SOPHIA OF WISDOM III LIBRARY OF BABEL
BY
JORGE LUIS BORGES
THE LIBRARY OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III
THE SOPHIA OF ALL SOPHIA OF WISDOMS
AKA
CAROLINE
E. KENNEDY - CAROLINA KENNEDIA
NOVEMBER 11, 2006
The
Library of Babel
by Jorge Luis Borges The
universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries,
with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper
and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the
sides except two; their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of a normal bookcase. One
of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all the rest.
To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other,
satisfy one's fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote
distances. In the hallway there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates all appearances. Men usually infer from this mirror
that the Library is not infinite (if it were, why this illusory duplication?); I prefer to dream that its polished surfaces
represent and promise the infinite ... Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear the name of lamps. There are two,
transversally placed, in each hexagon. The light they emit is insufficient, incessant.
Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues;
now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was
born. Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air;
my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite. I say that the Library
is unending. The idealists argue that the hexagonal rooms are a necessary form of absolute space or, at least, of our intuition
of space. They reason that a triangular or pentagonal room is inconceivable. (The mystics claim that their ecstasy reveals
to them a circular chamber containing a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle
of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure. This cyclical book is God.) Let it suffice now for me
to repeat the classic dictum: The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference
is inaccessible.
There are five shelves for each of the hexagon's walls; each shelf
contains thirty-five books of uniform format; each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each
line, of some eighty letters which are black in color. There are also letters on the spine of each book; these letters do
not indicate or prefigure what the pages will say. I know that this incoherence at one time seemed mysterious. Before summarizing
the solution (whose discovery, in spite of its tragic projections, is perhaps the capital fact in history) I wish to recall
a few axioms.
First: The Library exists ab aeterno. This truth, whose immediate
corollary is the future eternity of the world, cannot be placed in doubt by any reasonable mind. Man, the imperfect librarian,
may be the product of chance or of malevolent demiurgi; the universe, with its elegant endowment of shelves, of enigmatical
volumes, of inexhaustible stairways for the traveler and latrines for the seated librarian, can only be the work of a god.
To perceive the distance between the divine and the human, it is enough to compare these crude wavering symbols which my fallible
hand scrawls on the cover of a book, with the organic letters inside: punctual, delicate, perfectly black, inimitably symmetrical.
Second: The orthographical symbols are twenty-five in number. (1) This finding made it possible, three hundred years ago, to formulate a general theory of
the Library and solve satisfactorily the problem which no conjecture had deciphered: the formless and chaotic nature of almost
all the books. One which my father saw in a hexagon on circuit fifteen ninety-four was made up of the letters MCV, perversely
repeated from the first line to the last. Another (very much consulted in this area) is a mere labyrinth of letters, but the
next-to-last page says Oh time thy pyramids. This much is already known: for every sensible line of straightforward
statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences. (I know of an uncouth region whose
librarians repudiate the vain and superstitious custom of finding a meaning in books and equate it with that of finding a
meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's palm ... They admit that the inventors of this writing imitated the twenty-five
natural symbols, but maintain that this application is accidental and that the books signify nothing in themselves. This dictum,
we shall see, is not entirely fallacious.)
For a long time it was believed that these impenetrable
books corresponded to past or remote languages. It is true that the most ancient men, the first librarians, used a language
quite different from the one we now speak; it is true that a few miles to the right the tongue is dialectical and that ninety
floors farther up, it is incomprehensible. All this, I repeat, is true, but four hundred and ten pages of inalterable MCV's
cannot correspond to any language, no matter how dialectical or rudimentary it may be. Some insinuated that each letter could
influence the following one and that the value of MCV in the third line of page 71 was not the one the same series may have
in another position on another page, but this vague thesis did not prevail. Others thought of cryptographs; generally, this
conjecture has been accepted, though not in the sense in which it was formulated by its originators.
Five hundred years ago, the chief of an upper hexagon (2) came upon a book as confusing as the others, but which had nearly two pages of homogeneous
lines. He showed his find to a wandering decoder who told him the lines were written in Portuguese; others said they were
Yiddish. Within a century, the language was established: a Samoyedic Lithuanian dialect of Guarani, with classical Arabian
inflections. The content was also deciphered: some notions of combinative analysis, illustrated with examples of variations
with unlimited repetition. These examples made it possible for a librarian of genius to discover the fundamental law of the
Library. This thinker observed that all the books, no matter how diverse they might be, are made up of the same elements:
the space, the period, the comma, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet. He also alleged a fact which travelers have confirmed:
In the vast Library there are no two identical books. From these two incontrovertible premises he deduced that the
Library is total and that its shelves register all the possible combinations of the twenty-odd orthographical symbols (a number
which, though extremely vast, is not infinite): Everything: the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies,
the faithful catalogues of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those
catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that
gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all
languages, the interpolations of every book in all books.
When it was proclaimed that the
Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters
of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon.
The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was
said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe
and retained prodigious arcana for his future. Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up
the stairways, urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication. These pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors,
proferred dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive books into the air shafts, met their
death cast down in a similar fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad ... The Vindications exist (I have
seen two which refer to persons of the future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers did not remember
that the possibility of a man's finding his Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as zero.
At that time it was also hoped that a clarification of humanity's basic mysteries -- the origin of the Library and of time
-- might be found. It is verisimilar that these grave mysteries could be explained in words: if the language of philosophers
is not sufficient, the multiform Library will have produced the unprecedented language required, with its vocabularies and
grammars. For four centuries now men have exhausted the hexagons ... There are official searchers, inquisitors. I have
seen them in the performance of their function: they always arrive extremely tired from their journeys; they speak of a broken
stairway which almost killed them; they talk with the librarian of galleries and stairs; sometimes they pick up the nearest
volume and leaf through it, looking for infamous words. Obviously, no one expects to discover anything.
As was natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive depression. The certitude that some shelf in some hexagon
held precious books and that these precious books were inaccessible, seemed almost intolerable. A blasphemous sect suggested
that the searches should cease and that all men should juggle letters and symbols until they constructed, by an improbable
gift of chance, these canonical books. The authorities were obliged to issue severe orders. The sect disappeared, but in my
childhood I have seen old men who, for long periods of time, would hide in the latrines with some metal disks in a forbidden
dice cup and feebly mimic the divine disorder.
Others, inversely, believed that it was
fundamental to eliminate useless works. They invaded the hexagons, showed credentials which were not always false, leafed
through a volume with displeasure and condemned whole shelves: their hygienic, ascetic furor caused the senseless perdition
of millions of books. Their name is execrated, but those who deplore the ``treasures'' destroyed by this frenzy neglect two
notable facts. One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction of human origin is infinitesimal. The other: every copy
is unique, irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles:
works which differ only in a letter or a comma. Counter to general opinion, I venture to suppose that the consequences of
the Purifiers' depredations have been exaggerated by the horror these fanatics produced. They were urged on by the delirium
of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and
magical.
We also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of the Book.
On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all
the rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god. In the language of this zone vestiges of this
remote functionary's cult still persist. Many wandered in search of Him. For a century they have exhausted in vain the most
varied areas. How could one locate the venerated and secret hexagon which housed Him? Someone proposed a regressive method:
To locate book A, consult first book B which indicates A's position; to locate book B, consult first a book C, and so on to
infinity ... In adventures such as these, I have squandered and wasted my years. It does not seem unlikely to me that there
is a total book on some shelf of the universe; (3) I pray to the unknown gods that a man -- just one, even though it were thousands of years
ago! -- may have examined and read it. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven
exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous
Library be justified. The impious maintain that nonsense is normal in the Library and that the reasonable (and even humble
and pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception. They speak (I know) of the ``feverish Library whose chance volumes
are constantly in danger of changing into others and affirm, negate and confuse everything like a delirious divinity.'' These
words, which not only denounce the disorder but exemplify it as well, notoriously prove their authors' abominable taste and
desperate ignorance. In truth, the Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical
symbols, but not a single example of absolute nonsense. It is useless to observe that the best volume of the many hexagons
under my administration is entitled The Combed Thunderclap and another The Plaster Cramp and another Axaxaxas
mlö. These phrases, at first glance incoherent, can no doubt be justified in a cryptographical or allegorical manner;
such a justification is verbal and, ex hypothesi, already figures in the Library. I cannot combine some characters
dhcmrlchtdj
which the divine Library has not foreseen and which in one of its secret tongues do not contain a terrible meaning. No one
can articulate a syllable which is not filled with tenderness and fear, which is not, in one of these languages, the powerful
name of a god. To speak is to fall into tautology. This wordy and useless epistle already exists in one of the thirty volumes
of the five shelves of one of the innumerable hexagons -- and its refutation as well. (An n number of possible languages
use the same vocabulary; in some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a ubiquitous and lasting
system of hexagonal galleries, but library is bread or pyramid or anything else, and these seven
words which define it have another value. You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?)
The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written
negates us or turns us into phantoms. I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss
their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations
which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I believe I have mentioned suicides, more and more
frequent with the years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species -- the unique
species -- is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless,
equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.
I have just written the
word ``infinite.'' I have not interpolated this adjective out of rhetorical habit; I say that it is not illogical to think
that the world is infinite. Those who judge it to be limited postulate that in remote places the corridors and stairways and
hexagons can conceivably come to an end -- which is absurd. Those who imagine it to be without limit forget that the possible
number of books does have such a limit. I venture to suggest this solution to the ancient problem: The Library is unlimited
and cyclical. If an eternal traveler were to cross it in any direction, after centuries he would see that the same volumes
were repeated in the same disorder (which, thus repeated, would be an order: the Order). My solitude is gladdened by this
elegant hope. (4)
Translated by J. E. I.
Notes
1 The original manuscript does not contain digits or capital letters. The punctuation has been
limited to the comma and the period. These two signs, the space and the twenty-two letters of the alphabet are the twenty-five
symbols considered sufficient by this unknown author. (Editor's note.)
2 Before, there was a man for every three hexagons. Suicide and pulmonary diseases have destroyed
that proportion. A memory of unspeakable melancholy: at times I have traveled for many nights through corridors and along
polished stairways without finding a single librarian.
3 I repeat: it suffices that a book be possible for it to exist. Only the impossible is excluded.
For example: no book can be a ladder, although no doubt there are books which discuss and negate and demonstrate this possibility
and others whose structure corresponds to that of a ladder.
4 Letizia Álvarez de Toledo has observed that this vast Library is useless: rigorously speaking,
a single volume would be sufficient, a volume of ordinary format, printed in nine or ten point type, containing an
infinite number if infinitely thin leaves. (In the early seventeenth century, Cavalieri said that all solid bodies are the
superimposition of an infinite number of planes.) The handling of this silky vade mecum would not be convenient: each apparent
page would unfold into other analogous ones; the inconceivable middle page would have no reverse.
SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - LITTLE SISTER
PART I
LIBRARY OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III
SOPHIA OF ALL SOPHIA OF WISDOMS
AKA
CAROLINE
E. KENNEDY - CAROLINA KENNEDIA
OCTOBER 29, 2006
RE: THE REAL NEBKHBET
"MUT"
- LADY RAYET
SOPHIA OF WISDOM III
SOPHIA OF ALL SOPHIA OF
WISDOMS
AKA
CAROLINE
E. KENNEDY - CAROLINA KENNEDIA
VS.
NEBHET HOTEP
ANTI-CHRIST
MOTHER OF DARKNESS
CAROLYN
BESSETTE KENNEDY
****NOTES OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - PLEASE NOTE THE DIFFERENCE IN THE NAMES OF
NEKHBET "MUT" = LADY REYET
VS
NEBHET HOTEP
CAROLYN BESSETTE USED MY TITLES AND FORMER NAMES BY CHANGING A LETTER OR TWO AND
MAKING UP LAST NAMES THAT I NEVER USED...
I AM
ISIS OF 10, 000 NAMES
CAROLINE E. KENNEDY - CAROLINA KENNEDIA
THIS IS WHY CAROLYN BESSETTE THOUGHT SHE COULD USE ANY OF MY TITLES
THAT SHE WANTED...
SHE WAS NEVER MARRIED TO
JOHN F. KENNEDY, JR. WHO IS - RA = ATUM / AMEN / AMON/ THE FIRST FATHER
SEE BELOW
MARRIAGE LICENSE WAS NEVER FILED...THEY WERE NEVER MARRIED OFFICALLY...
THIS IS THE ILLUMINATI AND I AM HERE TO CATCH ALL MOTHER'S OF DARKNESS
EXPLANATION:
See "Great Royal Wife" for the more passionate flipside of this story. Ra tends to go to Great Royal Wife Nebhet when he's
feeling furious about something, and to second wife LADY Rayet when he's in
a calmer, sweeter mood.
This is all well and good if you like really hot passionate stuff, like Nebhet
does, but what happens when your husband is in a really LONG good mood...?
* * * *
****NOTES
OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - NEBHET HOTEP IS CAROLYN BESSETTE...
Nebhet Hotep
flounced into her quarters and slammed the door, throwing herself into a chair and scowling at the floor. She
couldn't believe how he treated her, the mother of his important children,
*****NOTES OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - CAROLYN BESSETTE MADE HERSELF MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN BACK THEN AND THINKS THAT SHE
IS STEP MOTHER TO MY CHILDREN NOW...
SHE BELIEVES I AM JOHN F. KENNEDY, JR. WIFE IF THIS IS THE CASE...
NOW I KNOW SHE IS A CON ARTIST AND WANTS SOMETHING FOR NOTING...
SHE ALSO KNOWS MICHAEL BERGIN IS HER SOUL MATE AND WILL BE WITH HIM IN THE END BUT WANTS JOHN F. KENNEDY, JR. NOW AND
JOHN PAYS FOR MICHAEL BERGIN'S CAREER IN THE MEAN TIME AND I GET TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF MY MAGICAL POWERS...
SEE LINK
THE COUNTERAL YEAR OF BARBELLO 2003
SEE LINK
TO
FOREIGN DESTINATION IN PHILAE
his first and great royal wife. He should have been with her tonight; but no, she was certain he'd gone to LADY Rayet, the cowering strumpet.
Ra had always liked her better. It was either because she was his sister, or because she was always
so--accommodating.
He still visited them both, but he went to LADYRayet more often, if the number of children she'd
given him was any indication.
Nebhet suspected that he even sneaked to her room occasionally in the middle of the night.
He'd done so with Nebhet a few times, in the past; but that had been before LADYRayet. She'd been
happy enough before LADY Rayet.
She looked over at her mirror, sitting on a table. Had he actually
gone to her?
He would come to Nebhet usually after some confrontation, or when he was angry; she was the perfect outlet for his anger,
which she always managed to convert into passion, so their nights together were always stormy, and even wild at times. Yet
he never visited her when in a good mood. He must go to LADY Rayet then.
She
kept thinking, he'd been in a good mood tonight.
Slowly, she rose, and went to pick up the mirror. She took a breath,
and concentrated.
The copper surface swirled. An image started to form; a dim image, shrouded in shadow, flickering
lamplight the only thing illuminating it.
Anger flared up in her chest and her fists clenched when she saw what she'd been looking for--a bed, from above, the
two figures in it occupied.
The dim shape on top was naked and moving slowly, buttocks contracting, then releasing, and tightening again. Beneath
it--a female figure, her arms draped over its shoulders, her legs hugging its hips.
Her head was tipped back, her eyes shut. A light sheen of sweat covered them both.
Nebhet wanted to smash
the mirror in her rage. Ra hadn't gone to her; he'd had her called to him.
The bed was his own, and they were making love in it. They hadn't even covered themselves; as her view shifted she could
see them from the side.
Ra's thick panting filled the air.LADY Rayet's breasts pushed against him when she strained. He lifted
his head from kissing her neck to feel them, his fingers gently caressing their curves, tracing delicate patterns over her
nipples. She sucked in her breath and moved her head from side to side.
Ra's hands slid underneath her to feel and splay her buttocks; LADYRayet let
out a long, low moan, arching and rocking slowly with him. He repositioned himself and Nebhet heard his panting grow heavier.
She ground her teeth with fury. Why, why had he called her? Why wasn't Nebhet good enough? Why did he only come to
her in anger--why was LADY Rayet the one to experience him in so many ways? She'd watched them before;
they made love in many ways besides this--she'd seen him allow LADY Rayet on top of him, and in his lap,
and once they'd coupled standing up, Ra gently pressing her against a column and thrusting while her thighs embraced him.
Once she'd even accidentally happened on them enjoying each other in the courtyard pool! She'd come looking for Ra only
to find him and LADY Rayet reclining in the water, LADY Rayet giggling softly and
twirling a lotus before his face as he smiled and held her to him; the water hadn't managed to conceal the fact that beneath
the surface, their legs were twined together, their hips meeting in union.
It was only Nebhet's abject embarrassment and apologies that had spared her from Ra's temper. The only satisfaction she'd
gained was knowing that LADY Rayet had been embarrassed too.
But the moment that had by far infuriated
her the most was when she'd seen them in one of the outdoors courtyards in the open, under the moonlight, LADY Rayet
lying on the ground on her stomach, resting her head on her arms, and Ra crouched atop her hips with his head tilted forward,
swaying slowly.
The moon silhouetted them. Nebhet could remember clearly the way Ra's thighs clasped LADYRayet's
prone body, the way his hands fondled and spread her buttocks further, the way he'd thrust, urging himself into her gently.
While she barely moved, just letting him pleasure himself with her.
Nebhet had gone back behind a column, too angered and humiliated to watch; but the sound of their soft cries of desire
haunted her still. Ra never moaned that way for her.
In her mirror now, they were moving faster, their hips pumping
into each other, Ra breathing quickly as he pushed, moving up and down. LADYRayet wrapped her legs around
him welcomingly.
Nebhet slammed down the mirror. She could watch no more; if she did, she knew her anger would never die. Instead she
went to her bed and lay down with her hands before her face, alone.
* * * * *
LADYRayet
trailed her fingers over the muscles of Ra's back as he moved, pushing into her. The hot fanning of his breath over her face
she welcomed, and the touch of his hand upon her breast; she'd loved him since her youth, but had never found the courage
to tell him, not even when it had come time for him to take a wife and he'd chosen Nebhet Hotep, the daughter
of Amon and Mut. Everyone had seen the match as a purely political one, but a wise one as well, as the two were suited
in temperament. LADYRayet had said nothing, merely watched the marriage with an aching
heart.
*****NOTES OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - HERE IS MORE PROOF THAT CAROLYN BESSETTE AND THE OTHER MOTHER'S
OF DARKNESS HAVE MARRIED MY RIGHTFUL HUSBAND - THE FIRST FATHER TO ME LIFE TIME AFTER LIFE TIME...AND THEY DIDN'T THINK
I WOULD CATCH THEM USING MY MAGIC TO CHANGE BODIES...
*****NOTES OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - I CAN'T BELIEVE CAROLYN BESSETTE MADE HERSELF OUR DAUGTHER AND
THE FIRST WIFE OF HER FATHER RA....
take a wife and he'd chosen Nebhet Hotep, the daughter of Amon and Mut
She wasn't certain what had, several years into the marriage, turned her older brother's eye her way; but something had,
and she hadn't rejected it.
When he had asked for her hand she'd submitted demurely; he'd seemed to appreciate her meekness as the opposite of what
he was, and she'd carried the behavior to his bed. By right of law Nebhet's children were to supersede hers in importance,
as Nebhet was the great royal wife;
LADY Rayet didn't much care, as all that she'd wanted was Ra.
Nebhet had looked none too happy when they'd retired from the wedding banquet to his quarters.
LADY Rayet herself had been a little frightened, but also excited, her heart
beating hard in her chest; she'd desired him all her life, and the moment had come, she was pure and ready for him. Still
he'd been most gentle with her, removing her clothes in the dim light with most of the lamps extinguished, and taking time
to ready her with his fingers playing over her most secret area until she trembled in anticipation; his swift entry had been
searing and painful, but the slightest touch of his hand to her abdomen had ended that, as she recognized his healing power
coursing through her and banishing the pain.
Needless to say she had let him make love to her all night, enjoying his feel, and the knowledge that all she had ever
wanted was now hers--his pleasure was her pleasure--and she'd only lamented the coming of dawn when he'd had to leave her
to bring the daylight.
He'd touched her once again, to remove the ache of exertion from her body; thereafter she'd spent most of the day lying
spent in his bed, until nightfall brought him back, and with him the tender ache, the sweet feel of him within her.
In
the days afterward, he'd come to her bed nightly two weeks in a row.
She harbored no jealousy for Nebhet, though she
knew the royal wife envied the time Ra spent with her, which was increasingly more often. He went to Nebhet only when extremely
angry; Rayet didn't care to guess how they spent the time.
She feared and respected her husband's temper and authority; she'd seen how furious he could get the one time Nebhet
had appeared while they passed their time in the pool. That time had been enjoyable, at least at first; when Nebhet had shown
up out of nowhere she could tell that Ra had thought she'd
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SISTER
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