jolly hill of grapes

 

and moreover wasps and bees are born as worms and when the lion steps on a stone-oak leaf his whole body turns to stone and the beaver bites off its testicles when it is hunted and the hyena is sometimes male sometimes female and is sometimes impregnated by others and sometimes impregnates others and therefore that creature is impure because its nature is mixed and changeable and when the hedgehog enters a garden he lies on his side under the grapes and spears the grapes on his spines and heads back home like a jolly hill of grapes and the elephant feels no desire for marriage so she wanders east where Paradise lies and tears a mandrake from the ground with her trunk which exudes a seductive scent and makes her pregnant and funniest of all is of course the unicorn which is caught by a virgin baring her breast and letting it suckle and then the hunters come and tie him up and life is limited for anyone who comes into being through reproduction and the parrotfish is the only fish that chews the cud

and moreover our life is the wasps nest or swallows nest that we build for ourselves and everything is different in different places because in Florence Savonarola has forced the servants to spy on their masters and the children on their parents and on bonfires they throw masquerade costumes and books by Boccaccio and Petrarch and perfume and mirrors and musical instruments and chessboards and all the paintings depicting naked female beauty and the moral children dance in a ring round the bonfire in triple rings moreover and chant Savonarolas words about the Church of Prostitution whose poisonous stinking breath rises up to despairing Heaven and the Pope sits sullenly in Rome and curses the tumult

but in Bologna it is the exact opposite because there a doctor can blaspheme against the shifty Christ who deserved his death on the cross and still be released after a simple expression of regret

and in the worlds heart Rome the Popes eldest son is murdered by his younger son and the body is found in the Tiber with nine stab wounds in the throat and is carried in a torchlight procession to his resting place while the Pope cries and refuses to eat for three days and it is the first fast the Pope has submitted to and everyone whispers that his murderer son Cesare loves his sister Lucrezia passionately and that her eldest brother was murdered out of jealousy because he also loved her and for the first time in my life I heard about the disease

(pp 10-11)

someone told me that Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India around the southern tip of Africa and when the Portuguese reached the equator the astrolabe stopped working

the nearer you got to the equator the nearer the North Star approached the horizon and when you crossed the line the star disappeared entirely

there is thus a place where all instruments fail and it became a peculiar point in my mind and the point became a dream hall where I could send all dangerous thoughts and bizarre sounds and secret tones and the order of words and amidst the tempting mythology surrounding the wild carnival in Rome and the fratricide Cesare Borgias feats as a newlywed lover with eight orgasms a day in front of an open curtain I found myself sitting with Double Vigilance in front of Priscian's Latin grammar and enjoying the images of the initials and listening to the expositions of Thomas Aquinas about everything that "God" is not

he is not moved and simultaneously he is not still

and he is like a human being?

no

he is his own essence and his own existence and he lacks a body because he is not composed.

for a body consists of parts

but if we are his parts?

no

we are divided into Essence and Existence while He is Essence and Existence simultaneously and forever

while we change existence now and then

we did not understand the meaning of this and I know that even today an old woman sits a few houses away from here pouring oil into a cup of water and watching with staring eyes the shapes of the oil on the surface of the water

(pp. 12-13)

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These are two extracts from the early pages of Molza, älskaren (Molza, the lover), a 1988 novel by Torbjörn Säfve.

The Italian poet Francesco Molza (1489 - 1544) lies dying of syphilis. In these extracts he recalls his childhood in Modena (c. 1500), his education and the sensational stories that reached him even then.

parrotfish: this ancient observation (e.g. by Aristotle) identified the fish's constant mechanical grinding of dead corals with cows chewing the cud.

the shapes of the oil: a type of divination called lecanomancy. 

Inquiry of bowl divination and necromancy: Whenever you want to inquire about matters, take a bronze vessel, either a bowl or a saucer, whichever you prefer. Pour water into it—rainwater, if you call on the heavenly gods, seawater, if [you call] on the gods of the earth, river water, if you call on Osiris or Sarapis, spring water, if you call on the dead. Holding the vessel on your knees, pour green olive oil into it. Bend over the vessel and recite the prescribed spell. Address any god you desire and ask him any questions you wish. He will reply and tell you everything. After he has spoken to you, dismiss him with the dismissal formula. Having used this spell, you will be amazed. 

Spell to be recited over the water: amoun auantau riptou mantauiimantou .... etc

Translated from the Egyptian magical text PGM IV, aka the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris, copy of c. 4th century CE but probably much older.

From Yvette Hunt, "Exploring Ancient Lecanomancy", University of Queensland, 2019.

https://www.academia.edu/39640230/Exploring_Ancient_Lecanomancy

*

Here's a Google Translate of what Swedish Wikipedia says about Torbjörn Säfve (omitting references, links, etc):

Lars Torbjörn Säfve, also known as Ali Touba, born 6 July 1941 in Jukkasjärvi parish, Norrbotten County, is a Swedish author and debater. Säfve lives in Haddebo in Närke.

Biography

Torbjörn Säfve was born in Kiruna, but the family moved to Luleå and the Malmudden district when he was two years old. After graduating from Luleå Higher General Education in 1962, he moved south, settling first in Uppsala, then in Stockholm. Säfve studied literature and philosophy at Uppsala University from 1963 to 1966 and from 1968 to 1971. During his time as an active member of the Norrland Nation at Uppsala University, where he has been an honorary member since 2001, he was chairman of the Debating Society. In his youth, Säfve was also an active Maoist as well as describing himself as an "anarcho-Stalinist".

He was a directing student at the Stockholm Film School from 1966 to 1968 and made the film Masturbationsdrama and the short film Montebello in 1967, in which, among others, the actress Ulla-Britt Norrman made her film debut. Säfve then returned to Norrbotten and lived for a number of years in Luleå before moving south again. Säfve is very interested in boxing, and boxing is also the theme of several of his books. Siki (1977), Gorilla (1986) and Druidparken (1996) are three novels on the theme. In 1973 he competed in the New 10,000-Kronor Question on the subject of professional boxing.

He has converted to Islam and professes Sufism, and there is a statue in the Örnäset district of Luleå. Säfve regularly contributes to the Muslim cultural magazine Minaret. His Muslim name is Ali Touba.

Norrland Nation: Uppsala University has a number of student "Nations" relating to regions of Sweden. Membership of a Nation was formerly obligatory for students. Uppsala's Nations are loosely comparable to Oxbridge colleges, or Durham ones anyway. 

Debating Society: The Norrland Nation's Talförening was once famous, and the post of chairman was considered quite prestigious. It existed from c. 1900 until 1972. 

New 10,000-Kronor Question: This was the name of a relaunch of the long-running Swedish TV quiz show Double Or Quits, based on the US show The 64,000 Dollar Question.