The Secret Priory (il segretissimo Codice del Saliano)

[Ed.: Fragmentary Poets have been uncommonly fortunate to receive this text. We were instructed to go to the Gard du Nord in Paris and try to buy a TGV ticket to Biarritz from the fourth window. (No TGV goes to Biarritz nor does any train from the Gard du Nord--this was to be the sign.) At that point, two men in fancy dress (one as a WWI-era pilot, the other as a veruca) approached me and told me what is written below. Upon leaving, they gave me a roll of serviettes, in which the following fragment was found. Before turning it in to the proper libraries, Fragmentary Poets hope to break this story first to the scholarly community. We will receive queries for submissions of translation and commentary. ]


The Secret Priory
The Secret Priory is a more secret organization of men devoted to keeping a really big secret about another secret. These men were the greatest thinkers and artists of their respective time, or at least very close to those who were, but chose to relegate themselves to lesser positions that they might keep safe the greatest secret: the “Other Secret” kept by another allegedly secret society is secretly known to The Secret Priory to be false. The Secret Priory has a better secret, one that, according to a member who did not win the Nobel Prize for physics in 2003, would expose the 'Other Secret' as false. Why not expose it?

'We like to think of ourselves as the keepers of the disorder. We do our best to make sure that the Church’s more obsessed legionnaires and the Priory of Sion will always stay in business. Their conflict is important to the stability of things'.

He added that many of their past High Overseers were either nearly famous or dubiously famous men such as il Saliano and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The current High Overseer of The Secret Priory was not elected to high office in a G8 country recently.

Despite these views on maintaining the stability of Church conflict, another member of The Secret Priory, who was not selected for the Armenian Winter Olympic Team in 1998 and 2002, has chosen to release a papyrus fragment that will not reveal the secret but should have people guessing.

'This is our way of keeping the Secret but saying to the world "You’re getting warmer,"' said non-Olympian.

'Precisely. We’ll never tell, but, wow. It’s pretty cool. You should know if you’ve figured it out,' added non-Nobel laureate.

When asked why release this 'clue' now, both men added that they fear that pieces of their secret will get out sooner or later.

'This proactive near-release of our Secret will help put us in a stronger position for negotiating rights. We want to maintain world rights on publication but are willing to negotiate on screen and stage rights', said non-Olympian.




An excerpt of the text of the lost Epistle of Amber to Mary Magdalene


ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΕΚΤΡΙΔΟΣ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΜΑΓΔΑΛΗΝΗΝ ΜΑΡΙΑΝ

Ἐλέκτρις ἡ πρώτη γυνὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ διὰ θελήματος θεοῦ τοῖς οὖσιν σὺν Μαγδαλήνῃ Μαρίᾳ, ἀλλὰ οὐ Μαγδαλήνῃ Μαρίᾳ αὐτῇ· χάρις ὑμῖν, ἀλλὰ οὐ Μαγδαλήνῃ Μαρίᾳ αὐτῇ, καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. τῶν προτέρων ἐτέων ἔβημεν κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ὅδον ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ. ἆρα αὐτὰ νῦν ἔλαθέ σε, ὦ ἁγία; αὐτῶν μεμνήμαι καὶ ἐσοῦ. πολλοὶ ἀπείρχοντο σὺν ἐσῷ, ἀλλὰ παλινείρχου μόνη, κἔγω. πόρναι ἦμεν ὡς καλλίσται ἐν Ἰερυσαλήμ. αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ὁτὰν Ἰησοῦς ἔβλεψε ἐμὲ στᾶσαν πρὸς τὴν εἴσοδον πόλεως καὶ εἶπε ‘ὦ ἄνθος γῆς Ἰούδας, ἕπου ἐμοὶ εἰς ἐρημίαν τεσσαράκπντας νυκτός.’ ἀλλὰ σὺ ἔβαλες μίτρᾳ ἐμὲ σὺν αὐτῷ μολοῦσαν καὶ εἴρχετο σὺν αὐτῷ. κατηλαλάζον ‘ὦ Μαγδαλήνη Μαρία, καὶ σὺ, κύων!’ πολλὰ δάκρυα ἐμοί· γυνὴ δὲ θῆλυ κἀπὶ δακρύοις. δύων ἐτέων ἐπυθόμην ἐσὲ τεκνοῦσθαι δύας θυγατέρας Σαρὰν καὶ Τριξίν καλοῦσας. ὁτὰν σὺ εἵπετο τῷ Ἰησοῦ πρὸς Γολγοθάν, ἔλαβον αὐτὰς καὶ ἤμειψα αὐτὰς ἀντὶ ἀλλὰς. πάντως σφ’ ἀνάγκη κατθανεῖν· ἐπεὶ δὲ χρὴ, ἐγὼ κτενῶ αἵπερ ἐξέφυσε. πάντως πὲπρακται ταῦτα κοὐκ ἐκφεύξεται. ἐπεὶ ἐγὼ […κτλ...

CPF: ISIM Annual Conference, DEADLINE EXTENDED

The Organizing Committee of the 7th Annual Conference of the International Society for Interpretive Mimetics has been authorized by the ISIM Executive Organ of Grand Councillors and Other Animals to extend the deadline for submissions to, like, anytime someone wants to submit something.

There have been some suggestions left anonymously that perhaps the conference ought to be held instead in Majorca or Ibiza. (The ISIM earnestly considers any anonymous suggestions left in its "Courtesy Suggestion Drop," i.e. the overturned bowler next to the left luggage room at Stazione Termini, Rome. Please don't remove any change.) The Organizing Committee will consider this if further such suggestions are made. One note observed that Kyustendzh would be a horrible place for a conference, as Ovid was clearly not pleased with it.

Fragmentary Poets have consented to act as the clearinghouse for abstracts or panel proposals for the 7th Annual Conference. Please post them in the Comments.

Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago) 2

[Ed.: This is the second portion of text released from the sequestered community of brilliant, young scholars who have come to be known as “The Chicago Project.” The lead editor and commentator is still beyond definitive identification. Fragmentary Poets do have one well placed source in The Chicago Project. He can only confirm that an unusually high proportion of Diet Coke is consumed there relative to other fine soft beverages. Fear not, gentle reader. We will know more soon. For the moment, please find useful the below.]



Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago) 2

carmina de factis hominum diuomque poeta
      primus Homerus enim talia composuit.
quid me profecta iuuat haec legere alta puella,
      et tantos uersus mente tenere mea,
an quid eos laete recitare in limine amatae,
      si non ianua tum discere Homerica uult?
cura mihi non est nunc sed prius officium egi;
      nemo operam melius me dedit †ipso† avidam. 




1. Text
This portion may or may not be subsequent to the previously released portion of WC, as this text has come to be represented in conspectus siglorum of textual edition being furiously reedited around the globe. Cf. previously deposited portion on WC n.1.


2. Language and Prosody
The language appears to be Latin. Due to the alternate, but not severe, indentation, it is the resolved and practiced opinion of this commentator that the meter is likely to be possibly elegiac couplets, again. The monosyllabic termination of uult suggests feeble authorship.


3. Authorship
Hasn’t Faber, or pseudo-Faber, received enough for his fifteen minutes?


4. Materia
A predictable return to the limen puellae and to the hackneyed epic v. elegy debate. Though here, that debate rises to a level of internal discourse demanding posited (re)affirmation in the ever-inwardly-expanding web of self-conscious meta-verbal intramissions. [Ed.: Some still call this programmatic poetry.]


5. Commentary

1 (9) hominum diuomque: cf. Lucretius 1.1 Aeneadum genetrix hominum diuuomque uoluptas. Why would the poet allude to this, unless the goal is to introduce further archaism when the subject is epic? And why this line? Elegy requires no dedication, except perhaps to the puella. But the reference is clearly to Venus, which draws immediately contrasting comparison to Homer and his material. Perhaps this is a less capable attempt to recreate the timelessly elegiac trope of casting players representing the two disparate genres. Ovid clearly perfected this in Amores 3.1, which suggests that Faber was composing earlier, or in an egocentric stupor.

3 (11) quid me…iuvat: cf. Propertius 1.2.1, 3 (…6) Faber continues in the uniquely Propertian tradition of using harsh, abrupt questions to redirect the reader.

      Alta puella: This does not occur as a description of a poet’s puella. Perhaps the reading should be longa or recta, cf. Catullus 86. The condition of the text makes it impossible to discern whether this is a recensio or a prima primarum, and thus the nature of the reading.

5 (13) quid: cf. 3 (11)

6 (14) ianua: An allusion to the paraklausithyron. Thanks goodness that this is only an allusion. Or is that an illusion?

8 (16) ipso: without another noun or pronoun, this is ill-informed. Faber is clearly not a native speaker of Latin. Oh, wait. Maybe the ipso agrees with me. Nevermind.

frag. XXXXX(b)

[Ed.: Dr. Bruno Fabrizio has authorized us to publish this work in progress on the condition that Fragmentary Poets do not reveal the source of the fragment or its current location. Dr. Fabrizio asked that Fragmentary Poets function as an open forum for the scholarly community on any possible reactions or conjectures, and we are pleased to do so. We ask readers to submit any remarks or hypotheses regarding meaning, possible origin, date, context, authorship, etc. Dr. Fabrizio assures that the text is stable.

It is unclear at this time if and when Dr. Fabrizio will ever pursue this to publication. He just took on a new graduate student, who is another bella figura and apparently not without some talent, and, well, we know what's happening now. (We have a source in Ibiza who, well...we're selling that story to the Sun.) Fragmentary Poets sincerely hopes that Dr. Fabrizio, clearly one of the greatest minds in the history of textual criticism, will not pursue this life to the end that Wilfried Stroh has met.]


frag. XXXXX (b)


ἴσθι μὲν τὸν ἵππο[…
ἴσθι δ’ ὁ αὐτὸς ἵππ[…