Prospero Burns

PART ONE

THE UPPLANDER

‘If I am guilty of anything, it is the simple pursuit of knowledge.’

— The Primarch Magnus, at Nikaea

‘Take but degree away, untune that string,

And, hark! what discord follows; each thing meets

In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters

Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores

And make a sop of all this solid globe:

Strength should become the lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead:

Force should be right; or rather

right and wrong

(Between whose endless jar justice resides)

Should lose their names, and so should

justice too.

Then every thing, includes itself in power,

Power into will, will into appetite.

And appetite, a universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,

Must make perforce a universal prey, and last eat up himself.’

— attributed to the dramaturge Shakespire (fl. M2), cited in the Prophecy of Amon of the Thousand Sons (chp III verse 230)

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

— unattributable (circa M2)