SCRIPTS  18

                                                            From Hell  

              Chapter Four:   "What Doth the Lord Require of Thee?"

                                                                                           By Alan Moore.

(Scenes one and two excised.)

Brook Street, London, August, 1888.

John Netley: Whoah. Ha! Bang on time, your Lordship. 'Ang on, I'll hop down an' open the door.

Sir William Whithey Gull: That won't be necessary. It would better suit my purposes to ride up top beside you. Come, give me your hand.

Netley: Well, as you wish, Sir William, though it ain't very comfortable.
Y'see, like, normally I just puts luggage up here.

Gull: Ha ha ha! Then I shall be your luggage! Oxford Circus first. then Oxford Street. Drive on,Netley.                   (Animation JCN after Eddie´s Art)

Netley: Pardon me for askin', Sir William, but when you sent your message, you said as 'ow you might 'ave some work you could put my way?

Gull: Indeed I did, and grand work it shall be. Too grand, I fear, to be encompassed by a coachman's cul-de-sac philosophies.

Netley: You try me! You just try me, sir. I'm sharper than I look.

Gull: Ha ha ha! Let us hope so, Netley. Let us hope so most fervently.             
Very well, I shall attempt an explanation while we ride. Left at Gray's Inn Road, incidentally. Make for King's Cross. There are certain wretched women, Netley, who threaten the crown. This threat must be removed. Do you understand?

Netley: I do, sir. Done away with, like.

Gull: No, sir! Not "Done away with," for that is common murder, only fit for common footpads. I spoke of grand work, Netley. Grand work. A great work must have many sides from which we may consider it. Think of the classic legends, with their layers of significance... Diana, for example:
is she but an ancient fairytale? a symbol meaning dreams and womanhood?
A deified princess from long ago? A myth? A symbol? History? Or take this city, in itself a great work, you'll agree: a thing of many levels, and complexities. How well do you know London, Netley?

Netley: Like the back o' my hand, sir.

Gull: Ha ha! As grubby, certainly. But London's more besides: It too is symbol, history and myth. Turn right up Pancras Road.

Gull: Battle Bridge Road. Stop here.

Netley: Whoah.

Gull: Come... Help me down. We must consider our great work in all its aspects. We'll begin with women. Tell me, Netley... Do you like them?

Netley: Women? Can't get enough, sir.

Gull: Not "Do you desire them?", Netley. Do you like them? As a gender?
The way they think? The things they say? Could you, for instance, tolerate a world where females ruled? With men bound to their whims and governed by their scorn?

Netley: Well... No, sir, put like that...

Gull: No. No, indeed. Then offer up a prayer of thanks to these black tenements, these soot encrusted walls... 'Twas here that womankind's last hopes and dreams were put to sword. Women held power once: Back in the caves, life hinged on childbirth's mystery, and we served mother goddesses, not father gods. 'Twas thus for three million years. Then men rebelled, perhaps a few at first, a small conspiracy... Who, by some act of social magic, politics, or force, cast woman down that man might rule.
Time passed, and kingdoms passed from father unto son. The matriarchy was forgotten... Save by the Iceni, there in Colchester, allowed some independence by the occupying Roman troops. Yet Rome forbade that Boadicea, the Iceni's queen, should pass her crown to daughters and not sons. When she complained, they raped her and her daughters in contempt.
A grave mistake. She gathered the Iceni, howling to her mother goddesses for vengeance, and burned London to the ground, its gutters heaped with steaming heads. She left a stripe of ash, a cold black vein in London's geologic strata, token of one woman's wrath. Mark it, Netley. Mark it well, and fear it. Rome regrouped; reclaimed the ruined city. Boadicea died upon this spot at Battle Bridge, below Parliament Hill where druids once made sacrifices to a father sun. Come, Netley. Back to King's Cross, then down Pentonville. Do you begin to grasp how truly great a work is London? A veritable textbook we may draw upon in formulating great works of our own! We'll penetrate its metaphors, lay bare its structure and thus come at last upon its meaning. As befits great work, we'll read it carefully, and with respect.

Netley: Uh, with respect, sir... I can't read.

Gull: Oh Netley. Netley, Netley, Netley. What are we to do with you?
Proceed by Essex Road to Ballspond Road, and thence to London Fields. I take it street signs aren't beyond your literary grasp.                                 (Sir William Gull) 

Netley: Oh no, sir! I reads them right enough!

Gull: Splendid! By chance, our lesson for today requires of you no further scholarship. The greater part of London's story is not writ in words. It is instead a literature of stone, of place-names and
associations. Where faint echoes answer back from off the distant ruined walls of bloody history. Turn right down Greenwood Road as far as Albion Drive, then stop. Albion Drive. 'Twould seem auspicious in that we aspire to probe the ventricles of London, England's heart. Regard the London Fields, here in the slums of Hackney. Once green pasture, 'til the prosperous merchants moved here after London's fire; built suburbs that could not contain the overspill from the East End. Now all that's left's this dismal patch of grass, grazed bare by sheep; a yellowed waste in summer's heat; a quagmire if it rains. Yet Hackney once was "Hackons Ea", a settlement where Saxons lived and worshipped heroes, deified as gods.
Like Hengest's father, Ivalde Svigdur, murderer of Mani, the Teutonic Lunar deity. Imagine, Netley: Here were goblets raised to toast the man who killed the moon. All gone: Now Hackney brook churns underground from Crouch Hill's buckled spine to join the crawling River Lea, yet there's a mystery here... A resonance. This very street, Albion Drive, resounds with poetry, with Blake's mad prophecies and visions: "Enslaved, the daughters of Albion weep; a trembling lamentation..." Ha ha ha. Blake.
Now there's a fellow. Come, let us continue with our ride and I shall tell you more of him. Take Broadway Market, Goldsmith's Row, then on to Hackney Road. Born in the Eighteenth century, our greatest prophet, William Blake, experienced visions; spoke with Milton's ghost, or the Apostle Paul...

Netley: Sounds barmy.

Gull: Possibly. And yet, as Alexander Gilchrist, Blake's biographer,suggests, 'tis but comparatively recently that seeing visions would call into doubt a person's sanity. Why, Roman military logs describe divine encounters quite routinely; less remarkable than horse-shoes lost or quartermaster's lists. Our brains were different then: The Gods seemed real. Down Old Street next, then left at Bunhill Row. All human brains, your own included, Netley, have two sides: The left is reason, logic, science; our Apollonian skills. The right is magic, art and madness; Dionysian attributes; the mind's unconscious hemisphere, whose symbol is the moon. Naught but a slender thread of gristle joins the two, evolving
down the centuries, that in the past was yet more slender still. The conscious, ignorant once of its dark twin, mistook its dreams and inspirations for Celestial visions, muses whispering... Called madmen saints, or else demoniacs. In Gilchrist's words, Blake spiritually belonged to earlier ages of the world, since when, as Hazlitt has remarked, "The Heavens have gone further off." Our lunatics were prophets once, and had a prophet's power. Never forget that, Netley. Bunhill Fields. We're here. Come... Let's dismount. Blake was a throwback from beyond the Age of Reason, from a time of magic thinking when the Gods yet walked with men. By faith, he was a druid, such as praised the sun from
Parliament Hill, yet Blake abhorred the sun. Talking to Calvin, pointing to the sky, he cried "That is the Greek Apollo! He is Satan!" Ironic that his bones rest here, beneath a Sun God's obelisk. The obelisk's Defoe's, yet looms above the prophet's grave. It's styled upon stones consecrated to the Sun God Atum, raised at Heliopolis, in ancient Egypt.

Netley: Styled on my John Thomas more like.

Gull: Netley! How perceptive! The obelisk is phallic, for the sun's a symbol of the male principle; of man's ascendancy. It also symbolizes man's left brain, our rational, Apollonian side... And yet, each sunset, casts its unforgiving shadow 'cross the grave of England's greatest Holy Fool. But we'll see more of Blake before this day is out. And if we take your coach back up the Bunhill Row to Old Street, then we may see more of obelisks as well. Down Old Street to Saint Luke's. Its architect, one
Nicholas Hawksmoor, was commissioned in good faith to raise good Christian churches in this city following the fire of 1666. But Hawksmoor was no Christian, and his pagan works perpetuate the occult teachings of the ancient Dionysiac Architects, his greatest influence. Saint Luke's is up ahead. The church itself is unremarkable, but ah, the steeple...
Look at Hawksmoor's steeple!

Netley: The? Why, sir! I'd never noticed! -- It's that thing from Bunhill Fields again! A proper steeple shouldn't look like that.

Gull: Indeed. Those upright Christian gentlemen who had commissioned him expressed a similar view. Hawksmoor maintained his strange designs were based upon "the purest forms of Christianity" which to his mind were those of the fourth century A.D. He must have known fourth century Britain had its pagan side, with even Emperor Julian officially renouncing Christianity. His sponsors, obviously unwitting of this fact, bowed to his greater wisdom; let him build his steeples as he pleased.
He built an obelisk: Another altar to the sun, and masculinity, and reason, with its cold erection stabbing at the sky... Merely a part of the concealed design that Hawksmoor sought to stamp across this city's face. Come. Goswell Road next, then Northampton Square. Yes, London has its obelisks. So too have Paris, Washington, New York. Freemasons in those cities through this century have had a hand in situating obelisks at certain points, aware of their significance.

Netley: Freemasons, sir? Why, beggin' your pardon, Sir William, but I'd 'eard as you yourself was of that order.

Gull: Oh, the world of Masonry has many denizens and many fields of influence. Take this square for example. Why, with so many London poets uncommemorated should we name streets after an insignificant marquis?
Here's why: He was a leading Mason, Marquis of Northampton, site of Hawksmoor's Easton Neston Hall, characteristically aligned with local churches.

Netley: Sir? I've 'eard that the way a man might best advance 'imself is that he join the Masons. I- If my work pleases you Lordship, would you have a word on my behalf, like.

Gull: Ha ha! Why, Netley! I can offer you more than that! Promise you'll put your heart and soul into this task and I will guarantee your name shall swiftly pass into Masonic history.

Netley: Si- Sir William... This'll change my life! You can't imagine, sir...

Gull: Oh, but I can, dear Netley. Most assuredly I can. Proceed down Clerkenwell to Theobalds Road, then on to Hart Street. If you'd a Mason be, first learn their lore, their history. Oh, do not look alarmed. So little's known about their past, the lesson's short; learned easily.
Freemasons claim descent from, variously, Atlantis, Eden, and, no doubt, primordial chaos itself. Hogwash! The order as it stands goes back no further than the Eighteenth century... Formerly a humble craftsman's guild, an influx of aristocrats and intellectuals seeking arcane thrills joined, bringing handshakes, rituals, and oaths, a meaningless occult veneer... And yet not all who joined the craft were merely dilletantes.
Some were intellectual giants, seekers after hidden lore, bent on continuing the ancient works. That is the true descent of Masonry: Not mumbled words passed down across the generations but ideas that spark from mind to mind across the centuries. Those early seekers almost certainly include the architect, Christopher Wren, and good Sir Chris' protege Sir John Vanbrugh. And then there's Hawksmoor. Cunning Nick, who ne'er became a knight, yet was the greatest of them all. Hawksmoor...
That vast dark intricate cathedral mind, whose birdshit-coloured stones defined this century... Yet who allowed the world to see him as Wren's underling, and with a passion sought obscurity. Stop here by Saint George Bloomsbury, his church. Like all his work, it's influenced by those from whom the Masons claim descent, the Dionysiac Architects, supposedly the master craftsmen of Atlantis who survived that continent's decline...
They roamed the globe and harvested its mysteries, built marvels as they went: Solomon's Temple and the Pyramids; Diana's Temple at Ephesus;... Many varied wonders of the ancient world besides... Such as, perhaps, the Pagan Mausoleum at Halicarnassus on which Hawksmoor based the steeple of this church. Did they exist, these Dionysiacs? They may have done! A royal expedition's currently engaged in excavating ancient Crete. Early reports suggest a culture far advanced, with evidence of Dionysus
worship, dating from two thousand years B.C. It may be Cretan culture was destroyed by an explosion of the great volcano Thiera, and resultant tidal waves. Was Crete Atlantis? Were the Dionysiacs its architects?
However Cretan culture fell, we can be certain that its builders guilds and architects, already in demand and trading with the neighbouring powers, could have survived its fall with their financial base intact.
And mayhap with their Dionysus cult as well. Make for Earl's Court, back along Oxford Street and then Bayswater Road. We'll find an inn and fortify ourselves with lunch. These ancient stones awake in me a fearful appetite. Crete fell and the Myceneans next occupied the area, employing Crete's artificers, as demonstrated by Cretan designs upon those times' Mycenean artifacts. Did the Dionysiacs thus infiltrate Mycenean culture?
Roam the world with them? Help shape that world into their grand and secret edifice? There are Mycenean symbols etched upon Stonehenge. Could the Dionysiacs have helped design that ancient solar shrine, where druids once made sacrifice? Always the sun! Whether his name be Lud, Apollo...
Helios or Atum. Be he Belinos or Bel... or Baal... Earl's Court, which we approach, was once called Billingswell, after "Belinos' Well," sacred unto the solar god-king Belinos, son of King Lud. Stop at this inn. Ahh!
Thank you, my good woman. May I say your kidney pie smells excellent?
Most excellent indeed!

Waitress: Why bless you, sir. Enjoy your meal.

Netley: 'Scuse my ignorance, Sir William, but what's all these old gods got to do with them as 'ave upset 'er Majesty.

Gull: Gmmg. Excuse me... Scorn not the gods: Despite their non-existence in material terms, they're no less potent, no less terrible. The one place gods inarguably exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity. What's Mars but mankind's violent attributes personified? Or Aphrodite, save mankind's desires? The Neoplatonists' perceived all gods as aspects of "The One" yet missed the greater truth. "The One" is us, each with a pantheon of gods in our right
brain, whence inspiration and all instinct springs. Athena gives us automobiles, Mars our Mahdi uprisings. Is that not plague and miracle enough to sate the God of Exodus? Finish your pie. We cannot tarry long.
Myths are the key to our right brain; the world of gods that, like Atlantis, sank beneath the waters of the Age of Reason. That drowned realm of the mind; those intellects that dive the deepest, salvaging its treasures, we call sorcerors. Where next? Let me consult the map. Ah yes:
Knightsbridge via Cromwell Road, then Grosvenor place onto Victoria Street. I think I'll mark the sites we have already visited. There's Battle Bridge where matriarchy fell with Boadicea; London Fields where Saxons praised the moon's assassin; Bunhill Fields with Blake asleep beneath his obelisk; Old Street, where Hawksmoor raised its twin...
Northampton Square, bought with Masonic gold, and Bloomsbury St. George, where Hawksmoor raised his pagan mausoleum. Finally, Earl's Court, where Belinos once had his well. That's all our stops thus far, this random scattering of points... This earthbound constellation. Maps have potency; may yield a wealth of knowledge past imagining if properly divined.
Encoded in this city's stones are symbols thunderous enough to rouse the sleeping gods submerged beneath the sea-bed of our dreams... For better or for worse. Stop just ahead. Few symbols match this stone in potency:
Carved fifteen hundred years before Christ's birth and raised at Heliopolis by Thothmes, etched with hieroglyphic prayers that Atum, Egypt's sun god, might increase his sovereignty... Removed to Alexandria in 12 B.C. it fell, lay sand-bound 'til this century, when England claimed it and endeavored to transport it home. The cart that bore it to the docks in Alexandria collapsed, spilling the obelisk into an undiscovered prehistoric tomb. Weeks later, it was extricated; placed aboard a ship... Which promptly sank. Months passed. The obelisk was rescued; placed inside a floating cylinder that tugs might bring to England. Nearing Biscay, fearful storms arose. Two hundred tons of granite almost dragged the tugs to Hell before they cut it loose. Six seamen lost their lives. For months it drifted, was finally recovered and placed here, beside the Thames, after discarding plans to site it at Westminster, where Apollo's temple stood. Beneath it, curious tokens were entombed. A map; daguerrotypes of our epoch's most lovely women... And a razor. What does this imply, eh, Netley? What does this imply? It is a haunt for suicides and ghosts: a naked man is seen, who leaps into the Thames. No splash is ever heard. They call it Cleopatra's Needle. He who'd wield it would the best of tailors be, to do its work; increase the sun god's sovereignty... Call down the sun itself: Touch Earth with Atum's purifying light that all might know his majesty. Waterloo Bridge, and then York Road. These speculations have a common thread: The war 'twixt sun and moon... Wherein all history has been conscripted. Lambeth
Palace next, then Lambeth Road. 'Tis in the war of sun and moon that man steals woman's power; that left brain conquers right... That reason chains insanity. At Bedlam, yonder, I've heard men proclaim they ruled the Eagles; vow they'd war upon the stars if I'd but give them claret.
Lunatics are soldiers of the moon, alongside poets, artists, sorcerers, all warring on the stars, which are but distant suns. Hercules Road's ahead. Turn left. Hercules Buildings: Blake wrote "London" here, that Hellish city, haunted by the street-cries of its damned. Here once, a scaly phantom chased him from the house... Blake's was the voice of our right brain, the mind's Atlantis, singing over Bedlam's clamour, where, Blake claimed, the mad had locked away the sane. He knew that madmen are but prisoners of war and had no fear of madness, for he knew its glory...
Knew its power. Quite recently I had a heart-stroke, did I tell you that?
It caused aphasia: A fluxion of the brain's right side that yields hallucinations. Netley, I saw God. I knelt before him... And he told me what to do. And Gull the doctor says, "Why, to converse with gods is madness." And Gull, the man, replies, "Then who'd be sane?" But did I feel a spot of rain? Let's hasten, Netley... Off down George's Road, past Elephant and Castle. Then by Walworth Road to Camberwell... And smile a little, fellow. You have come quite pale. Madness is a Dionysian fruit... like grapes. Forgive me for not offering you one. Your hands are filthy and I fear disease.

Netley: I'm not that 'ungry, sir. I've got bad guts, and feels peculiar, like. It must 'ave been that pie we 'ad, them kidneys.

Gull: Possibly... Or have these stones and symbols' morbid airs afflicted you. Their language speaks direct to our unconscious mind. Think of it, Netley: "Dionysiac Architects." What contradiction, with the god of instinct and unreason thus evoked by architects, most sober, Apollonian of men. Yet they knew the unconscious was the inspiration whence their towers of reason sprang. Thus, harnessing its power symbolically was their sublime accomplishment. Their symbol was the dreaming moon enclosed
by seven stars that represent arithmetic, music, astronomy, rhetoric,  grammar, logic and geometry, the pillars of Masonic thought. That symbol  also signifies the female power within humanity, enfettered by its ring  of stars that are but distant suns and therefore masculine. Symbols have power, Netley... Power enough to turn even a stomach such as yours... Or to deliver half this planet's population into slavery. Down Denmark Hill towards Herne Hill, then stop. Symbols direct our thoughts and deeds; rouse buried shapes beneath our waking minds. All magic is symbolic, from
the Corn Doll to the Vau-Dau rite. Why, consciousness itself is naught but symbols; metaphors which build upon themselves and thus extend their metaphysical domain. With symbols did male warlocks conquer women, first destroying or discrediting the goddesses that stood for women's power.
The Mother Goddess Tiamat, demoted, was made devil first, then lowly chimera. Goddesses were replaced by Gods. Next came child sacrifice, killing that first, most awesome female symbol, which is motherhood, their magic and their power. This hill, near Half-Moon Lane, is named for Herne, an antlered man whose image may date from the Iron Age. Herne usurped Diana's role as leader of the lunar hunt: A male pretender to her female throne. Below, the River Effra flows. A thousand years ago, when it still knew the light of day, Canute sailed down it to attack the city from downstream. Canute, who, in his reign, outlawed the worship of the moon, then tried to claim her power to turn the tides back for his own.
Come... Half Moon Lane, East Dulwich Road, then Rye Lane up to Peckham Hill. Man kills the moon, exalts the sun instead; sets antlered men to lead Diana's hunt; attempts, like her, to bind the ocean to his will.
With symbols man casts woman down, and then with symbols keeps her there.
How stern a sigil must it be, such power to suppress, that ruled three million years, beside which man's six thousand is the merest blink. Go up Trafalgar Avenue to Old Kent Road. Measured against the span of goddesses, our male rebellion's lately won, our new regime of rationality unfledged, precarious. Our grand symbolic magic chaining womankind thus  'til the Earth's demise... When this world and its sisters shall at last be swallowed by a Father Sun grown red and bloated as a leach. Towards
the river and Artillery Street. Stop yonder on the right. Let us consider magic as the will made manifest; our inmost dreams externalized, to work their influence upon the world. Stop here, by St. John's Horsleydown. All traffic with the brain's drowned realm is sorcery: Our bards, salvaging notions from their minds to plant in those of others, where they grow to splendours, else atrocities. Our maniacs, their crazed, ferocious slayings once ascribed to werewolves, called by some "the children of
Atlantis"... Which, as metaphor at least, rings true... Or Hawksmoor, raising symbols, statuary from the mind's lost continent, to set atop this church, St. John's. An obelisk to loom above the bridges, streets, and lives that teem therein. Above their minds, their dreams, six generations to its shadow born. There's magic... Aye, and poetry! As true as any bard he spoke his soul, in syllables of stone reverberating down the centuries. All magic's drawn from our right brain: The poet's reverie, the madman's fit, the dreams of architects. Magicians seek derangement: Fasting; scourging; drugs: The violation of taboo with sexual acts, or violence of a certain kind. Druids, for example, nailed men's guts to trees, which they then made them walk about until they were unwound. Assuming that your own guts are no worse, we may proceed to London Bridge. Druids believed locations were empowered by suffering; soaked up despair and terror which reverberated in the soil and stones for ever more. This tower must hum, a dynamo of blood and history...
Built on the "white mound" named in pagan myths, where Britain's founder, Brutus, late of Troy, lies mouldering. Guided by Moon Goddess-sent dreams, Brutus seized Britain from its rulers, Gog and Magog, raising New Troy... "Troy Novantum"... Here pledged to Diana. Here Bran's head's
buried; Celtic God whose name means "Blessed Raven." His birds nest here still. 'Tis said London's destroyed if they depart. Their population is therefore restored occasionally; ravens imported from elsewhere that seem to stay 'til death. The "Sol Tower" of the Sun King Lud stood here, rebuilt by Romans; Normans; Britain's conquerors. Here died Jane Grey, Judge Jeffreys, Anne Boleyn, Guy Fawkes, The Little Princes... Infant sacrifices even druids might admire. Here, in 1817, a keeper and his wife perceived a cylinder of viscous azure light, thick as an arm, that hovered briefly, then was gone. Another sentry saw a bear-like apparition slide beneath the jewel-room door. He fell into a fit and shortly died.
Perhaps some places do indeed possess vitality. They dream and feed, and propagate themselves. Take Ratcliffe Highway next, towards the Isle of Dogs. Near Ratcliffe Highway, pirates hanged. The ghost of Ratcliffe's murderous clergyman still walks, who dumped his victims here. The wharf is closed at five, beyond which lightermen fear working. Hawksmoor's George's-In-The-East is flawed, despite its pyramids and Roman altars:
Obelisks are missing; the alignment's wrong. Hawksmoor bade the commissioners demolish neighbouring shops, thereon to site his church, aligned with other monuments, but was refused. Years later, on that selfsame ground, the draper, Marr, his wife, their babe and their apprentice died. An iron mallet smashed their skulls, throats slashed from left to right, symbols of Masonry. A man, John Williams, was accused to sate the mob. Before his trial he "hanged himself"... Although perhaps in this he was assisted. Williams' corpse was to a cross-roads taken, buried with a stake thrust through his heart. The outrage stoked demands that a police force should be formed. Was this the murders' motive all along? A ritual act, to shape

                                                                   (Animated GIF by Jose Carlos Neves)
Netley: It's uwp. It's no better, no worse. It's working on these cobbles does it. It'll pass. 

Gull: Hmm. Well, at least the rain has ceased, though evening's drawing nigh. Head up Commercial Road, to Christchurch Spitalfields. You see, man's pattern of control grows faint amidst the tumult of these times.
The lunatic and female power of the moon must stay contained within its ring of male suns, those seven stars of rationality. The ancient symbols must be reinforced... Lest we should fall before the scythe-wheeled chariots of some new Boadicea; perish on Diana's altars, reinstated and impatient for her reckoning. How shall these sigils burn once more with clarity? The spells are lost, but I've conversed with gods, and have divined their art... For magic is but human will lent focus by a methodology including ritual, prayer, and sacrifice. In druid churches, mortar's mixed with blood, lending the stones vitality to do their work though all their architects be dust. Stop here, and let us watch the sun set over Spitalfields. Here's Hawksmoor's most affecting church; his creed of "Terrour and magnificence" most forcefully expressed. Its tyranny of line enslaves the nearby streets, forever in its shade. Its angles trick the eye, seem from a distance flat then swell upon approach;... Its tower about to topple forwards like some monstrous corpse... Its atmosphere envelopes Spitalfields, casts shadow-pictures on the minds of those whose lives are spent within its sight. Though Wren forbade interment on Church premises, Hawksmoor declined; sank his foundations in the plague-pits here, seeking that nourishment of which the druids spake... So that his will, his personality encoded into stone might thus endure throughout the centuries. His cheerless soul informs this spot. The Huegenots who settled Spitalfields, their independence bordering on anarchy, were massacred by soldiers barracked here, in Hawksmoor's church. After the Huegenots, there came the throng of Jews by which the area's to this day over-run. No doubt when they have gone, more immigrants shall take their place, so to the ends of time. The only populations that are constant hereabouts, untouched by passing centuries, are those perpetual multitudes of beggars, criminals... And whores. Ah, whores: their lot's diminished, like Diana's, whom they served as temple prostitutes; priestesses; "Heiros Gamos" or "Joy Maidens"... Which recalls "Daughters of Joy", our current euphemism. One such, Mary Kelly,
who's the object of our task, frequents yon tavern, with accomplices whom you must name, and then locate...

Netley: They uwp. They shall be done away with, then? How's this dark business you've been tellin' me required to 'elp with such a triflin' thing?

Gull: Oh Netley! Weren't you listening? "Dark business" shall assist our labours not the slightest bit... Though they may prove invaluable to it. Averting Royal embarrassment is but the fraction of my work that's visible above the waterline. The greater part's an iceberg of significance that lurks below. Great works have many purposes. To aid her Majesty's but one... The rest are mine alone. You realize that I only share these private thoughts in recognition of your lack of cognizance?

Netley: Why... Thank you, sir. I can't say what that means to me.

Gull: Ha ha ha! Of course you can't. That is precisely why I trust you.
Come, along Commercial Street, down Bishopsgate, Cornhill and Cheapside to St. Paul's. I'll note our previous stops upon the map as we ride.
There's Cleopatra's needle, and Blake's Lambeth house; Herne Hill and St. John's Horsleydown; Tower of London. The Isle of Dogs, then Christchurch, Spitalfields... And finally, St. Paul's, which we approach. The pagan times that followed Rome's collapse saw here a temple of Diana so revered that early Christian monks despaired of e'er converting London and complained "London worships Diana, and in the suburbs of Thorney they burn incense to Apollo." Thorney's now Westminster. In 610, Christian convert Ethelbert of Kent destroyed Diana's shrine and built St. Paul's, a church of Christ. In Norman times, 1081, it burned and was rebuilt as a cathedral. Let us discuss St. Paul and Christianity. Christ is clearly but the Sun God's latest guise; an incarnation fit for modern times. His greatest feast day coincides with Winter Solstice, when the hibernating sun at last begins its slow awakening. Also coincidence, perhaps, that Christ should die, and be entombed, then rise again precisely at Spring
Solstice, the return of light and life? He is the Sun of God: The imagery that permeates our hymns does oft proclaim him such... While in our paintings still we mark him with a solar disc about his head. Apollo, Lud, Belinos, Atum, Christ or Baal. All one God, Netley. All one God. Saint Paul, in First Corinthians 3:10 states, "As a master builder I have laid foundations and another builds thereon," whence some construe he was a Dionysiac architect. This staunch misogynist clashed with Diana at
Ephesus, where her followers humiliated him. Here's his revenge: Diana shackled, her abode re-dedicated in his name. Late as the fourteenth century, her sacred animals, the buck and doe, were sacrificed with fanfare here. Kings' mistresses, in penance, roamed, St. Paul's by night dressed as Diana... "Mother of Churches": Women hug its pillars still, to bring fertility. After the Great Fire, Wren rebuilt St. Paul's five chains encircling its dome, as ancients chained the statues of their gods, to bind their power. Here is Diana chained, the soul of womankind bound in a web of ancient signs, that woman might abandon useless dreams of liberty... accept that she exists only to endlessly reflect the harsh male brilliance of a Father Sun. You see this stone? It's from Solomon's Temple, built by Dionysiacs; the center of Masonic lore. For Solomon designed a seal; a magic symbol that could shackle power within itself, shaped like a star, that's but a distant sun.

Netley: S- Sir William? My insides feel queer an' I'm in a rare confusion... I can't tell where all this talk is leadin', sir...

Gull: Can't you? Help me spread this map upon the ground. I promise you shall understand a multitude of things. Now... Rule a line from Isle of Dogs to Battle Bridge through Christchurch, Old Street, Bunhill Fields and through Northampton Square. Don't look afraid! 'Tis but a ruler.

Netley: Why, sir... You're right! They're in a line!

Gull: Yes, yes... Now Albion Drive, to Earl's Court, through Northampton Square and Saint George Bloomsbury.

Netley: Ha ha! Another line! Well, I'll be damned.

Gull: Mm-hmm. Earl's Court towards the Isle of Dogs through Hercules Road, then through St. John's Horsleydown.

Netley: Uh... sir, this is startin' to look...

Gull: Keep drawing, Netley. Next, Battle Bridge to Herne Hill, through Hercules Road and Cleopatra's obelisk. And finally, Herne Hill to Albion Drive, through Horsleydown, The Tower, and Christchurch, Spitalfields.

Netley: Sir, please... I...

Gull: Do it, Netley. Draw it in.

Netley: Oh God!

Gull: Ha ha! Yes... But not yours. Draw bisectors 'til they cross. St. Paul's is in the centre. We are at the centre of this pattern now! Netley? What...?

Netley: Air, outside... Got to get outside...

Gull: You can't outrun it, Netley. It surrounds us... This pentacle of Sun Gods, obelisks and rational male fire, wherein unconsciousness, the moon and womanhood are chained. Its lines of power and meaning must be reinforced, according to the ancient ways... What better sacrifice than "Heiros Gamos"? Than Diana's priestesses? We'll...

Netley: No! No, I don't want to 'ear! It's not a bit to do wit' me, this stuff about suns and moons! Black magic, sir, that's what it is!

Gull: Ha ha! Why, Netley, magic's red. Ask any druid. As regards its relevance to you, step over here...

Netley: No, sir. I can't. This job... I've changed me mind...

Gull: I. Said. Come. Here! 

Netley: Oh God. Oh God...

Gull: Look at the brasses hung upon the horse you ride each day. What do you see?

Netley: I...

Gull: You see a sun and moon, is that correct? And at this next horse, tethered here. Inspect the brasses, see? A sun. A moon.

Netley: Oh no. Oh no.

Gull: And on the next coach. And the next... And every coach in London, Netley! Every single coach!

Netley: Hwurrrr.

Gull: You see? Your destiny's inscribed upon the streets wherein you grew; upon the horse you ride each day. You cannot change your mind!

Netley: Urr urwulsh.

Gull: Our story's written, Netley: Inked in blood long dry... engraved in stone.

(c) 1993 Alan Moore.