Literary Reference for Lunar Empire: Salammbo by Flaubert

[epweissengruber]

I just finished readaing Flaubert's Salammbo.

It is an amazing novel and I recommend it to anyone running a campaign
in the Lunar Empire.

It describes a rebellion by Mercenaries agains the Republic of
Carthage. It is also the story of the obsessive love between Maatho,
a Libyan Mercenary, and Salammbo, virgin priestess of Tannit, the moon
goddess, and the daughter of Hamilcar Barca (father of future
Carthaginian general, Hannibal). Maatho's desire for Salammbo is
manipulated by the crafty Greek slave Spendius into a rebellion
against the republic of Carthage.

I recommend this book to people running a Lunar Campaign for the
following reasons:
- a decadent Empire has trouble paying its mercenaries: this would be
a great excuse to get non-Lunars involved in the machinations of the
Lunar Empire
- the connection between individual passions and the fate of an Empire
serves as a model for relating characters' desires to political intrigues
- Flaubert provides great descriptions of North Africa, the Holy Land,
and Turkey which could serve any GM well
- description of ferociously armoured battle Elephants
- general descriptions of exotic customs (including a cure for leprosy
that involves the ashes of weasels mixed with boiled vinegar)
- and this fantastic prayer that Salammbo utters to the moon goddess:

"By the hidden symbols
By the sounding lutes –
By the furrows of the earth –
By the eternal silence
By the eternal fecundity –
Ruler of the dark sea
and the azure shores,
O Queen of all things moist, greetings!

How mightily you spin, borne up by the impalpable ether!
It polishes itself around you,
and it is the movement of your pulsing
which distributes the winds and fertile dews.
As you wax and wane,
so cats' eyes and panthers' spots expand and shrink.
Mothers cry your name in the pangs of childbirth!
You swell the seashells!
You make wines ferment!
You make corpses rot!
You form pearls at the bottom of the sea!

And all seeds,
O Goddess,
ferment in the dark depths of your moistness.

When you appear,
stillness sweeps over the earth,
flowers close, the waves die down,
weary men stretch out their breasts towards you,
and the world with its oceans and mountains
sees itself in your face, as though in a mirror.
You are white, gentle, luminous, immaculate, helping, purifying, serene!

But you are a terrible mistress! ...

It is through you that monsters are produced
fearsome spectres
lying dreams
your eyes eat up the stones of buildings,
and monkeys are sick every time you are renewed.

What are you doing then?
Why perpetually change your shape?
Just now slim and curving,
you glide through space
like a galley without masts,
or in the middle of your stars
you are like a shepherd
guarding his flock.
Shining,
around you skim the mountain tops
like a chariot wheel

O Moon Goddess!
You love me don't you?
I have looked at you for so long!
But no!
You run in the blue of your sky
and I stay motionless upon the earth!"

[Nick Brooke]

Less literary than Flaubert (then again, what isn't?), but if you're on a Carthaginian jag, I can recommend Peter Huby's recent novel Carthage. It's easy enough to find at Amazon...

Cheers, Nick