- An honored gift, given to those who seek the farthest edges of maps yet written.
- An honored gift, given to those who stand as pillars of hope.
- An honored gift, given to those who unlock the riddles of our lost worlds.
DEFINITION/SUMMARY:
Guide: a person who advises or shows the way to others
Champion: a person who has defeated or surpassed all rivals in a competition
Cipher: a secret or disguised way of writing code and decrypting the unknown
*May be veiled reference to “The Everyman Play”
Everyman play
- Recounts the life and death of Everyman, an allegorical figure who represents all of humanity
- At the beginning of the play, God orders Death to visit Everyman and to warn him that he will be judged by God himself
- “Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side”
EXPANDED INFO:
- The anonymous, fifteenth century English morality play Everyman was first published in 1508
- It relates through allegory the tale of a dying Everyman and the items and qualities he most values, which attend to him in his death
- The play begins with a messenger preparing the way for God, after an opening meditation commands Death to seek out Everyman and warn him that God sits in judgment of Everyman’s soul. Death approaches Everyman and foretells his demise, telling Everyman that he will now undertake the pilgrimage of the soul and stand before God to be reckoned. Everyman pleads to be released from his journey, even begging for the journey to be delayed if only for a day, but Death reminds Everyman that he comes for all people in their turn. Everyman laments at his fate and attempts to find comfort and companionship for his journey
- Everyman’s suffering, honest, and penitent confession, strengthened by his Good Deeds, allows him to be brought into the Kingdom of Heaven
- An angel welcomes Everyman into heaven and Doctor, a figure who represents a wise theologian in medieval times, comes on stage and gives the play’s moral
- The Doctor warns that Everyman’s friends, family, and material possessions cannot take the final journey with him and that even Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wits will abandon him
- He also warns that if the size of Everyman’s Good Deeds is too small, they will not be sufficient for him to enter into heaven
- If Everyman makes an honest confession and can make a clear accounting of his own good deeds, then the Kingdom of Heaven will belong to him