Lizard ~ Prince Rupert Awakes

Chapter Five

- chapter 5 index -
pg. 1 - Lizard | pg. 2 - Prince Rupert Awakes | pg. 3 - Tears of Glass | pg. 4 - Go Polonius or Kneel
pg. 5 - Rainbows' Ends and Gold | pg. 6 - Prophets Chained for Burning Masks
pg. 7 - Frederick II & The Cathars | pg. 8 - Bolero - The Peacock's Tale
pg. 9 - The Battle of Glass Tears | pg. 10 - Big Top

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Black Seed | Islam

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Prince Rupert Awakes

"Hermes is the God who puts people to sleep and wakes them at dawn, and so he is called the Light Bringer (Phosphoros, Lucifer), as is the cock. (Hermes brings both obscurity and illumination, dreams and clarity.)"

- The Pythagorean Tarot by John Opsopaus

Alchemists sometimes used bird symbols to represent the five stages of alchemical transformation. Because the Swan and the Peacock represent, respectively, the second and third stages of this process, Peter Sinfield's explicit and sequential reference to these birds in Lizard tells us that this composition has everything to do with Alchemy. The color "black" (in "black worm seed') is therefore used to signify the first stage of alchemical transformation, referred to symbolically as the Black Crow.

"A sight, a sound, a gift by chance conferred,
Transforms your life, and leads the soul beyond."

- verse accompanying the Magician Tarot card

"The Black Crow, sometimes also called the Raven, is the beginning of the great work of soul alchemy. This indicates the initial stages of the alchemist's encounter with his inner space, through withdrawing from the outer world of the senses in meditation, and entering what is initially the dark inner world of the soul. Thus this stage is also described in alchemical texts as the blackening, the nigredo experience, and it is often pictured as a death process, as in the caput mortuum, the deaths head, or as some alchemical illustrations show, the alchemist dying within a flask."

- The Birds In Alchemy by Adam McLean

"In earlier times cosmic harmony was placed as a great Ideal before those who were to be leaders among their fellow-men. Therefore in all ages and wherever there was consciousness of these things, men spoke of Sun Heroes. In the temples and sanctuaries of the Mysteries there were seven degrees of Initiation. I will speak of them as they were known in ancient Persia.

The first stage is attained when a man's ordinary feeling and thinking is raised to a higher level, where knowledge of the Spirit is attained. Such a man received the name of `Raven.' It is the `Ravens' who inform the Initiates in the temples what is happening in the world outside. When medieval poetic wisdom desired to depict in the person of a great Ruler an Initiate who amid the treasures of wisdom contained in the Earth must await the great moment when newly revealed depths of Christianity rejuvenate mankind -- this poetic wisdom of the Middle Ages created the figure of Frederick Barbarossa, ravens were his heralds. The Old Testament, too, speaks of the ravens in the story of Elijah."

- Rudolf Steiner
The Festivals and Their Meaning: The Christmas Festival:
A Token of the Victory of the Sun

The song begins with a sound suggesting the lifting of a veil, the veil between waking and sleep, life and death.

The song's title, Prince Rupert Awakes , is ironic in that it is, perhaps, the most dreamlike piece King Crimson ever recorded. The song could have been entitled "Prince Rupert's Dream", but Peter Sinfield used the title he did, in part, to say that through this dream Rupert realizes (awakens) to some of what is happening in his world. As in a dream (or in a William S. Burroughs novel, wherein different story lines are presented in fragments), the subject alternates (even in mid-stanza) between the themes of Mongol invasion, Frederick's struggle with the papacy and the Catholic renunciation of reason. This may not make much sense to us, but to Frederick it would be reasonable to think of and discuss the papacy and the Mongols as, in some ways, interchangeable.

" Farewell the temple masters bells
His kiosk and his black worm seed "

In Islamic architecture a kiosk is an open circular pavilion consisting of a roof supported by pillars. The summer palaces of the sultans of Turkey were called kiosks. Black (worm) Seed was a vermifuge (treatment for worms) closely associated with Islam.

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"Nigella sativa and its black seed are also known in Persian as Shonaiz."

- Sweet Sunnah

"Black Seed is one of the oldest medicinal plants known in human history. It was used by the Assyrians long before the Egyptians who also used it. A vial of Black Seed oil was found in King Tut's tomb. The book of Isaiah in the Old Testament talks about it. Various medieval herbals extolled its virtues but its biggest supporter was probably the founder of Islam, Muhammed, who said "Black Seed will cure anything...except death." Today it is called the "Seed of Blessing" in the Middle East because of its usefulness in so many conditions.

Traditional uses (among about 50 in the Arabic texts) include everything from increasing mother's milk and decreasing impotence to expelling worms!"

- The Black Seed Pages

Muslims have been using and promoting the use of the "black seed" or "al-habbatus-sawdaa" for hundreds of years. A large part of this herbal preparation's popularity is based on the teachings of the Prophet."

- HealthMatters

"The Prophet's Medicine is a collection of all the hadiths that touch on the subject of sickness or medical treatment. Perhaps the most referred-to hadith in the collection is the one concerning al-habba al-sawda ("the black seed," or fennel), also known as "the seed of blessing." "This black seed contains the cure to any ailment with the exception of death," the Prophet is supposed to have said.

- Seeds of Knowledge Cairo Times

Kulunji - its mention in the Hadith and its medicinal values

"The name Kulunji has become quite common to many of us. We Muslims, more especially, attach great importance to the use of this black-seed because of the emphasis Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) has placed on it.

The Hadith states, "Hold on to (the essential use of) the 'black seed', for certainly in it is a cure for every sickness except (the sickness which Allah has decreed for one's) death".

All eminent and famous Hakims of the past and present have written on the medicinal benefits and healing properties of Kulunji. There hasn't been a period among Muslims of the world when the use of it was ever stopped. At all times the seed was utilised with the belief and faith that benefits will be derived in practising the Holy Prophet's (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) Sunnah with regard to the use of Kulunji."

www.ask-imam.com

"Tibb Nabawi refers to words and actions of the Prophet with a bearing on disease, treatment of disease, and care of patients. Thus also included are words of the prophet on medical matters, In his book, A Tibb al Nabawi, Imaam Ibn al Qayim mentions many medical conditions for which the Prophet provided guidance. Of Prophetic medicine treatments mentioned, the black seed (al habba al sauda) was especially emphasised.

The black seed (nigella sativa) is an example of a prophetic remedy that has been studied extensively by both Muslims and non-Muslims. Akhtar et al (1991) studied the effect of the black seed on nematode worm infection in children."

- Prophetic Medicine:
Between the Nass and Empirical Experience
by Prof Dr Omar Hasan Kasule Sr.

"The use of Nigella sativa L. originated in the Middle East and the Far East. From there it spread to other regions, such as Africa and Europe."

- History

"Tragus, in 1531, in Brunfels' Herbal , mentions Wormseed as being imported by way of Genoa..."

- A Modern Herbal by Mrs. M. Grieve

"Himself an expert trader engaging in far-flung business affairs, Frederick encouraged commerce and soon expanded it to Spain, Morocco, and Egypt."

- The Columbia Encyclopedia

Frederick had read the Koran, identified closely with the Moslem world and was as much a man of the east as the west. This opening passage is a lament for the destruction of mosques at the hands of the Mongol invaders and for his loss of contact with the east due to papal pressure. In this passage, Frederick is saying goodbye to Arab friends, culture and religion. "Bells" refers to Arabic music, "kiosks" to Arabic architecture and "black worm seed" to the strong purifying medicine of Islam.

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Black Worm Seed – Islam

"The best medicine for purifying the heart is to adhere to the Shariat.
It is understood that it is necessary to obey the Islam for purifying the heart. Obeying the Shariat means doing the commandments and abstaining from prohibitions and bidats."

- Endless Bliss by Hakikat Kitabevi

"When he turns to Allah with humility and devotion, he performs an act of `Ibadah. `Ibadah is a means of purifying man's physical and spiritual life.
The obligatory rituals of `Ibadah are prayers (Salah), fasting (Saum), Zakah, pilgrimage (Hajj), and struggling in the ways of Allah (Jehad). These along with Iman are often called the pillars of Islam."

- "Salah" the Muslim Prayer

"The word Zakat literally means purity or purification. It also has the significance of being the third pillar of Islam, after shahaadah (Proclamation of Faith) and Salah (Prayer). The word Zakat is tied to Salah over 80 times in the Quran.
Zakah not only purifies the property of the contributor but also purifies his heart from selfishness and greed. It also purifies the heart of the recipient from envy and jealousy, from hatred and uneasiness and it fosters instead good-will and warm wishes for the contributors."

- Zakat

As mentioned in chapter three, the facet of Frederick II absent from the first album, In the Court of the Crimson King , is the Arabic influence in his life. For those who own the Lizard LP, the marbling on the inside gatefold sleeve (by "Koraz" Wallpapers) is immediately recognizable as an artifact of Arabic culture, and, of course, on the back cover is an illustration of east-west conflict. The album begins with an overt reference to Islam:

" Bid me face the east closed me in questions."

"A craving suddenly flashed out to bid the west good-bye and to seek again the alluring spaces of the east. In a letter to the Nicaean Emperor Vatatzes, after various complaints against revolutionaries and deceitful priests who dared to depose a king, Frederick wrote : 'But such things happen more easily in our western lands ! O happy Asia ! O happy rulers of the Orient ! who fear neither the dagger of the rebel nor the superstitions invented by the priest !' Such an outburst of personal feeling was rare in Frederick's state correspondence. It tallies with the legend that he had contemplated abdication and dreamt of betaking himself for ever to the east, promising to conquer the whole of Syria. A new Empire in the Orient, now that he had exhausted what the narrow west could offer ; intercourse with Muslim friends ; subjects whose only thought was blind obedience even unto death--these were the Emperor's castles in the air. Such a journey to the east as he desired was not to be. In another fashion, more bitter than the resignation of a throne, than a gradual retreat towards the east, he was to be gradually weaned from the men and things and states of this world."

- Frederick II
by Ernst Kantorowicz
(p. 627)

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