Page 18 - GALIET THE KING AND THE CORPSE: The Four Cardinal Corners and the Quest of the Blue Cloak, the Mask and the Sword IV GALIET THE KING AND THE CORPSE: The Four Cardinal Corners and the Quest of the Blue Cloak, The Mask and the Sword

mask and sword (civilized life) against the magic circle (proto- state) against the circle of riddles (the cycles of life). Symbolically, King Trivikramasena stirs in us images of the Philosopher-King-Hero who wearing a blue cloak, a mask and a sword goes on a journey to avert the mighty and destructive forces of evil (Ksantisila) and save humankind from its impending doom and peril. This dressing up with the divine blue cloak of heaven (his armor of love); this wearing of a mask (his armor against evil) which conceals his identity and at the same time reveals his intuitive knowing; and this carrying of the mighty sword (his armor of justice), as if he were the very Angel Gabriel, all serve to reveal his intuitive awareness of the dangers of his embarking quest.
Such precautions reveal that he is not a fool. While King Trivikramasena has chosen the proper, light and life sustaining victorious implements to succeed in Ksantisila’s netherworld, Ksantisila lacks the crucial implements of the etherworld, logos and thumos; without them, his wisdom is evanescent. His request that King Trivikramasena prostrate himself in the ground is a symbolic representation to have the goodness, wisdom and virtuosity of the etherworld succumb to the evil, ignorance and vice of the netherworld: nothing less than to have the sacred subjugated to the profane for Ksantisila knows he needs wisdom and spirit if he is to possess the spirits of the
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