Fasces
What this is
The fasces, a bundle of rods bound about an axe, set at the head of the twenty-seventh folio. It is the old Roman emblem of authority, carried before the magistrate: many rods, one binding, and the axe within. The translator's Preface names it in the answer given to a man who asked whether he would ever find a treasure: “When thou findest a treasure, teach thy tongue to be silent; and see that thou makest good use of thy riches.”
What it governs
Presides over authority, law, and strength in union: the power that comes of many held together. Folio 27.
Its properties
Its colour is the pale wood of the rods and the red of the binding; its number twenty-seven, three times nine. The quality is order and united strength; its shadow is power held over others for its own sake.
Where else it appears
The same note is the bundle of sticks that no one can break though each alone snaps, the rods and axe of the lictors walking before the consul, the scales and sword of justice, the staff of office in every hall of law.
Where you meet it on the Oracle
On the Oracle it heads the Folio of the Day on the daily Book of Fate surface, and it heads the folio your own five rows of strokes lead to when you consult the Book. The words you are given are the Book's own Answer on that folio, the one that stands beside your Sign; the Hieroglyph marks the page and does not choose the words. As a frame for the day, join your strength to others' and use what authority you have justly.
Why it matters
The Book gives its Hieroglyphs no order but their folios, and no meaning but the Answers that stand under them. In the Table a Question meets this one wherever the number of the Question and the number of the Sign together make twenty-eight or sixty.
Correspondences
Where this comes from
- H. Kirchenhoffer, The Book of Fate, the fourth edition (London, 1823)