cast down until 'the surface of the sea stretched as flat as a roof-top'.

Eventually Utnapishtim's boat came to rest against a mountain. He released first a dove, then a swallow, and finally a raven. When the raven saw that the waters had receded and that he was free to feed again, he crawed. On hearing this, Utnapishtim got out of the boat and made sacrifice and libations at the summit. As the sole survivor of humankind, and as the gods' faithful servant, they bestowed upon him the gift of immortality. And so the sage composed a poem. Like Siduri's speech, it possibly counts as the oldest written poem in the world since it comes from the oldest book. But what interests us here is its pertinence to consequencessheep for his rivals and spent the whole night slaughtering them! The next morning his shame forced him to fall upon his own sword. A red hyacinth grew from his blood, expressive of lament. Red poppies grew from the fields of Flanders. In the end, hubris hath no end, but lament.

The terrible reality is that a willingness to take by the sword slices its pound of flesh from the soul. For violence hollows out the capacity to have an inner life. It does so by desensitising the ability to feel and to relate to others beyond the formalised tenors of seemly conduct. As such, it opens up the gnawing emptiness of inauthenticity in human relations – the lie. This is the chasm into which the retail therapy of