eventually poliphilo escapes this place but we cannot be certain if he does this by actually falling asleep again, within the dream. it certainly alludes to this.

in this dream he is escorted by nymphs, they take him to their queen where he declares his love for polia, he is then led to a number of gates which he must chose from, he chooses the third and as he enters the nymphs reunite him with polia, they are both taken to a temple for their engagement and as they progress they witness several celebrations and processions to honour their union. on a boat escorted by cupid they sail to the island of cythera ( a greek island).

it appears that something strange happens here, the narrator of the story has been popiphilo but suddenly events are described from polias point of view although when eventually popiphilo resumes narration popila rejects popihilo, whereby cupid acts and commands her to kiss him awake from his deathlike swoon, at which he returns to life, venus blesses their love and the lovers are united at last but just when poliphilo is about to take polia in his arms she vanishes and popihilo wakes up.

i switch of my computer, make a few calls to people i know, leave messages, i think i get the idea behind the book, although there are many, the main one is clear to me. one has to appreciate the way the church from rome worked and what it was really all about which is warfare and suppression. you have to know not just how to read, but how to read between lines and through time. that's the thing with esoteric books, they always have some fundamental truth hidden away that at the time of printing would have been considered punishable by a painful death. 

later from my contacts i uncover that the book is indeed a complex mix of several ancient languages, impossible to really read coherently in traditional ways, even the title is considered unpronounceable.

the illustrations are difficult to understand, they are intersecting to the text, a bit like 'house of leaves' which happens to be one of my favourite books. it's one big hyperlinked idea, i begin to see it.

here's another strange thing, the woodcuts all seem to have a cinematic air about them, depicting movement, following the laws of cinematography one could say that the principles have been used in this book which is why the book actually has a double page spread of illustrations.

the names of the characters, the male (lover of many things) the female (many things) is the first anchor point i use. it's obvious that we have polarities here, for in the text poliphilo is in love with many things, especially the architecture he sees, but this can be embodied in popila, the buildings are objects of desire or metaphors, he even describes marble walls as 'virginal' and 'flawless' he feels incredible joys' and 'unbound delight' and the buildings fill him with 'carnal pleasure' and 'lust' he loves them because they are agreeable to touch, they are magnificent and fragrant. he even assaults a sleeping nymph so aroused by the atmosphere of the buildings.

there's parts of the book where he assigns the buildings a polymorphic attribute and at one point even makes love to the building.

my contacts, although a small group span the globe, it's morning in europe so i place a phone call and leave a message. half an hour later i hear back from paulo, a research student in italy, he is an engineer theorist specialising in wind power and he makes note of the influence of the descriptions and woodcuts that depict wind powered objects, these have been considered the first of their kind documented, paulo also has a contact in rome, he puts the feelers out for more information, he thinks he may know some one who can help track down a translation.

book detectives are a strange breed, they are obsessive but also somewhat absent minded, they share some similar qualities, to normal investigators, except the world they operate in is academic. i never thought of myself as a specialist but i guess i am knowledgeable in esoteric literature and i have quite an effective methodology of location and interpretation, and this is probably what mr. orloff was alluding to.

i have asked paulo to investigate orloff as well, considering it's wise to know equally about my employer, as the book.

i check the time, it's now nearly midnight, i figure tomorrow morning i'll use my technological wizardry to locate the book, but i'll give paulo a bit of a chance first as the hydra code takes the search up a notch, besides, let's see if orloff pays up as promised.