1.
In Nantes, within a private library
there is a hand bound book, made of soft
now faded lambskin, held together with a
small leather belt. It is one of a kind.
It has a title, but the family that owns it
calls it, ‘Le cercle continu’.

Within it are almost 100 perfect circles
cut in one afternoon as a demonstration of
swordsmanship by the Chevalier de la Rose
Wielding an épée the Chevalier carved exact
circles from paper, cardstock, leather,
three rounds from cedar shingles, a circle

from lace a maid held in the breeze, its
folds and creases no match for the Chevalier’s
sure hand and razor sword. It is a feat that
has never been matched, though some have tried.
The chevalier is quoted, “L’épée ne peut être
que vraie, c’est l’esprit qui choisit d’échouer.”

The title of the book is: “Judicium gladii”.

2
During the Edo period, the Lady Kane Chohime was married
to the warlord Nobunaga and moved to his castle outside
the city of Edo, that is now Tokyo, where she remained
until she died at the age of 56, alone, for she bore
the warlord no sons and swiftly fell from favour.
She was imprisoned within a small suite of rooms,
for if she was not a worthy wife for the warlord, she
was still his property. Within those walls Kane crafted
over and over again, one white paper circle, then added
gold leaf gilded onto the circle so that it appeared,
each half matched the other perfectly.

She hung the circles within her room, until the walls
were filled, then she moved to the small room adjacent
and when that room was filled, she began to hang the
circles in the hall that led to her isolated chambers.
This did not go unnoticed. The attendants said
she would not permit them to be taken down,
only the Warlord could tell her to do so.
When the Warlord confronted Kane and told her
to remove the circles, the record is clear:
Kane replied, ‘They are not circles, my lord,
they are portraits of you who are my sun and moon.”
That was the last Kane saw Warlord Nobunaga.
The circles remained until she died and were collected
into a book that is named, “Chō no kanashimi / 蝶の悲しみ”,
which might be translated as, “Sorrows of a Butterfly”.