Commentary on the Wheel of Fortune

A text from the shelf of a Gnostic Christian sect, found beneath the Monastery of St. Maximus in Chrysopolis.

    [Text on the Wheel of Fortune, includes summaries of Boethius and various 
    Stoic writers, speaks of the wisdom of the Egyptians who knew about the 
    Wheel but had lost their lore, and then gives examples from literature, 
    including:]
    
    Alexander conquered the word for a purpose; but in the City of Dreams, which 
    spells doom for all visitors, he was given a ball, and the ball turned into 
    an eyeball, and the eyeball spoke, and told him he would fail in his 
    purpose. Some say that Alexander sought to unite the world, and some say he 
    acted under the auspices of the witch-woman Ikulu. And others say it was not 
    an eyeball but a tree.
    
    [Several paragraphs of sententious moralizing: And so the Wheel raised him 
    high and dashed him low, etc.]
    
    It is said that the key to Alexander’s purpose, as had been prophesied to 
    him, lay beyond the fabled River of Stones. Alexander camped by its side, 
    and sought to cross; but all who tried were ground to bits by the stones. 
    For six days he camped there, but found no way to cross, and so he departed. 
    It was then that he sought to harness the birds, to let him fly over, but 
    the birds rebelled, and revealed that none could even fly over the river 
    without courting certain death. And so Alexander relented, and returned 
    home. He had united mankind, and he had fetched for Ikulu all that she sent 
    him for; and yet he failed.