In my last post, I dug into the two Treasure Poems that bookend the Paintings and the Verses. I want to continue that line of thought.
As we saw, the poems use three different words (pact, accord, wed) to make reference to a single concept: a formal agreement between two parties; which I have interpreted as a metaphor for pairing one painting with one verse.
In this post, I am going to explore what Byron has written as the metaphorical outcome of that pairing.
The last line of the first treasure poem says:
To find the keys is your reward For Fairy, peace the real accord.
This reads like a reference to page 32 of "The Vanishing", which says:
Their treasure, their precious jewels, would belong to Man if he could find them. In exchange, all the strange and wonderful descendants of the Fair People from the Old World and the New would henceforth live and be seen among Man in peace.
(my emphasis added)
We can take from this that the outcome of the accord between Man and the Fair Folk is Peace.
In the final treasure poem, Byron writes:
For Fair Folk's peace Goodness first.
If we accept the premise that "Fair Folk's peace" comes from the accord between Man and the Fair Folk, then this line appears to be telling us that to achieve this accord, we must follow the instruction "Goodness first".
Taking the metaphor back to the puzzle: to achieve the pairing between the Verse and the Painting, we need to figure out what "Goodness first" means.
Going back to page 32, we see the word "good" used in a seemingly instructive context:
In our land and in our time, the Fair People and their treasures yet wait to be discovered. If Man is good, and kind, and playful, he and she will find them. That is The Secret.
(my emphasis added)
To find the treasures, which itself requires the "proper combination of one treasure painting with one treasure verse"[1], Man must be "good", "kind", and "playful". On its own, this line might just be hiding in plain sight, but in the context of the treasure poems they stand out. It even puts "good" first in the list. Our next step is to figure out what Bryon is trying to tell us.
Some additional information can be found in the October 22, 1982 edition of the L.A. Daily news, which states:
They can be found with patience and wit and by being good.And by that we mean only doing it the way it is supposed to be done, not how you think it should be.
(my emphasis added)
This is a very interesting quote. On the one hand, he uses the word "good" to describe what is needed to find the treasures. On the other hand, he clearly states that there is a "way it is supposed to be done" or -- if you will -- a method.
If we can uncover what it means to be "good" and where Byron is telling us how the puzzle is supposed to be done, we may yet see this puzzle solved in our time.
[1]: The Secret: A Treasure Hunt, Page 7.