* In the original Japanese text, they do not give a source for the Analects. The only one which specifically mentions its origin is Analect IV (Paddra Nsu-Yeul).
I. The Vanished Gods
Luminous lamented,
for creation spiraled unto doom.
Stout fashioned earth,
that future might take root.
Sage turned mind's eye inward,
seeking truth profound.
Fool desired naught,
and soon was made one with it.
Maker forged fal'Cie,
from fragments Maker's own.
Maker forged Man,
from traces once Divine.
In time the gods departed,
leaving all by their hands wrought.
Fal'Cie were as Man forsaken,
orphans of Maker absconded.
–Author unknown
A vague account of the actions of the gods at the creation of the world. It tells of the existance of four gods: Luminous, Stout, Sage, and Fool. One can infer that "Stout" refers to Pulse who created the land of Gran Pulse, "Sage" refers to Lindzei who had the fal'Cie create Cocoon, and "Fool" to the goddess Etro, who left the world before the other gods and disappeared to the Unseeable World. However, "Luminous" is an absolute mystery. Also, the expression 'orphan' used for the fal'Cie and mankind abandoned by the gods would seem to be the origin for the name of fal'Cie Orphan.
POINT
- "Maker forged fal'Cie, from fragments Maker's own" = The 'Maker' here is both Pulse and Lindzei.
- "Makeer forged Man, from traces once Divine" = The 'Maker' here refers only to Lindzei.
II. Lindzei's Nest
And lo, the viper Lindzei bore fangs into the pristine soil of our Gran Pulse; despoiled the land and from it crafted a cocoon both ghastly and unclean.
Lies spilled forth from the serpent's tongue: 'Within this shell lies paradise.' Men heard these lies and were seduced and led away.
O cursed are the fools who trust a snake and turn their backs upon the bounty of Pulse's hallowed land! For those who dwell in that cocoon are not Men, but slaves of the demon Lindzei.
Ye who honor Pulse: rise unto the heavens, and cast down the viper's nest!
–Author unknown
The historical fact of Barthandelus and the other Lindzei-lineage fal'Cie (> P.199) creating Cocoon and moving a portion of Gran Pulse's people there is here described from the perspective of those anger by the seisure of their fellow men and of their resources. 'Demon' is the title given to Lindzei by the people of Gran Pulse who do not view him as a benevolant god, and the 'Demon's brood' refers to the fal'Cie of Lindzei-lineage.
* 'Demon's brood' was not used in the English localization, but appears in the first line of the Japanese text. "The brood of the cunning Demon bore into the beautiful land of Gran Pulse, and in the sky crafted a ghastly cocoon."
III. The Chosen
Two l'Cie are they, the Chosen, and from the North they hail. Endowed are they with fal'Cie Focus, to bear the burden of the Beast.
My brothers and sisters of Gran Pulse: Honor the Chosen in your prayers! Let the blade forged of their will be tempered by your faith, that it might sunder that devilish cocoon's facade!
-- A Call to Arms
Tells of Vanille and Fang, in the village of Oerba in the far north of Gran Pulse, being chosen to become l'Cie and being given the Focus of destroying Cocoon.
IV. The Heavenly Deceit
Ragnarok took wing; made to smite Cocoon, and thereby deliver us our everlasting peace. But Her Providence would not let it be.
The Goddess pitied the fools who so blindly bowed to Lindzei's will, and so She robbed Ragnarok of power, putting the l'Cie to an early crystal sleep, Focus yet incomplete.
-- Sermons of the seeress Paddra Nsu-Yeul
An account of the events of the War of Transgression, where Etro interfered in the destruction of Cocoon by Fang (transformed into Ragnarok), and after forcing her to revert to her original form putting her to rest in a crystal. It is silimar to the account on the Oerba epitaph (> P.168), but Analect IV is the retelling of an oracle received after the War of Transgression by a seeress from the city of Paddra, seen only as a now long-dead city during the story. Analects V and VI are also written by residents of Paddra.
V. The Age of Fading Glory
How long now, since the demons of Cocoon violated this land? Where once the peoples of Gran Pulse stood as one, united against a common foe, today we stand divided, at war amongst ourselves.
We walk on the edge of a knife, teetering, ever but one step from our demise. How tired a species, that we must rob our own of the necessities for life lest we succumb to the fate to which we so willingly subject others!
Even Haeri, at the height of its glory, laid to ruin by a menace greater still! Surely the vipers within that floating nest look down upon us with self-righteous scorn, to see this decline of our once-great civilization.
-- Criticisms of a Pulsian People
The path of destruction that faced the people of Gran Pulse follwing the War of Transgression is recounted by one who witnessed it at the time. Incidently, the city "Haeri" which was attacked by the great beasts of Gran Pulse is the Haerii Archaeopolis, on the outskirts of the Archylte Steppe.
VI. The Age of Ruin
The fal'Cie of Hallowed Pulse offer us no salvation. Populations dwindle, and still they but make more of us l'Cie, dealing out one incomprehensible Focus after the next as they drive us toward our end.
Men take up arms against their brothers now. We, who should be joining hands to survive in the face of nature's trials, turn on one another to secure what few of her blessings remain.
I suspect that even the city of Paddra, this last bastion of civilization, will not long stand against the evils we now perpetrate. Human life on Gran Pulse has passed the point of no return.
-- Criticisms of a Pulsian People
As with Analect V, a passage detailing the lamentations of the people of Gran Pulse as they face their imminent destruction. Reckless creation of l'Cie by the fal'Cie was also a factor in the decline of the population.
VII. Hallowed Pulse
It was the Great and Hallowed Pulse who, seeking to expand divine domain, parted the chaos and fashioned realm within; made fal'Cie, and charged them with this world's completion.
The fal'Cie, anxious to please the hand that shaped them, labored devotedly at the task they had been given. They made l'Cie of men so that they, too, might be able to aid the greater cause. Men, in turn, offered praise and prayer to Hallowed Pulse, naming their great land in honor of its architect.
Yet still the architect departed.
-- On the Nature of Fal'Cie
An explanation regarding Hallowed Pulse, the god worshipped by the people of Gran Pulse. It states that the fal'Cie of Pulse-lineage are charged with the Focus of completing the world, but this is mankind's interpretation, and in truth they are searching for the "gateway to the Divine" as per the hypothesis in Analect 11 (> P.199).
VIII. Fell Lindzei
As our fal'Cie are the children of Hallowed Pulse, so are the fal'Cie who lurk within Cocoon the brood of Lindzei.
But all gods are not alike.
Lindzei is cunning and false; sovereign to snakes and fiends; an anathema to be abhorred.
Cocoon fal'Cie are of Fell Lindzei's line, yet that did not spare them. They were betrayed all the same; left orphans when their Succubus fled this earthly realm.
-- A Call to Arms
A passage regarding Lindzei, the god despised by the people of Gran Pulse. Expressions like "anathema" and "sovereign to snakes and fiends" are the bitter words of those who have had what is theirs pillaged, and not an objective view of Lindzei.
IX. Her Providence
Her Providence sought nothing.
Her Providence made nothing.
She but looked on, silent in Her sorrow.
The Goddess pitied mortals, destined as they were to die, and so She deigned to intervene in the hour of their greatest peril. She averted cataclysm that was to be, and put to rest the ones who would have robbed so many of what time fate had ordained.
Her compassion did not end at this.
The Goddess pitied also those subjected to that fate of Focus, crueler still than death. To them She sent Her messengers, to deliver hope when all was lost.
-- Sermons of the seeress Paddra Nsu-Yeul
A passage regarding the godness Etro, also known as the 'god of death'. It shows the essencial nature of Etro, whose actions are driven by compassion for others. Some of Etro's deeds are revealed here, such as her stopping Fang as Ragnarok during the War of Transgression and preventing the death of many lives in Cocoon, and sending eidolons from the Unseeable World to l'Cie at the brink of despair in order to give them hope.
X. The Menace Beyond
They say the fal'Cie made the Arks in preparation for battle against the menace that lurks beyond. Where is this "beyond" of which they speak? Do they mean Cocoon, and the demons that dwells within? If so, they are mistaken. The legends of the Arks date far before that sphere was even crafted; whispers even hint at Arks displaced around the time of Cocoon's creation, spirited away to be hidden in its shell.
What, then, is the "menace"? What distant threat confronts us, and to what purpose? The gods vanished from this place. Are they now residents of the "beyond"?
-- On the Nature of Fal'Cie
A passage seeking an answer to the mystery of the Arks, said to have been created by the fal'Cie in preparation of a possibly invasion from beyond the world by an outside menace (> P.141). It offers an interesting interpretation that the 'beyond' is the world the gods currently reside in, and that the purpose of the construction of the Arks was to invade there...
* The sentence being referenced in the last line is missing the English localization. Originally preceeding the final line ("The gods vanished..."): "Or was it their design that we should mount an assault into that 'beyond'?"
XI. Hypothesis of the Hunt
We've long held the goal of the fal'Cie's endless excavations to be the expansion of the world's inhabitable space-the creation of new lands with which to honor the gods. But I contend this to be false. Their methods lack the order one would expect if that were their purpose, and what's more, the gods they would honor have long since departed this world.
I propose a different explanation: the fal'Cie are hunting. Whether they seek a way to recall the gods or to journey to their side I cannot say, but I do believe the fal'Cie seek their lost deities. They search the earth, the skies, the waters, and even the deep places, seeking a gateway to the Divine.
-- On the Nature of Fal'Cie
This passage rejects the common view given in Analect VII that the goal of the Pulse-lineage fal'Cie is the expansion of the physical world, and suggests a new interpretation--that their true motive is to find the "gateway to the Divine (the door to the Unseeable World)" instead. As this hypothesis indicates, all fal'Cie seek to locate the 'gateway', and the purpose behind that being to call back the Maker is also correct from what is seen with Barthandelus (> P.142).
XII. The Door of Souls
When our earthly vessels meet their end, the souls they housed must leave this world. Would the path of their migration not be the same one as our departed gods? Must they not pass through the same doorway the Divine employed to reach that place that lies beyond?
If this is the case, it stands to reason that, should a great many lives at once be cut short, a flood of souls would surge through the aforementioned portal. The Door would be thrown wide, and perhaps we might even glimpse the gleaming light of Divinity beyond.
-- On the Nature of Fal'Cie
Speculation regarding the gateway (door) to the world of the dead (Unseeable World), referenced in Analect XI as the 'gateway to the Divine'. The hypothesis that the simultaneous end of a great many lives would open wide the gateway, allowing a union with the Maker, is the basis for Barthandelus' plan.
XIII. Fabula Nova Crystallis
Children of Hallowed Pulse scour earth, searching substance for the Door. Those of Fell Lindzei harvest souls, combing ether for the same. So have I seen.
The Door, once shut, was locked away, with despair its secret key; sacrifice, the one hope of seeing it unsealed.
When the twilight of the gods at last descends upon this world, what emerges from the unseeable expanse beyond that Door will be but music, and that devoid of words: the lamentations of the Goddess Etro, as She sobs Her song of grief.
-- Author unknown
The first two lines are summaries of the actions and motives of the Pulse-lineage and Lindzei-lineage fal'Cie respectively (> P.199), and the latter half is a premonition of the game's ending from a seeress who has received an oracle. This is the only place in the game that the terms "unseeable expanse" and "Etro" are used.
POINT
- "with despair its secret key" = A premonition of Fang becoming Ragnarok in her despair, and her actions bringing forth the appearance of the door to the Unseeable World (> P.191).
- "sacrifice, the one hope" = A premonition of Vanille and Fang sacrificing themselves to save the people of Cocoon.
- "When the twilight of the gods at last descends" = The "twilight of the gods" is the equivalent translation of 'Ragnarok' in Norse mythology. It is a metaphor for Vanille and Fang's transformation into Ragnarok, and predicts Ragnarok receiving the support of Etro in the Unseeable World to bring forth a miracle and save the people of Cocoon.
