A few lines from the Second Burgundinian Mythographer called my attention today while I was trying to clean my mind up after reading a discussion on a verse of the Iliad. The narrator was speaking about the mysterious disappearance of a teacher who went out of the Lyceum one day in order to buy cigarettes. Nobody saw him again. But this is not what actually was so attractive for me. Let’s read.
«And this is what they all tell: Mr Mostacchi, teacher of Italian, went out looking for a box of cigarettes that morning. His final departure was like the mysterious question of the well known legend: “what is the base of the pyramid?” For this question had no more answer than “I cannot tell you that”; as if a great secret lied behind».
It is clear that the Mythographer is referring to an unknown —for us— story involving a stratified pyramid. But this is not an Egyptian pyramid nor a geometrical model. Otherwise, the answer would not be given as impossible to disclose, for anyone could calculate it in mathematical terms. This is an abstract pyramid, so it is the knowledge what is hidden in the denied answer. And it results fascinating to wonder what actually is behind all this. Here we have only a brief and almost meaningless reference, but there should be more details in some other part of the manuscripts—either in the text of the Second or in those of the First and Third Burgundinian Mythographers.
