Fifteen thousand feet in the air, Robert Langdon felt the physical world fade away as all of histhoughts converged on Saunière's mirror-image poem, which was illuminated through the lid of thebox.
mirrored textSophie quickly found some paper and copied it down longhand. When she was done, the three ofthem took turns reading the text. It was like some kind of archaeological crossword... a riddle thatpromised to reveal how to open the cryptex. Langdon read the verse slowly.
An ancient word of wisdom frees this scroll... and helps us keep her scatter'd family whole... aheadstone praised by templars is the key... and atbash will reveal the truth to thee.
Before Langdon could even ponder what ancient password the verse was trying to reveal, he feltsomething far more fundamental resonate within him—the meter of the poem. Iambic pentameter.
Langdon had come across this meter often over the years while researching secret societies acrossEurope, including just last year in the Vatican Secret Archives. For centuries, iambic pentameterhad been a preferred poetic meter of outspoken literati across the globe, from the ancient Greekwriter Archilochus to Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, and Voltaire—bold souls who chose to writetheir social commentaries in a meter that many of the day believed had mystical properties. Theroots of iambic pentameter were deeply pagan.
Iambs. Two syllables with opposite emphasis. Stressed and unstressed. Yin yang. A balanced pair.
Arranged in strings of five. Pentameter. Five for the pentacle of Venus and the sacred feminine.
"It's pentameter!" Teabing blurted, turning to Langdon. "And the verse is in English! La linguapura!"Langdon nodded. The Priory, like many European secret societies at odds with the Church, hadconsidered English the only European pure language for centuries. Unlike French, Spanish, andItalian, which were rooted in Latin—the tongue of the Vatican—English was linguisticallyremoved from Rome's propaganda machine, and therefore became a sacred, secret tongue for thosebrotherhoods educated enough to learn it.
"This poem," Teabing gushed, "references not only the Grail, but the Knights Templar and thescattered family of Mary Magdalene! What more could we ask for?""The password," Sophie said, looking again at the poem. "It sounds like we need some kind ofancient word of wisdom?""Abracadabra?" Teabing ventured, his eyes twinkling.
A word of five letters, Langdon thought, pondering the staggering number of ancient words thatmight be considered words of wisdom—selections from mystic chants, astrological prophecies,secret society inductions, Wicca incantations, Egyptian magic spells, pagan mantras—the list wasendless.
"The password," Sophie said, "appears to have something to do with the Templars." She read thetext aloud. " 'A headstone praised by Templars is the key.' ""Leigh," Langdon said, "you're the Templar specialist. Any ideas?"Teabing was silent for several seconds and then sighed. "Well, a headstone is obviously a gravemarker of some sort. It's possible the poem is referencing a gravestone the Templars praised at thetomb of Magdalene, but that doesn't help us much because we have no idea where her tomb is.""The last line," Sophie said, "says that Atbash will reveal the truth. I've heard that word. Atbash.""I'm not surprised," Langdon replied. "You probably heard it in Cryptology 101. The AtbashCipher is one of the oldest codes known to man."Of course! Sophie thought. The famous Hebrew encoding system.
The Atbash Cipher had indeed been part of Sophie's early cryptology training. The cipher datedback to 500 B.C. and was now used as a classroom example of a basic rotational substitutionscheme. A common form of Jewish cryptogram, the Atbash Cipher was a simple substitution codebased on the twenty-two-letter Hebrew alphabet. In Atbash, the first letter was substituted by thelast letter, the second letter by the next to last letter, and so on.
"Atbash is sublimely appropriate," Teabing said. "Text encrypted with Atbash is found throughoutthe Kabbala, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and even the Old Testament. Jewish scholars and mystics arestill finding hidden meanings using Atbash. The Priory certainly would include the Atbash Cipheras part of their teachings.""The only problem," Langdon said, "is that we don't have anything on which to apply the cipher."Teabing sighed. "There must be a code word on the headstone. We must find this headstonepraised by Templars."Sophie sensed from the grim look on Langdon's face that finding the Templar headstone would beno small feat.
Atbash is the key, Sophie thought. But we don't have a door.
It was three minutes later that Teabing heaved a frustrated sigh and shook his head. "My friends,I'm stymied. Let me ponder this while I get us some nibblies and check on Rémy and our guest."He stood up and headed for the back of the plane.
Sophie felt tired as she watched him go.
Outside the window, the blackness of the predawn was absolute. Sophie felt as if she were beinghurtled through space with no idea where she would land. Having grown up solving hergrandfather's riddles, she had the uneasy sense right now that this poem before them containedinformation they still had not seen.
There is more there, she told herself. Ingeniously hidden... but present nonetheless.
Also plaguing her thoughts was a fear that what they eventually found inside this cryptex wouldnot be as simple as "a map to the Holy Grail." Despite Teabing's and Langdon's confidence that thetruth lay just within the marble cylinder, Sophie had solved enough of her grandfather's treasurehunts to know that Jacques Saunière did not give up his secrets easily.
在距地面15，000 英尺的高空，罗伯特。兰登觉得现实世界离他是越来越遥远了。他全神贯注于索尼埃那首唯有依靠镜子才能看出是什么内容来的诗上，而那首诗，透过盒盖也可以看得一清二楚。
索菲很快找了一张纸条，用速记法把它抄了下来。然后，他们三个轮流读上面的那段文字。它就像是考古学上碰到的令人费解的谜……然而却是一个有助于开启密码盒的谜。
兰登慢慢地读那上面的诗句："一个蕴含智慧的古词，能揭开这卷轴的秘密--并帮助我们，将失散的家族重新团聚在一起--开启的钥匙是为圣殿骑士所赞美的基石--而埃特巴什码，将会告诉你历史的真实。"兰登甚至还没来得及考虑这首诗会告诉他们什么样的古老密码，他只觉得有些更重要的东西--那就是这首诗的韵律，激起了他内心的共鸣。五步抑扬格。
兰登在调查遍布欧洲的秘密组织时，就经常碰到这种诗律的格式，其中包括去年他在梵蒂冈秘密档案室调查的那一次。数世纪以来，五步抑扬格历来都是全球那些为人坦率的文人们的最爱，从古希腊的阿尔基洛科斯到莎土比亚，到弥尔顿，到乔叟，到伏尔泰，无一不是如此--这些勇敢的灵魂，选择了当时许多人都相信具有神秘特质的诗律形式，来描写他们所处的社会，针砭时弊。五步抑扬格，究其根源，是深深地打上了异教的烙印的。
所谓抑扬格，是指两个音节对应重读，重读与非重读，阴与阳，形成一种平衡，完美而和谐。这种形式又被安排于五根弦里，即五步格诗行。"五"代表的是维纳斯的五角星号以及神圣的女性美。
"这是五步抑扬格！"提彬转身面对兰登，冲口说道："并且这首诗是用英语写的！很地道的英语啊！"兰登点了点头，表示赞同。郇山隐修会，就像欧洲许多与教会产生冲突的秘密组织一样，长期以来一直将英语视为欧洲唯一纯正的语言。它不像法语、西班牙语，以及意大利语，这几种语言，深深扎根于拉丁语之中--拉丁语是梵蒂冈使用的语言。从语言学的角度上看，英语游离在罗马教廷强大的宣传机器之外，因此，对那些受过足够教育完全可以掌握它的组织来说，它成了一种神圣而神秘的语言。
"这首诗，不仅提到了圣杯，而且提到了圣殿骑土以及四处流散的抹大拉的玛丽亚家族！我们还指望什么呢？"
"至于密码。"索菲又看了那首诗一眼，说："那就得依靠辨认古代文字的智慧了。"
"是咒语吗？"提彬斗胆问道。
是一个由五个字母组成的单词，兰登心想。他琢磨着那些数量惊人的、被认为体现了古代智慧的词汇，那些从神秘圣歌、占星预言、秘密组织的暗语、巫术、埃及神秘咒语以及异教颂歌里挑选出来的词汇，而要将这样的词汇列出来，是无论如何也数不过来的。
"密码好像跟圣殿骑土不无关系。"索菲大声读了出来："圣殿骑士赞扬的基石，就是开启此门的钥匙。""雷爵士，你是研究圣殿骑士的专家，对此你有什么看法？"兰登问道。
提彬沉默了片刻，然后叹了一口气："咳，至于基石，很明显是坟墓的一种标记。这首诗很可能是在暗指圣殿骑土在抹大拉的玛利亚墓前赞扬过的墓碑，不过这对我们毫无帮助，因为我们不知道她的坟墓现在到底在哪里。""诗的最后一行。"索菲继续说道："是说埃特巴什将会使真相暴露无遗。埃特巴什？我听过这个词。"
"我并不奇怪。"兰登在一边回应："你可能是从密码学101 里听到的。埃特巴什码可能是迄今人们所知最古老的密码了。"当然喽！有谁不知道赫赫有名的希伯来编码体系？索菲心想。
埃特巴什码确实是索菲当初接受译码训练的部分内容。这套密码最早可追溯到公元前5 世纪，现被当作基本轮流替换的体系在课堂上作教材使用。作为犹太人密码中的一种常见形式，埃特巴什码是以22 个希伯来字母为基础的简单替换编码。在埃特巴什编码体系中，第一个字母用最后一个字母替换，第二个字母由倒数第二个字母替换，如此等等，依此类推。
"埃特巴什码倒是很不错呀。"提彬说道："用这套密码编制的文本在犹太人的神秘哲学、《死海古卷》甚至在《圣经》的《旧约》中都可以找到。直到今天，犹太学者们和神秘主义者仍在用埃特巴什码寻找隐藏的信息。郇山隐修会定会把埃特巴什码当作他们教学的一部分内容。""现在唯一的问题是。"兰登沉吟道："我们找不到什么东西来套用这套密码。"
提彬叹道："基石上肯定有个充当密码的词。我们得找到这块被圣殿骑士赞扬过的基石。"索菲看到，兰登的脸上露出了严峻的神情，感到要找到这块基石绝非轻而易举之事。
埃特巴什密码就是破译密码的钥匙，但我们却不得其门而入，索菲寻思。
过了大约有三分钟，提彬沮丧地叹了口气，摇摇头，说："朋友们，我考虑不下去了，容我回头再去想想，我先去给大家拿些吃的来，顺便去看看雷米和我们的客人。"他站起来，朝飞机后舱走去。
索菲望着他离去，感到筋疲力尽。
窗外，黎明前的黑暗笼罩了整个世界。索菲觉得自己仿佛漂浮在太空中，不知道将在何处着陆。虽然，她是在猜祖父各种各样的谜语的过程中长大的，但现在，她感到有些不安，觉得摆在面前的这首诗隐藏了一些他们未曾见过的东西。
这些东西或许更多呢，她自言自语道。尽管它隐藏的无比巧妙……然而它确实存在。
同时困扰并使她担心的是，他们最终在密码盒里发现的东西，决不会是"寻找圣杯的地图"那么简单。虽然提彬与兰登都相信，真相就隐藏在这大理石的圆筒里，但索菲已解决了他祖父的诸多难题，因此她知道，她祖父绝不会这么轻易的泄漏他的秘密。