Amphion built the walls of Thebes with a lyre. His brother Zethus hauled stone on his back; Amphion walked ahead and played, and the stones followed the music into place like magic. A city is something you can sing into order.

To spell a word and to cast a spell come from one root, the old word for story. A story does work on the world.

The work cuts both ways. Take the beauty out of order and you get glamour: the word is grammar without the beauty, sister to grimoire, the book of spells that coerce. Plato put manipulative speech in that same family, cosmetics, adornment impersonating order. He also said the soul is cured by charms, and charms are beautiful words.

Be measured. Be beautiful with your words. Build, don't coerce.