Ropes

They can be used to hang a fern from a porch or hang a man from the gallows.  They can tether a boat to the dock to keep it from drifting or tether a beast to post to keep it from wandering – and there is a distinct difference in drifting and wandering, since one involves passive acquiescence to the fundamental laws of nature and one involves an active will that strives against them.  Unless you are Indiana Jones or Tarzan you have likely never used ropes as a primary mechanism of transportation, and then again, if you have ridden in an elevator at all then you have, or at least cables, which are sophisticated metal ropes, after a fashion.  An anchor is not an anchor without the rope that allows it to be such; without the rope that splices the anchor to the ship, the anchor is simply a sunken artifact.  Ropes were not only the first lassos but the first stirrups, with knots tied on either end of single rope draped over the horse’s back by the Mongols allowing a rider to stick both big toes in the make-shift stirrup, obtain nearly standing leverage, and a distinct advantage in battle.  One might say that the rope, fashioned as a stirrup, is why Hungary’s capital, Budapest, sounds stridently more Asian than European, for the rope allowed the Mongols to ride at least that far into victory, and with their victory they brought their nomenclature.  Indeed, “a cord of three strands is not easily broken…” (Eccl. 4:12) and that is because a cord three strands is, categorically, a rope.