Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
Eleven books by a shoemaker of Görlitz who wrote, by his own account, because he could not help it. Ten of them stand here in the seventeenth-century English of John Sparrow, who translated Boehme within a generation of his death and whose prose is itself now four hundred years old; where that English has drifted out of reach, the facing pane carries a modern register — the same text with archaic inflection and spelling normalised by rule, never paraphrased. Nothing is reworded, and where no register appears beside a passage it is because the rules found nothing to change.
The eleventh book is not in English at all, and it is the reason this note exists.
Des trois principes de l'essence divine, printed at Paris in 1802, is the same work as Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence, which stands here as the second book — the same twenty-seven chapters in the same order, opening `Du premier principe de l'essence divine` against Sparrow's `Of the first Principle of the Divine Essence`. Its translator was Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, who gave the last years of his life to putting Boehme into French, and who has a shelf of his own in this Lycaeum.
That makes a closed circuit inside this archive, and it is worth naming plainly. Saint-Martin translates Boehme. La Iniciación, printed in Montevideo a hundred and forty years later, traces its own descent through Saint-Martin. A reader can therefore follow one thread from a German mystic of 1619, through the French philosopher who carried him into another language, to a Spanish-language monthly of the 1940s that claimed them both — and read every step of it in the original.
The two are shelved as one work rather than two because that is what they are. They are not set as facing panes: an English translation of 1619 and a French translation of 1802 are two independent readings of a lost German original, and pairing them line by line would assert a correspondence neither translator ever claimed.
1wherein king Lucifer was captivated. 5. But when, on the first day, the light somewhat brake forth again, through the Word or Heart of God in the root of the nature of the body of this world, as a choosing or appropriating of the day, or as a beginning of the mobility of life, then the severe and astringent birth or geniture again obtained a glimpse or rising up of the life in the birth or geniture. 6. From that time the astringent birth stood as it were in an anxious death, till after the third day, when the love of God pressed through the heaven of the partition, and kindled the light of the sun. 7. But seeing the heart or power of the sun could not open the anxious birth or quality of fierceness and wrath, and temper the same, especially as it could not do so aloft in that height above Jupiter, thereupon that whole circumference or sphere stood in a horrible anxiety, just as a woman in travail; and yet could not awaken or raise the heat, because of the horrible coldness and astringency. 8. But, nevertheless, seeing the mobility was risen up through the power of the hidden heaven, therefore nature could not rest, but was in anguish to the birth, and generated out of or from the spirit of sharpness an astringent, cold and austere sun or star, which is Saturn. 9. For the spirit of heat whence the light ariseth (and out of the light, through the water, the love and meekness), could not kindle itself; but there was a birth or geniture of an austere, cold and severe fierceness, which is a drier, a spoiler and an enemy of meekness, and which in the creatures generateth the hard bones.
210. But Saturn was not bound to its place, as the sun is, for it is not a corporeal place or space in the room of the deep; but Saturn is a son which is born or generated out of the chamber of death, out of the kindled, hard and cold anxiety, and is only one of the household or family in that space or room in which it hath its course and revolution. For it hath its corporeal propriety to itself, as a child, when the child is born or generated from the mother. [" Saturn, indeed, was created together with the " wheel, when the FIAT created the wheel; but " it doth not go forth or proceed from Sol."] 11. But why it did rise up thus from God out of the austere birth, and what its office is, I will mention hereafter, concerning the driving about, or revolution, of the planets. 12. But its height or distance cannot be exactly known. But I am fully persuaded that it is in the midst, in the deep between Jupiter and the general sphere of the fixed stars or constellations, for it is the heart of the corporeity in nature. 13. For as the sun is the heart of life, and a cause of the spirits of nature, so Saturn is the heart and the cause of all bodies and imagings, formings and framings in the earth, and upon the earth, as also in the whole body of this world. 14. And as in man the skull is a container or encloser of the brain, wherein the thoughts are generated, so the Saturnine power is an environer, drier and container of all corporeity and comprehensibility or palpability. 15. And as the planet Jupiter, which is an unlocker and generator of meekness, is between
3the fierce Mars and the austere Saturn, and generateth the meekness and wisdom in the creatures, so the life and the senses of all creatures are generated between these two qualities; especially the new body of this world, as also the new man; of which thou wilt find more concerning the description of man. Of the Planet Venus. 16. Venus, that gracious, amiable and blessed planet, or the kindler of love in nature, hath also its original and descent or proceeding from the springing up of the sun; but its condition, quality, being and proceeding or descent is thus: Here observe this rightly and exactly. 17. When the love of God kindled the place of the sun, or the SUN, then, out of the anxiety, out of the place of the sun, out of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of nature, there sprang up, first, the terrible, fierce, bitter firecrack, whose birth and principal or first original is the kindled bitter wrath of God, in the astringent quality, through the water. 18. That sprang up first, in the kindling of the sun out of the chamber of death, and was an awakener or rouser of death, and a beginner of life, and climbed up aloft very fiercely, and trembling, till the light of the sun laid hold on it, and affected or possessed it; and there it was caught or captivated by the meekness of the light, and stayed; from which the planet Mars came to be. 19. After that firecrack had taken place the power of the light, which at the beginning had generated itself out of the unctuosity or fatness of the water behind the firecrack, instantly shot
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1wherein king Lucifer was captivated. 5. But when, on the first day, the light somewhat brake forth again, through the Word or Heart of God in the root of the nature of the body of this world, as a choosing or appropriating of the day, or as a beginning of the mobility of life, then the severe and astringent birth or geniture again obtained a glimpse or rising up of the life in the birth or geniture. 6. From that time the astringent birth stood as it were in an anxious death, till after the third day, when the love of God pressed through the heaven of the partition, and kindled the light of the sun. 7. But seeing the heart or power of the sun could not open the anxious birth or quality of fierceness and wrath, and temper the same, especially as it could not do so aloft in that height above Jupiter, thereupon that whole circumference or sphere stood in a horrible anxiety, just as a woman in travail; and yet could not awaken or raise the heat, because of the horrible coldness and astringency. 8. But, nevertheless, seeing the mobility was risen up through the power of the hidden heaven, therefore nature could not rest, but was in anguish to the birth, and generated out of or from the spirit of sharpness an astringent, cold and austere sun or star, which is Saturn. 9. For the spirit of heat whence the light ariseth (and out of the light, through the water, the love and meekness), could not kindle itself; but there was a birth or geniture of an austere, cold and severe fierceness, which is a drier, a spoiler and an enemy of meekness, and which in the creatures generateth the hard bones.
210. But Saturn was not bound to its place, as the sun is, for it is not a corporeal place or space in the room of the deep; but Saturn is a son which is born or generated out of the chamber of death, out of the kindled, hard and cold anxiety, and is only one of the household or family in that space or room in which it hath its course and revolution. For it hath its corporeal propriety to itself, as a child, when the child is born or generated from the mother. [" Saturn, indeed, was created together with the " wheel, when the FIAT created the wheel; but " it doth not go forth or proceed from Sol."] 11. But why it did rise up thus from God out of the austere birth, and what its office is, I will mention hereafter, concerning the driving about, or revolution, of the planets. 12. But its height or distance cannot be exactly known. But I am fully persuaded that it is in the midst, in the deep between Jupiter and the general sphere of the fixed stars or constellations, for it is the heart of the corporeity in nature. 13. For as the sun is the heart of life, and a cause of the spirits of nature, so Saturn is the heart and the cause of all bodies and imagings, formings and framings in the earth, and upon the earth, as also in the whole body of this world. 14. And as in man the skull is a container or encloser of the brain, wherein the thoughts are generated, so the Saturnine power is an environer, drier and container of all corporeity and comprehensibility or palpability. 15. And as the planet Jupiter, which is an unlocker and generator of meekness, is between
3the fierce Mars and the austere Saturn, and generateth the meekness and wisdom in the creatures, so the life and the senses of all creatures are generated between these two qualities; especially the new body of this world, as also the new man; of which thou wilt find more concerning the description of man. Of the Planet Venus. 16. Venus, that gracious, amiable and blessed planet, or the kindler of love in nature, hath also its original and descent or proceeding from the springing up of the sun; but its condition, quality, being and proceeding or descent is thus: Here observe this rightly and exactly. 17. When the love of God kindled the place of the sun, or the SUN, then, out of the anxiety, out of the place of the sun, out of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of nature, there sprang up, first, the terrible, fierce, bitter firecrack, whose birth and principal or first original is the kindled bitter wrath of God, in the astringent quality, through the water. 18. That sprang up first, in the kindling of the sun out of the chamber of death, and was an awakener or rouser of death, and a beginner of life, and climbed up aloft very fiercely, and trembling, till the light of the sun laid hold on it, and affected or possessed it; and there it was caught or captivated by the meekness of the light, and stayed; from which the planet Mars came to be. 19. After that firecrack had taken place the power of the light, which at the beginning had generated itself out of the unctuosity or fatness of the water behind the firecrack, instantly shot
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
No commentary for this page.