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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.
122. Fifthly, we find in the compaction of the metals and stones an oil, which is sweeter than any sugar can be; so far as it may be separated from the other properties. It is the first heavenly holy essence; which has taken its original from the free lubet. It is pure and transparent; but if the fire-source be severed from it (albeit it is impossible wholly to separate it, for the band of the great triumphant joy consists therein) then it is whiter than anything can be in nature: But by reason of the fire it continues of a rosy-red; 1) which the light changes into yellow, according to the mixture of red and white; by reason of the earthy property, and predominant influence of the sun. 1 Or crimson purple-red. 23. But if the artist can unloose it, and free it from the fire of the wrath, and other properties, then he has the pearl of the whole world, understand the tincture: for Virgin Venus has her cabinet of treasure lying there: It is the Virgin with her fair attire [or crown of pearl]. 24. O you earthly man did you have it yet! Here Lucifer and Adam have negligently lost it! O man, did you but know what lay here, how would you seek after it! But it belongs only unto those whom God has chosen thereto. O precious pearl, how sweet art you in the new birth, how fair, and surpassing excellent is your lustre! VI. THE LIVING MERCURY; SOUND
225. Sixthly, we find in this oily property a sovereign power from the original of the manifested powerful divine Word, which dwells in the heavenly property; in which power the sound or tone of metals is distinguished; and therein their growth consists. For here it is the holy Mercurius: that which in the second form of nature in the darkness is compunctive, harsh, rigid, and a poison, that is here, in the free lubet's property (when the fire in the salnitral flagrat has divided love and anger) a pleasant merry Mercury, wherein the joyfulness of the creature consists. 26. And here, ye philosophers, lies the effectual virtue and powerfull operation of your Noble Stone: here it is called Tincture. This operation can tincture the disappeared water in Luna; for here your Jupiter is a prince; and Sol a king, and virgin Venus the king's sweetest spouse. But Mars must first lay down his sceptre; also the devil must first go into hell; for Christ must bind him; and tincture simple Luna, which he has defiled, with the oil of his heavenly blood; that the anger may be changed into joy. Thus the artist's art is born: understood here, by the children of the Mystery. [VII. ESSENCE, BODY] 27. Seventhly, we find in the separation of the compaction of the metals a white crystalline water; that is, the heavenly water, viz.
3the water above the firmament of heaven; which is severed from the oil, as a body of the oily property. It gives a white crystalline lustre in the metals; and Venus with her property makes it wholly white; and that is a silver property; and Venus in Sol, a gold; and Mars in Venus, a copper; and again, Venus in Mars, an iron; Jupiter in Venus, a tin; Saturn in Venus, a lead: Mercurius in Venus, quicksilver; and without Venus there is no metal, neither fixed nor mineral. 28. Thus understand by Venus, heavenly essentiality, which consists in an oil and crystalline water, which gives body unto all metals, understand the spiritual beautiful body; its own peculiar essence, without the influences of the other properties, is the great meekness and sweetness. Its real peculiar essence is a sweet pure water; but the power of the manifested Word does separate the holiest through the fire into an oil; for in the oil the fire gives a shine or lustre. When the fire tastes the water in itself; then out of the taste it gives an oil; thus the oil is spiritual, and the water corporeal. The oil is a body 1) of the power; and the water a body 1) of the properties, which are living in the oil, and do make or use the water for a mansion. In the water the elemental life consists, and in the oil the spiritual life; 2) and in the power of oil the divine life, viz. the life of the expressed Word, as a manifestation of the Deity. 1 Text Corpus. 2 Or life of the spirit.
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.
122. Fifthly, we find in the compaction of the metals and stones an oil, which is sweeter than any sugar can be; so far as it may be separated from the other properties. It is the first heavenly holy essence; which has taken its original from the free lubet. It is pure and transparent; but if the fire-source be severed from it (albeit it is impossible wholly to separate it, for the band of the great triumphant joy consists therein) then it is whiter than anything can be in nature: But by reason of the fire it continues of a rosy-red; 1) which the light changes into yellow, according to the mixture of red and white; by reason of the earthy property, and predominant influence of the sun. 1 Or crimson purple-red. 23. But if the artist can unloose it, and free it from the fire of the wrath, and other properties, then he has the pearl of the whole world, understand the tincture: for Virgin Venus has her cabinet of treasure lying there: It is the Virgin with her fair attire [or crown of pearl]. 24. O you earthly man did you have it yet! Here Lucifer and Adam have negligently lost it! O man, did you but know what lay here, how would you seek after it! But it belongs only unto those whom God has chosen thereto. O precious pearl, how sweet art you in the new birth, how fair, and surpassing excellent is your lustre! VI. THE LIVING MERCURY; SOUND
225. Sixthly, we find in this oily property a sovereign power from the original of the manifested powerful divine Word, which dwells in the heavenly property; in which power the sound or tone of metals is distinguished; and therein their growth consists. For here it is the holy Mercurius: that which in the second form of nature in the darkness is compunctive, harsh, rigid, and a poison, that is here, in the free lubet's property (when the fire in the salnitral flagrat has divided love and anger) a pleasant merry Mercury, wherein the joyfulness of the creature consists. 26. And here, ye philosophers, lies the effectual virtue and powerfull operation of your Noble Stone: here it is called Tincture. This operation can tincture the disappeared water in Luna; for here your Jupiter is a prince; and Sol a king, and virgin Venus the king's sweetest spouse. But Mars must first lay down his sceptre; also the devil must first go into hell; for Christ must bind him; and tincture simple Luna, which he has defiled, with the oil of his heavenly blood; that the anger may be changed into joy. Thus the artist's art is born: understood here, by the children of the Mystery. [VII. ESSENCE, BODY] 27. Seventhly, we find in the separation of the compaction of the metals a white crystalline water; that is, the heavenly water, viz.
3the water above the firmament of heaven; which is severed from the oil, as a body of the oily property. It gives a white crystalline lustre in the metals; and Venus with her property makes it wholly white; and that is a silver property; and Venus in Sol, a gold; and Mars in Venus, a copper; and again, Venus in Mars, an iron; Jupiter in Venus, a tin; Saturn in Venus, a lead: Mercurius in Venus, quicksilver; and without Venus there is no metal, neither fixed nor mineral. 28. Thus understand by Venus, heavenly essentiality, which consists in an oil and crystalline water, which gives body unto all metals, understand the spiritual beautiful body; its own peculiar essence, without the influences of the other properties, is the great meekness and sweetness. Its real peculiar essence is a sweet pure water; but the power of the manifested Word does separate the holiest through the fire into an oil; for in the oil the fire gives a shine or lustre. When the fire tastes the water in itself; then out of the taste it gives an oil; thus the oil is spiritual, and the water corporeal. The oil is a body 1) of the power; and the water a body 1) of the properties, which are living in the oil, and do make or use the water for a mansion. In the water the elemental life consists, and in the oil the spiritual life; 2) and in the power of oil the divine life, viz. the life of the expressed Word, as a manifestation of the Deity. 1 Text Corpus. 2 Or life of the spirit.
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.
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