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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.
1I will set down here a short Description how it is when the Bride thus embraceth the Bridegroom , for the Consideration of the Reader, who perhaps hath not yet been in this WeddingChamber. It may be, he will be desirous to follow us, and to enter into the Inner- Choir, where the Soul joineth Hands and danceth with Sophia or the Divine Wisdom. When that which is mentioned above cometh to pass , the Soul rejoiceth in its Body , and saith , P RAISE, Thanksgiving, Strength, Honour, and Glory, be to thee, O great God, in thy Power and Slveetness y for that thou hast redeemed me from the Anguish of the Fiery Dtdver. O thou fair Love ! My Heart embraceth thee ; where hast thou been so long ? Methought I was in Hell in the Anger of God. O gracious Love ! abide with me, I beseech thee, and be my Joy and Comfort Lead me in the right Way. Of \ ’True Repentance . 31 — v — I give riiiyself up into thy Love . I am dark before thee, do thou ^/^/^me. O noble Love , give me thy Pearl ; put it I pray thee into me.
2O great God in Christ Jesus , I praise and magnify thee now in thy Truth, in thy great Power and Glory, for that thou hast forgiven me my Sins , and filled me with thy Strength . I shout for Joy before thee in my new Life , and extol thee in thy Firmament of Heaven, which none can open but thy Spirit in thy Mercj*. My Bones rejoice in thy Strength, and my Heart delighteth itself in thy Love . Thanks be to thee for ever, for that thou hast delivered me out of Hell, and turned Death into Life in me. O sweet Loiy ! Let me not depart from thee again. Grant me* thy Qarland of Pearl , and abide in me. O be my own proper Possession, that I may rejoice in thee for ever. Upon this , Virgin Sophia saitli to the Sou /,
3M Y noble Bridegroom, my Strength and Power, thou art a thousand Times welcome. Why hast thou forgotten me so long, that I have been constrained in great Grief to stand without the Door and knock? Have I not always called thee and entreated thee ? But thou hast turned away thy Countenance from me, and thine Ears have declined my Entreaties. Thou couldst not see m y Light, for thou didst walk in the Valley of Darkness. I was very near thee, and entreated thee continually, but thy Sinfulness held thee Captive in Death, so that thou knewest me not. I came to thee in great Humility and called thee, but thou wert rich in the Power of the Anger of God, and didst not regard my Humility and Lowliness. Thou hadst taken the Devil to be thy Paramour, who hath defiled thee thus, and built up his Fort of Prey in thee, and turned thee quite away from my Love and Faith into his Hypocritical Kingdom of Falsehood ; wherein thou hast committed much Sin and Wickedness, and torn thy Will off from my Love. Thou hast broken the Bond of Wedlock, and set thy Love and Affection upon a Stranger, and suffered me thy Bride, whom God did give thee, to stand alone in the extinguished Substance , without the Power of thy fiery Strength. I could not be joyful without thy fiery Strength, for thou art my Husband; my shining Brightness is .made manifest joy thee. Thou canst manifest my hidden Wonders in thy fiery Life, and bring them into Majesty ; and yet without me thou art but a dark House, wherein is nothing but . Anguish, Misery, and horrible Torment.
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.
1I will set down here a short Description how it is when the Bride thus embraceth the Bridegroom , for the Consideration of the Reader, who perhaps hath not yet been in this WeddingChamber. It may be, he will be desirous to follow us, and to enter into the Inner- Choir, where the Soul joineth Hands and danceth with Sophia or the Divine Wisdom. When that which is mentioned above cometh to pass , the Soul rejoiceth in its Body , and saith , P RAISE, Thanksgiving, Strength, Honour, and Glory, be to thee, O great God, in thy Power and Slveetness y for that thou hast redeemed me from the Anguish of the Fiery Dtdver. O thou fair Love ! My Heart embraceth thee ; where hast thou been so long ? Methought I was in Hell in the Anger of God. O gracious Love ! abide with me, I beseech thee, and be my Joy and Comfort Lead me in the right Way. Of \ ’True Repentance . 31 — v — I give riiiyself up into thy Love . I am dark before thee, do thou ^/^/^me. O noble Love , give me thy Pearl ; put it I pray thee into me.
2O great God in Christ Jesus , I praise and magnify thee now in thy Truth, in thy great Power and Glory, for that thou hast forgiven me my Sins , and filled me with thy Strength . I shout for Joy before thee in my new Life , and extol thee in thy Firmament of Heaven, which none can open but thy Spirit in thy Mercj*. My Bones rejoice in thy Strength, and my Heart delighteth itself in thy Love . Thanks be to thee for ever, for that thou hast delivered me out of Hell, and turned Death into Life in me. O sweet Loiy ! Let me not depart from thee again. Grant me* thy Qarland of Pearl , and abide in me. O be my own proper Possession, that I may rejoice in thee for ever. Upon this , Virgin Sophia saitli to the Sou /,
3M Y noble Bridegroom, my Strength and Power, thou art a thousand Times welcome. Why hast thou forgotten me so long, that I have been constrained in great Grief to stand without the Door and knock? Have I not always called thee and entreated thee ? But thou hast turned away thy Countenance from me, and thine Ears have declined my Entreaties. Thou couldst not see m y Light, for thou didst walk in the Valley of Darkness. I was very near thee, and entreated thee continually, but thy Sinfulness held thee Captive in Death, so that thou knewest me not. I came to thee in great Humility and called thee, but thou wert rich in the Power of the Anger of God, and didst not regard my Humility and Lowliness. Thou hadst taken the Devil to be thy Paramour, who hath defiled thee thus, and built up his Fort of Prey in thee, and turned thee quite away from my Love and Faith into his Hypocritical Kingdom of Falsehood ; wherein thou hast committed much Sin and Wickedness, and torn thy Will off from my Love. Thou hast broken the Bond of Wedlock, and set thy Love and Affection upon a Stranger, and suffered me thy Bride, whom God did give thee, to stand alone in the extinguished Substance , without the Power of thy fiery Strength. I could not be joyful without thy fiery Strength, for thou art my Husband; my shining Brightness is .made manifest joy thee. Thou canst manifest my hidden Wonders in thy fiery Life, and bring them into Majesty ; and yet without me thou art but a dark House, wherein is nothing but . Anguish, Misery, and horrible Torment.
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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