The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)

prevented by my great blindness from understanding their use ; and that I felt innocent before God and men. | My excuse satisfied the ancient woman ; she looked kindly at me, and said : *I see that thy conscience is pure from guilt, and for thy innocence thou shalt receive a great reward. Therefore, I will reveal to thce this matter faithfully, but secretly. My daughter, for the great love she bare thee, has left thee under her garments a grey box wrapped in a thick, black, mouldy cloth." With this she gave me a glass bottle full of lye, and continued : * Purge that box well of the dirt and bad smell with which the garments have infected it, and then thou shalt want no key, but the box will open of its own accord, and in it thou shalt find two things, viz, a white silver casket full of polished diamonds, and a rich robe intertissued with precious solar jasper stones. ^ All these treasures belonged to my dear daughter, and she left them all to thee before she was transtormed and perished. If thou wilt skilfully transpose this treasure, carefully purify it, and silently and patiently place it in some warm, moist, vaporous, and transparent chamber, and guard it there from cold, wind, hail, swift lightning, and all outward injury, till the. season of the wheat harvest, thou shalt perceive and behold the great glory and beauty of thine heritage."

When she had thus spoken, I awoke, and devoutly prayed that God might grant me wisdom to find the box which had been described to me in my dream. Then I instituted a careful search among the garments, and was soon rewarded with success ; but the cloth in which the box was wrapped was so hard and so firmly glued to it that I could not tear it off ; moreover, I could not cleanse it with lye, or cut it with iron, steel, or any other metal So I did not know what in all the world I should do, and began to think that it was a poisoned cloth, and to call to mind the saying of the Prophet: * Though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God."

So another year passed away, and stillall my patient toil and thought had met with no success. Atlast, to drive away melancholy, I took a walk in a certain garden ; and, after some time, I sat down upon a stone and fell into a deep sleep. I slept, but my heart waked. Then the ancient woman appeared to me once more, and said: * Have you entered upon the heritage of my

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daughter?" I sorrowfully replied, *I did indeed find the box, but I cannot remove the cloth, nor will the lye that thou gavest me avail to soften it" ^ Then she laughed at my simplicity, and said: '* Dost thou try to eat oysters or crabs in their shells? Must they not first be prepared by the ancient cook of the planets? I told thee to purify the grey box with the lye I gave thee, but not the cloth which is wrapped round it. The latter thou shouldest first have burned with thefire of the Sages." For this purpose she gave me some glowing coals, wrapped in a silk cloth, from which I was to obtain the subtle fire of the Sages, and told me that if with this fire ! burned away the cloth I should get at the box. When she had ended, straightway there arose a north and south wind, and blew through the garden. "Then I awoke again, shook off sleep, and beheld the glowing coals lying at my feet. I took them up with a grateful heart, and began to work day and night, remembering the saying of the Sages : * Fire and Azoth are sufficient for thee " ; and the passage in Esdras (Bk. iv.) : * And he gave me a goblet filled with fire, and when I had drunk it wisdom grew in me ; and God granted me understanding, and my spirit was preserved, and my mouth opened, but nothing else was added." After forty nights I had finished 204 books, of which seventy were worthy to be read by the most wise, and were written upon box tablets. I thus continued in silence and hope, as that ancient woman had bidden me do, until at last, after a long time, my understanding, in fulfilment of Solomon's prophecy, became silver, and my memory gold.