(Pages 1 to 6 of the manuscript, containing chapters 1 - 3, are lost. The extant text starts on page 7...)

(3) Displayed moreo'er the adamantine pavement How unto his own mother made Alcmaeon Costly appear the luckless ornament; Displayed how his own sons did throw themselves Upon Sennacherib within the temple, And how, he being dead, they left him there; Displayed the ruin and the cruel carnage That Tomyris wrought, when she to Cyrus said, "Blood didst thou thirst for, and with blood I glut thee!" Displayed how routed fled the Assyrians After that Holofernes had been slain, And likewise the remainder of that slaughter. I saw there Troy in ashes and in caverns; O Ilion! thee, how abject and debased, Displayed the image that is there discerned! Whoe'er of pencil master was or stile, That could portray the shades and traits which there Would cause each subtile genius to admire? Dead seemed the dead, the living seemed alive; Better than I saw not who saw the truth, All that I trod upon while bowed I went. Now wax ye proud, and on with looks uplifted, Ye sons of Eve, and bow not down your faces So that ye may behold your evil ways!

(1) It will follow, I think, that I should treat of martyrdom, and of who the perfect man is. With these points shall be included what follows in accordance with the demands of the points to be spoken about, and how both bond and free must equally philosophize, whether male or female in sex. And in the sequel, after finishing what is to be said on faith and inquiry, we shall set forth the department of symbols; so that, on cursorily concluding the discourse on ethics, we shall exhibit the advantage which has accrued to the Greeks from the barbarian philosophy. After which sketch, the brief explanation of the Scriptures both against the Greeks and against the Jews will be presented, and whatever points we were unable to embrace in the previous Miscellanies (through having respect necessarily to the multitude of matters), in accordance with the commencement of the poem, purposing to finish them in one commentary. In addition to these points, afterwards on completing the sketch, as far as we can in accordance with what we propose, we must give an account of the physical doctrines of the Greeks and of the barbarians, respecting elementary principles, as far as their opinions have reached us, and argue against the principal views excogitated by the philosophers.

(4) Now follow me, and mind thou do not place As yet thy feet upon the burning sand, But always keep them close unto the wood." Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes Forth from the wood a little rivulet, Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end. As from the Bulicame springs the brooklet, The sinful women later share among them, So downward through the sand it went its way. The bottom of it, and both sloping banks, Were made of stone, and the margins at the side; Whence I perceived that there the passage was. "In all the rest which I have shown to thee Since we have entered in within the gate Whose threshold unto no one is denied, Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes So notable as is the present river, Which all the little flames above it quenches." These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him That he would give me largess of the food, For which he had given me largess of desire. "In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land," Said he thereafterward, "whose name is Crete, Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

(16) The essay published in French by Alexandre Lenoir in 1809, while curious and original, contains little real information on the Tablet, which the author seeks to prove was an Egyptian calendar or astrological chart. As both Montfaucon and Lenoir--in fact all writers on the subject since 1651--either have based their work upon that of Kircher or have been influenced considerably by him, a careful translation has been made of the latter's original article (eighty pages of seventeenth century Latin). The double-page plate at the beginning of this chapter is a faithful reproduction made by Kircher from the engraving in the Museum of Hieroglyphics. The small letters and numbers used to designate the figures were added by him to clarify his commentary and will be used for the same purpose in this work.

(5) Tell me, in what place is our friend Terentius, Caecilius, Plautus, Varro, if thou knowest; Tell me if they are damned, and in what alley." "These, Persius and myself, and others many," Replied my Leader, "with that Grecian are Whom more than all the rest the Muses suckled, In the first circle of the prison blind; Ofttimes we of the mountain hold discourse Which has our nurses ever with itself. Euripides is with us, Antiphon, Simonides, Agatho, and many other Greeks who of old their brows with laurel decked. There some of thine own people may be seen, Antigone, Deiphile and Argia, And there Ismene mournful as of old. There she is seen who pointed out Langia; There is Tiresias' daughter, and there Thetis, And there Deidamia with her sisters." Silent already were the poets both, Attent once more in looking round about, From the ascent and from the walls released; And four handmaidens of the day already Were left behind, and at the pole the fifth Was pointing upward still its burning horn,

(5) There is a mountain there, that once was glad With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida; Now 'tis deserted, as a thing worn out. Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle Of her own son; and to conceal him better, Whene'er he cried, she there had clamours made. A grand old man stands in the mount erect, Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta, And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror. His head is fashioned of refined gold, And of pure silver are the arms and breast; Then he is brass as far down as the fork. From that point downward all is chosen iron, Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay, And more he stands on that than on the other. Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears, Which gathered together perforate that cavern. From rock to rock they fall into this valley; Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form; Then downward go along this narrow sluice Unto that point where is no more descending. They form Cocytus; what that pool may be Thou shalt behold, so here 'tis not narrated."

(17) Like nearly all religious and philosophical antiquities, the Bembine Table of Isis has been the subject of much controversy. In a footnote, A. E. Waite--unable to differentiate between the true and the purported nature or origin of the Tablet--echoes the sentiments of J.G. Wilkinson, another eminent exotericus: "The original [Table] is exceedingly late and is roughly termed a forgery." On the other hand, Eduard Winkelmann, a man of profound learning, defends the genuineness and antiquity of the Tablet. A sincere consideration of the Mensa Isiaca discloses one fact of paramount importance: that although whoever fashioned the Table was not necessarily an Egyptian, he was an initiate of the highest order, conversant with the most arcane tenets of Hermetic esotericism.

(1) In reference to these commentaries, which contain as the exigencies of the case demand, the Hellenic opinions, I say thus much to those who are fond of finding fault. First, even if philosophy were useless, if the demonstration of its uselessness does good, it is yet useful. Then those cannot condemn the Greeks, who have only a mere hearsay knowledge of their opinions, and have not entered into a minute investigation in each department, in order to acquaintance with them. For the refutation, which is based on experience, is entirely trustworthy. For the knowledge of what is condemned is found the most complete demonstration. Many things, then, though not contributing to the final result, equip the artist. And otherwise erudition commends him, who sets forth the most essential doctrines so as to produce persuasion in his hearers, engendering admiration in those who are taught, and leads them to the truth. And such persuasion is convincing, by which those that love learning admit the truth; so that philosophy does not ruin life by being the originator of false practices and base deeds, although some have calumniated it, though it be the clear image of truth, a divine gift to the Greeks; nor does it drag us away from the faith, as if we were bewitched by some delusive art, but rather, so to speak, by the use of an ampler circuit, obtains a common exercise demonstrative of the faith.

(4) "For the Muse was not then Greedy of gain or mercenary; Nor were Terpsichore's sweet, Honey-toned, silvery soft-voiced Strains made merchandise of." Now those instructed among the Egyptians learned first of all that style of the Egyptian letters which is called Epistolographic; and second, the Hieratic, which the sacred scribes practise; and finally, and last of all, the Hieroglyphic, of which one kind which is by the first elements is literal (Kyriologic), and the other Symbolic. Of the Symbolic, one kind speaks literally by imitation, and another writes as it were figuratively; and another is quite allegorical, using certain enigmas.

The fifteen tractates of the Corpus Hermeticum , along with the Perfect Sermon or Asclepius , are the foundation documents of the Hermetic tradition. Written by unknown authors in Egypt sometime before the end of the third century C.E., they were part of a once substantial literature attributed to the mythic figure of Hermes Trismegistus, a Hellenistic fusion of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. This literature came out of the same religious and philosophical ferment that produced Neoplatonism, Christianity, and the diverse collection of teachings usually lumped together under the label "Gnosticism": a ferment which had its roots in the impact of Platonic thought on the older traditions of the Hellenized East. There are obvious connections and common themes linking each of these traditions, although each had its own answer to the major questions of the time. The treatises we now call the Corpus Hermeticum were collected into a single volume in Byzantine times, and a copy of this volume survived to come into the hands of Lorenzo de Medici's agents in the fifteenth century. Marsilio Ficino, the head of the Florentine Academy, was pulled off the task of translating the dialogues of Plato in order to put the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin first. His translation saw print in 1463, and was reprinted at least twenty-two times over the next century and a half. The treatises divide up into several groups. The first (CH I), the "Poemandres", is the account of a revelation given to Hermes Trismegistus by the being Poemandres or "Man-Shepherd", an expression of the universal Mind. The next eight (CH II-IX), the "General Sermons", are short dialogues or lectures discussing various basic points of Hermetic philosophy. There follows the "Key" (CH X), a summary of the General Sermons, and after this a set of four tractates - "Mind unto Hermes", "About the Common Mind", "The Secret Sermon on the Mountain", and the "Letter of Hermes to Asclepius" (CH XI-XIV) - touching on the more mystical aspects of Hermeticism. The collection is rounded off by the "Definitions of Asclepius unto King Ammon" (CH XV), which may be composed of three fragments of longer works. The Perfect Sermon The Perfect Sermon or Asclepius , which is also included here, reached the Renaissance by a different route. It was translated into Latin in ancient times, reputedly by the same Lucius Apuleius of Madaura whose comic-serious masterpiece The Golden Ass provides some of the best surviving evidence on the worship of Isis in the Roman world. Augustine of Hippo quotes from the old Latin translation at length in his City of God, and copies remained in circulation in medieval Europe all the way up to the Renaissance. The original Greek version was lost, although quotations survive in several ancient sources. The Perfect Sermon is substantially longer than any other surviving work of ancient Hermetic philosophy. It covers topics which also occur in the Corpus Hermeticum, but touches on several other issues as well - among them magical processes for the manufacture of gods and a long and gloomy prophecy of the decline of Hermetic wisdom and the end of the world. The Significance of the Hermetic Writings The Corpus Hermeticum landed like a well-aimed bomb amid the philosophical systems of late medieval Europe. Quotations from the Hermetic literature in the Church Fathers (who were never shy of leaning on pagan sources to prove a point) accepted a traditional chronology which dated "Hermes Trismegistus," as a historical figure, to the time of Moses. As a result, the Hermetic tractates' borrowings from Jewish scripture and Platonic philosophy were seen, in the Renaissance, as evidence that the Corpus Hermeticum had anticipated and influenced both. The Hermetic philosophy was seen as a primordial wisdom tradition, identified with the "Wisdom of the Egyptians" mentioned in Exodus and lauded in Platonic dialogues such as the Timaeus . It thus served as a useful club in the hands of intellectual rebels who sought to break the stranglehold of Aristotelian scholasticism on the universities at this time. It also provided one of the most important weapons to another major rebellion of the age - the attempt to reestablish magic as a socially acceptable spiritual path in the Christian West. Another body of literature attributed to Hermes Trismegistus was made up of astrological, alchemical and magical texts. If, as the scholars of the Renaissance believed, Hermes was a historical person who had written all these things, and if Church Fathers had quoted his philosophical works with approval, and if those same works could be shown to be wholly in keeping with some definitions of Christianity, then the whole structure of magical Hermeticism could be given a second-hand legitimacy in a Christian context. This didn't work, of course; the radical redefinition of Western Christianity that took place in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation hardened doctrinal barriers to the point that people were being burned in the sixteenth century for practices that were considered evidences of devoutness in the fourteenth. The attempt, though, made the language and concepts of the Hermetic tractates central to much of post-medieval magic in the West. The Translation The translation of the Corpus Hermeticum and Perfect Sermon given here is that of G.R.S. Mead (1863-1933), originally published as Vol. 2 of his Thrice Greatest Hermes (London, 1906). Mead was a close associate of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder and moving spirit of the Theosophical Society, and most of his considerable scholarly output was brought out under Theosophical auspices. The result, predictably, was that most of that output has effectively been blacklisted in academic circles ever since. This is unfortunate, for Mead's translations of the Hermetic literature were until quite recently the best available in English. (They are still the best in the public domain; thus their use here.) The Everard translation of 1650, which is still in print, reflects the state of scholarship at the time it was made - which is only a criticism because a few things have been learned since then! The Walter Scott translation - despite the cover blurb on the recent Shambhala reprint, this is not the Sir Walter Scott of Ivanhoe fame - while more recent than Mead's, is a product of the "New Criticism" of the first half of this century, and garbles the text severely; scholars of Hermeticism of the caliber of Dame Frances Yates have labeled the Scott translation worthless. By contrast, a comparison of Mead's version to the excellent modern translation by Brian Copenhaver, or to the translations of CH I (Poemandres) and VII (The Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God) given in Bentley Layton's The Gnostic Scriptures , shows Mead as a capable translator, with a usually solid grasp of the meaning of these sometimes obscure texts. There is admittedly one problem with Mead's translation: the aesthetics of the English text. Mead hoped, as he mentioned at the beginning of Thrice Greatest Hermes , to "render...these beautiful theosophic treatises into an English that might, perhaps, be thought in some small way worthy of the Greek originals." Unfortunately for this ambition, he was writing at a time when the last remnants of the florid and pompous Victorian style were fighting it out with the more straightforward colloquial prose that became the style of the new century. Caught in this tangle like so many writers of the time, Mead wanted to write in the grand style but apparently didn't know how. The result is a sometimes bizarre mishmash in which turn-of-the-century slang stands cheek by jowl with overblown phrases in King James Bible diction, and in which mishandled archaicisms, inverted word order, and poetic contractions render the text less than graceful - and occasionally less than readable. Seen from a late twentieth century sensibility, the result verges on unintentional self-parody in places: for example, where Mead uses the Scots contraction "ta'en" (for "taken"), apparently for sheer poetic color, calling up an image of Hermes Trismegistus in kilt and sporran. The "poetic" word order is probably the most serious barrier to readability; it's a good rule, whenever the translation seems to descend into gibberish, to try shuffling the words of the sentence in question. It may also be worth noting that Mead consistently uses "for that" in place of "because" and "aught" in place of "any", and leaves out the word "the" more or less at random. Finally, comments in (parentheses) and in [square brackets] are in Mead's original; those in <angle brackets> are my own additions.

(42) Evidence points to the existence of a group of wise and illustrious Fratres who assumed the responsibility of publishing and preserving for future generations the choicest of the secret books of the ancients, together with certain other documents which they themselves had prepared. That future members of their fraternity might not only identify these volumes bur also immediately note the significant passages, words, chapters, or sections therein, they created a symbolic alphabet of hieroglyphic designs. By means of a certain key and order, the discerning few were thus enabled to find that wisdom by which a man is "raised" to an illumined life.

(4) There the high glory of the Roman Prince Was chronicled, whose great beneficence Moved Gregory to his great victory; 'Tis of the Emperor Trajan I am speaking; And a poor widow at his bridle stood, In attitude of weeping and of grief. Around about him seemed it thronged and full Of cavaliers, and the eagles in the gold Above them visibly in the wind were moving. The wretched woman in the midst of these Seemed to be saying: "Give me vengeance, Lord, For my dead son, for whom my heart is breaking." And he to answer her: "Now wait until I shall return." And she: "My Lord," like one In whom grief is impatient, "shouldst thou not Return?" And he: "Who shall be where I am Will give it thee." And she: "Good deed of others What boots it thee, if thou neglect thine own?" Whence he: "Now comfort thee, for it behoves me That I discharge my duty ere I move; Justice so wills, and pity doth retain me." He who on no new thing has ever looked Was the creator of this visible language, Novel to us, for here it is not found.

(1) Before handling the point proposed, we must, by way of preface, add to the close of the fifth book what is wanting. For since we have shown that the symbolical style was ancient, and was employed not only by our prophets, but also by the majority of the ancient Greeks, and by not a few of the rest of the Gentile Barbarians, it was requisite to proceed to the mysteries of the initiated. I postpone the elucidation of these till we advance to the confutation of what is said by the Greeks on first principles; for we shall show that the mysteries belong to the same branch of speculation. And having proved that the declaration of Hellenic thought is illuminated all round by the truth, bestowed on us in the Scriptures, taking it according to the sense, we have proved, not to say what is invidious, that the theft of the truth passed to them.

(5) Reader! to trace their forms no more I waste My rhymes; for other spendings press me so, That I in this cannot be prodigal. But read Ezekiel, who depicteth them As he beheld them from the region cold Coming with cloud, with whirlwind, and with fire; And such as thou shalt find them in his pages, Such were they here; saving that in their plumage John is with me, and differeth from him. The interval between these four contained A chariot triumphal on two wheels, Which by a Griffin's neck came drawn along; And upward he extended both his wings Between the middle list and three and three, So that he injured none by cleaving it. So high they rose that they were lost to sight; His limbs were gold, so far as he was bird, And white the others with vermilion mingled. Not only Rome with no such splendid car E'er gladdened Africanus, or Augustus, But poor to it that of the Sun would be,— That of the Sun, which swerving was burnt up At the importunate orison of Earth, When Jove was so mysteriously just.

(8) In his Stromata, Clement of Alexandria, one of the few chroniclers of pagan lore whose writings have been preserved to this age, gives practically all the information that is known concerning the original forty-two books of Hermes and the importance with which these books were regarded by both the temporal and spiritual powers of Egypt. Clement describes one of their ceremonial processions as follows:

(1) On the plagiarizing of the dogmas of the philosophers from the Hebrews, we shall treat a little afterwards. But first, as due order demands, we must now speak of the epoch of Moses, by which the philosophy of the Hebrews will be demonstrated beyond all contradiction to be the most ancient of all wisdom. This has been discussed with accuracy by Tatian in his book To the Greeks, and by Cassian in the first book of his Exegetics. Nevertheless our commentary demands that we too should run over what has been said on the point. Apion, then, the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth book of The Egyptian Histories, although of so hostile a disposition towards the Hebrews, being by race an Egyptian, as to compose a work against the Jews, when referring to Amosis king of the Egyptians, and his exploits, adduces, as a witness, Ptolemy of Mendes.

(1) Now was I where was heard the reverberation Of water falling into the next round, Like to that humming which the beehives make, When shadows three together started forth, Running, from out a company that passed Beneath the rain of the sharp martyrdom. Towards us came they, and each one cried out: "Stop, thou; for by thy garb to us thou seemest To be some one of our depraved city." Ah me! what wounds I saw upon their limbs, Recent and ancient by the flames burnt in! It pains me still but to remember it. Unto their cries my Teacher paused attentive; He turned his face towards me, and "Now wait," He said; "to these we should be courteous. And if it were not for the fire that darts The nature of this region, I should say That haste were more becoming thee than them." As soon as we stood still, they recommenced The old refrain, and when they overtook us, Formed of themselves a wheel, all three of them. As champions stripped and oiled are wont to do, Watching for their advantage and their hold, Before they come to blows and thrusts between them,

(34) [pages 109 and 110 are missing in NHC III, replaced here by the corresponding section in the Berlin Gnostic Codex, the beginning of which is somewhat different from the final partial sentence of NHC III 108 (the broken off sentence)]

(5) What helpeth it to butt against the fates? Your Cerberus, if you remember well, For that still bears his chin and gullet peeled." Then he returned along the miry road, And spake no word to us, but had the look Of one whom other care constrains and goads Than that of him who in his presence is; And we our feet directed tow'rds the city, After those holy words all confident. Within we entered without any contest; And I, who inclination had to see What the condition such a fortress holds, Soon as I was within, cast round mine eye, And see on every hand an ample plain, Full of distress and torment terrible. Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone, Even as at Pola near to the Quarnaro, That shuts in Italy and bathes its borders, The sepulchres make all the place uneven; So likewise did they there on every side, Saving that there the manner was more bitter; For flames between the sepulchres were scattered, By which they so intensely heated were, That iron more so asks not any art.