(2) For there where earth and heaven obedient were, The woman only, and but just created, Could not endure to stay 'neath any veil; Underneath which had she devoutly stayed, I sooner should have tasted those delights Ineffable, and for a longer time. While 'mid such manifold first-fruits I walked Of the eternal pleasure all enrapt, And still solicitous of more delights, In front of us like an enkindled fire Became the air beneath the verdant boughs, And the sweet sound as singing now was heard. O Virgins sacrosanct! if ever hunger, Vigils, or cold for you I have endured, The occasion spurs me their reward to claim! Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me, And with her choir Urania must assist me, To put in verse things difficult to think. A little farther on, seven trees of gold In semblance the long space still intervening Between ourselves and them did counterfeit; But when I had approached so near to them The common object, which the sense deceives, Lost not by distance any of its marks,

(1) Hail, Sekhet, Bast, daughter of Rā, lady of the gods, who holdeth her fan of plumes, the lady of the scarlet garment, the mistress of the white and red crown, the only one who stands above her father, when there are no gods to stand above her; the great magician in the boat of millions of years, lofty when she rises in the abode of silence, the mother of the Shakas, the royal wife of the lion Haka

(5) Fly with thine eyes all round about this garden; For seeing it will discipline thy sight Farther to mount along the ray divine. And she, the Queen of Heaven, for whom I burn Wholly with love, will grant us every grace, Because that I her faithful Bernard am." As he who peradventure from Croatia Cometh to gaze at our Veronica, Who through its ancient fame is never sated, But says in thought, the while it is displayed, "My Lord, Christ Jesus, God of very God, Now was your semblance made like unto this?" Even such was I while gazing at the living Charity of the man, who in this world By contemplation tasted of that peace. "Thou son of grace, this jocund life," began he, "Will not be known to thee by keeping ever Thine eyes below here on the lowest place; But mark the circles to the most remote, Until thou shalt behold enthroned the Queen To whom this realm is subject and devoted." I lifted up mine eyes, and as at morn The oriental part of the horizon Surpasses that wherein the sun goes down,

(14) Thy ka is with thee, that thou mayest rejoice; and the heart of thy birth; thou wakest thy ... are happy; the cycle of the gods give pleasure to thy heart. Thou goest out (and thou seest) four loaves for thee from Sechem, and four loaves from Hermopolis; thou goest out and there are four (loaves) from Heliopolis on the table of the lord of the two earths

(1) It was the hour when the diurnal heat No more can warm the coldness of the moon, Vanquished by earth, or peradventure Saturn, When geomancers their Fortuna Major See in the orient before the dawn Rise by a path that long remains not dim, There came to me in dreams a stammering woman, Squint in her eyes, and in her feet distorted, With hands dissevered and of sallow hue. I looked at her; and as the sun restores The frigid members which the night benumbs, Even thus my gaze did render voluble Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter In little while, and the lost countenance As love desires it so in her did colour. When in this wise she had her speech unloosed, She 'gan to sing so, that with difficulty Could I have turned my thoughts away from her. "I am," she sang, "I am the Siren sweet Who mariners amid the main unman, So full am I of pleasantness to hear. I drew Ulysses from his wandering way Unto my song, and he who dwells with me Seldom departs so wholly I content him."

(2) A king, whose empire stretched to the far horizons, had a daughter as beautiful as the moon. Before her loveliness even the fairies were abashed. Her dimpled chin resembled the well of Joseph, and the locks of her hair wounded a hundred hearts. Her eyebrows were twin bows, and when she loosed their arrows the space between sang her praise. Her eyes, languorous as the narcissus, threw thorns of her eyelashes in the path of the wise. Her face was as the sun when he took the moon's virginity. The Angel Gabriel could not tear his eyes from the pearls and rubies of her mouth. A smile of her

lips dried up the water of life in the beholder, who yet begged alms from these same lips. Whoever glanced at her chin fell headlong into a spring of bubbling water.

The king also had a slave, a youth, so handsome that the sun grew pale and the light of the moon diminished. When he walked in the streets and market-place crowds stopped to gaze at him.

By chance one day the princess saw this slave, and in a moment her heart slipped from her hand. Reason forsook her and love took possession. Her soul, sweet as Shirin, turned bitter. Withdrawing from her companions she mused, and musing and reflecting, began to burn. Then she called her ten young maids of honour. They were excellent musicians and played on the shawms and pipes; their voices wxre those of nightingales, and their singing, which tore the soul, was worthy of David. Gathering them around her she told them about her state, saying that she was ready to sacrifice her name, her honour, and her life for the love of this youth; for when one is deep in love one is good for nothing else. 'But,' she said, 'if I tell him of my love no doubt he will do something rash. If it becomes known that I have been intimate with a slave both he and I will suffer. On the other hand, if he does not possess me, I shall die lamenting behind the curtain of the harem. I have read a hundred books on patience and still I am without it. What can I do! I must find a way to enjoy the love of this slender cypress, so that the desire of my body shall accord with the longing of my soul - and this must be done without his knowing.'

Then the sweet-voiced maids said: 'Do not grieve. Tonight we will bring him here unknown to anyone, and even he will know nothing about it.'

Soon, one of the young girls went in secret to the slave and asked him, as if to play with him, to bring two cups of wine. Into one cup she threw a drug, contriving that he should drink it. He at once fell asleep, so that she was able

to carry out her plan, and the youth of the silver breast remained without news of the two worlds.

When night came the maids of honour went softly to where he lay and put him on a litter and carried him to the princess. Then they sat him on a golden throne and placed a coronet of pearls on his head. At midnight, still a little drugged, he opened his eyes and saw a palace as fair as paradise, and around him were golden seats. The place was lighted by ten great candles perfumed with amber, and sweet aloe wood burned in pans. The maidens began to sing, but in such sweet strains that reason bade farewell to the spirit, and the soul to the body. Then the sun of wine went round to the light of the candles. Bewildered with the joy of his surroundings and dazzled by the beauty of the princess, the youth lost his wits. He was no longer really in this world nor was he in the other. With a heart full of love, and a body possessed with desire, amid these delights he fell into a state of ecstasy. His eyes were fastened on her beauty and his ears to the sound of the reed pipes. His nostrils took in the perfume of amber and the wine in his mouth became like liquid fire. The princess kissed him, and he shed tears of joy while she mingled hers with his. Sometimes she pressed sweet kisses on his mouth, sometimes they were tinged with salt; sometimes she ruffled his long hair, sometimes she lost herself in his eyes. He possessed her; and so they passed the time until the dawn appeared in the East. When morning Zephyr breathed the young slave became sad; but they sent him to sleep again and took him back to his quarters.

When he of the silver breast came to himself, without knowing why, he began to weep. One might say the thing was finished, so what was the good of crying out. He tore his clothes, pulled his hair and put earth on his head. Those about him asked why he was doing this, and what had happened. He said: Ht is impossible to describe what I have

I

seen, no one else can ever see it except in a dream, for what has happened to me can never have happened to anyone before. Never was there a more astonishing mystery.'

Another said: 'Wake up, and tell us at least one of the hundred things that happened.' He replied: 'lam in a tumult because what I have seen has happened to me in another body. While hearing nothing I have heard everything, while seeing nothing I have seen everything.'

Another said: 'Have you lost your wits or have you just been dreaming?' 'Ah,' he said, 'I don't know if I was drunk or sober. What can be more puzzling than something which is neither revealed nor hidden. What I have seen I can never forget, yet I have no idea where it happened. For one whole night I revelled with a beauty who is without equal. Who and what she is I do not know. Only love remains, and that is all. But God knows the truth.'

(1) [Asclepius] What part of the economy, Thrice-greatest one, does the Heimarmenē, or Fate, then occupy? For do not the celestial Gods rule over generals ; the terrene occupy particulars?

[Trismegistus] That which we call Heimarmenē, Asclepius, is the necessity of all things that are born, bound ever to themselves with interlinked enchainments. This, then, is either the effector of all things, or it is highest God, or what is made the second God by God Himself,—or else the discipline of all things both in heaven and on earth, established by the laws of the Divine.

(5) Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth On earth, and to itself most draws the soul, Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders, Compared unto the sounding of that lyre Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful, Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue. "I am Angelic Love, that circle round The joy sublime which breathes from out the womb That was the hostelry of our Desire; And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while Thou followest thy Son, and mak'st diviner The sphere supreme, because thou enterest there." Thus did the circulated melody Seal itself up; and all the other lights Were making to resound the name of Mary. The regal mantle of the volumes all Of that world, which most fervid is and living With breath of God and with his works and ways, Extended over us its inner border, So very distant, that the semblance of it There where I was not yet appeared to me. Therefore mine eyes did not possess the power Of following the incoronated flame, Which mounted upward near to its own seed.

(3) Such in this place was the fourth family Of the high Father, who forever sates it, Showing how he breathes forth and how begets. And Beatrice began: "Give thanks, give thanks Unto the Sun of Angels, who to this Sensible one has raised thee by his grace!" Never was heart of mortal so disposed To worship, nor to give itself to God With all its gratitude was it so ready, As at those words did I myself become; And all my love was so absorbed in Him, That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed. Nor this displeased her; but she smiled at it So that the splendour of her laughing eyes My single mind on many things divided. Lights many saw I, vivid and triumphant, Make us a centre and themselves a circle, More sweet in voice than luminous in aspect. Thus girt about the daughter of Latona We sometimes see, when pregnant is the air, So that it holds the thread which makes her zone. Within the court of Heaven, whence I return, Are many jewels found, so fair and precious They cannot be transported from the realm;

(9) The living charm is behind him, behind this god, whose ka is glorious, the king of the Tuat, the prince of the Amenta, who takes hold of the sky, triumphantly, on whom the atef crown is established, who shines with the white diadem, who has seized the hook and the flail; mighty is his soul, the great one of the urer crown; who has united all the gods, the love of him penetrates their bodies, Unneferu who lasts for ever and eternally

(2) With respect, however, to the mother of the Gods, you, indeed, seem to think that those who are possessed by the Goddess are males; for, conformably to this, you denominate them Metrizantes. But the thing is not truly so. For those who are precedaneously inspired by the mother of the Gods are women; but the males that are thus inspired are very few in number, and such as are more effeminate. This enthusiasm, however, has a vivific and replenishing power, on which account, also, it in a remarkable degree differs from all other mania.

(16) Thou seizest the sma at Abydos and thou conductest victuals to the great gods and vases of drink to those who are above the clouds in the festival of Osiris, on the morning of the Uak festival; the hersheta priest decks thee with gold; thy garment is well arranged with byssus; the Nile rises over thy body; thou art glorious ... thou drinkest on the shore of the lake; thou art welcome to the gods who are in it; thou comest forth in the sky with the gods who bring Maat to Rā, thou art brought before the cycle of the gods, thou art like one of them. Thou art the gander among the geese which are offered to Ptah Anebefres

(21) Apuleius describes her as follows: "In the first place, then, her most copious and long hairs, being gradually intorted, and promiscuously scattered on her divine neck, were softly defluous. A multiform crown, consisting of various flowers, bound the sublime summit of her head. And in the middle of the crown, just on her forehead, there was a smooth orb resembling a mirror, or rather a white refulgent light, which indicated that she was the moon. Vipers rising up after the manner of furrows, environed the crown on the right hand and on the left, and Cerealian ears of corn were also extended from above. Her garment was of many colours, and woven from the finest flax, and was at one time lucid with a white splendour, at another yellow from the flower of crocus, and at another flaming with a rosy redness. But that which most excessively dazzled my sight, was a very black robe, fulgid with a dark splendour, and which, spreading round and passing under her right side, and ascending to her left shoulder, there rose protuberant like the center of a shield, the dependent part of the robe falling in many folds, and having small knots of fringe, gracefully flowing in its extremities. Glittering stars were dispersed through the embroidered border of the robe, and through the whole of its surface: and the full moon, shining in the middle of the stars, breathed forth flaming fires. Nevertheless, a crown, wholly consisting of flowers and fruits of every kind, adhered with indivisible connexion to the border of that conspicuous robe, in all its undulating motions. What she carried in her hands also consisted of things of a very different nature. For her right hand, indeed, bore a brazen rattle [sistrum] through the narrow lamina of which bent like a belt, certain rods passing, produced a sharp triple sound, through the vibrating motion of her arm. An oblong vessel, in the shape of a boat, depended from her left hand, on the handle of which, in that part in which it was conspicuous, an asp raised its erect head and largely swelling neck. And shoes woven from the leaves of the victorious palm tree covered her immortal feet."

(6) "Oh, Thou, beauty of the day! Thou, Huracán; Thou, Heart of Heaven and of Earth! Thou, giver of richness, and giver of the daughters and the sons! Turn toward us your power and your riches; grant life and growth unto my sons and vassals; let those who must maintain and nourish Thee multiply and increase; those who invoke Thee on the roads, in the fields, on the banks of the rivers, in the ravines, under the trees, under the vines.

(5) Unto the canticle divine responded From every part the court beatified, So that each sight became serener for it. "O holy father, who for me endurest To be below here, leaving the sweet place In which thou sittest by eternal lot, Who is the Angel that with so much joy Into the eyes is looking of our Queen, Enamoured so that he seems made of fire?" Thus I again recourse had to the teaching Of that one who delighted him in Mary As doth the star of morning in the sun. And he to me: "Such gallantry and grace As there can be in Angel and in soul, All is in him; and thus we fain would have it; Because he is the one who bore the palm Down unto Mary, when the Son of God To take our burden on himself decreed. But now come onward with thine eyes, as I Speaking shall go, and note the great patricians Of this most just and merciful of empires. Those two that sit above there most enrapture As being very near unto Augusta, Are as it were the two roots of this Rose.

(18) O nobly-born on the Fourteenth Day, the Four Female Door-Keepers, also issuing from within thine own brain, will come to shine upon thee. Again recognize. From the east [quarter] of thy brain will come to shine the White Tiger-Headed Goad-Holding Goddess, bearing a blood-filled skull-bowl in her left [hand]; from the south, the Yellow Sow-Headed Noose-Holding Goddess; from the west, the Red Lion-Headed Iron-Chain-Holding Goddess; and from the north, the Green Serpent-Headed Bell- Holding Goddess. Thus, issue the Four Female Door-Keepers also from within thine own brain and come to shine upon thee; as tutelary deities, recognize them.

(15) Thy proud Horse [or Beast,] thou shameful Whore, shall ride no longer alone over the bended Knees; in that Time it will no more be said, The Power [Might or Authority] sticks in my Chest of Money; that Mineral [or Metal] becomes a Blossom in the Light; and the Tincture stands in the Blossom of the Lily; Stones are of as much worth [as that Metal is;] the Clothing of the Virgin is brighter than thy Pride. How finely does the Ornament of this World stand on Modesty and the Fear of God, if the Heart be humble? How does thy silken and golden Clothes adorn thee? Dost thou not appear in God's Deeds of Wonder? Who will call thee a false Woman, if thou be so very chaste? Dost thou not stand to the Honour of the Great God? Art thou not his Work of Wonder? Is there not a friendly laughter before thee? Who can say that thou art a wrathful Woman? Thy modest Countenance shines over Mountains and Valleys. Art thou not at the End of the World, and [will not] thy Glance [or Luster] be espied in Paradise? Wherefore stands thy Mother in Babel, and so very malicious? O! thou shameful Whore; get thee out, for Babel is % on Fire, or else thou wilt be burnt thyself.

(3) Thou makest me remember where and what Proserpina that moment was when lost Her mother her, and she herself the Spring." As turns herself, with feet together pressed And to the ground, a lady who is dancing, And hardly puts one foot before the other, On the vermilion and the yellow flowerets She turned towards me, not in other wise Than maiden who her modest eyes casts down; And my entreaties made to be content, So near approaching, that the dulcet sound Came unto me together with its meaning As soon as she was where the grasses are. Bathed by the waters of the beauteous river, To lift her eyes she granted me the boon. I do not think there shone so great a light Under the lids of Venus, when transfixed By her own son, beyond his usual custom! Erect upon the other bank she smiled, Bearing full many colours in her hands, Which that high land produces without seed. Apart three paces did the river make us; But Hellespont, where Xerxes passed across, (A curb still to all human arrogance,)

(6) He who upon the left is near her placed The father is, by whose audacious taste The human species so much bitter tastes. Upon the right thou seest that ancient father Of Holy Church, into whose keeping Christ The keys committed of this lovely flower. And he who all the evil days beheld, Before his death, of her the beauteous bride Who with the spear and with the nails was won, Beside him sits, and by the other rests That leader under whom on manna lived The people ingrate, fickle, and stiff-necked. Opposite Peter seest thou Anna seated, So well content to look upon her daughter, Her eyes she moves not while she sings Hosanna. And opposite the eldest household father Lucia sits, she who thy Lady moved When to rush downward thou didst bend thy brows.

(22) Rise in Hotep , I arrive in thee, my soul is with me, and my provision is before the Mistress of the Two Earths, who maketh fast my Words of Power, which recall to mind that which I have forgotten. Let me live free from strife; and be there granted to me enlargement of heart