TERMS STARTING WITH
Paracelsus adopted Ares as signifying the power back of the differentiating forces in the kosmos, or those differentiated forces themselves, which Blavatsky equates with fohat.
Paracelsus cites Iofiel as the intelligence of the
Paracelsus’ doctrine of Talismans, Agiel is the
Paracelsus. Four Treatises. Tr. from the German by
Paracelsus in his doctrine of Talismans. [Rf.
Paracelsus, Theophrastus Bombast: (1493-1541) Of Hohenheim, was a physician who endeavored to use philosophy as one of the "pillars" of medical science. His philosophy is a weird combination of Neo-Platonism, experimentalism, and superstitious magic. He rejected much of the traditional theory of Galen and the Arab physicians. His works (Labyrinthus, Opus paramirum, Die grosse Wundarznei, De natura rerum) were written in Swiss-German, translated into Latin by his followers, recent investigators make no attempt to distinguish his personal thought from that of his school. Thorndyke, L., Hist. of Magic and Experimental Science (N. Y., 1941), V, 615-651. -- V.J.B.
TERMS ANYWHERE
according to Paracelsus in his doctrine of Talis-
according to Paracelsus in his doctrine of Talis¬
Alkahest First used by Paracelsus to denote the Menstruum or universal solvent which, according to Paracelsus and Van Helmont, can reduce all bodies, simple or compound, to the primum ens. In one sense it is akasa, which in its lower form is the anima mundi or astral light. Van Helmont believed that such a general solvent is obtainable by chemical means, so far as it applies to physical things. But psychologically it signifies that the multiform and changing elements which rule our actions can be brought under control of the enlightened will by reducing them to the essence from which they all spring. The alkahest from its metaphysical, psychological, and mystical aspect is therefore the higher self which by its intrinsic energies, working upon matter or “lead,” produces in time the “pure gold,” or in other words brings the entire human constitution into perfect harmony and spiritual sympathy with the alkahest, monadic essence, or higher self.
Anael. In Paracelsus’ doctrine of Talismans,
Archaeus, Archeus [from Greek archaios original, ancient] Used by Paracelsus and others after him to denote the unitary cosmic or human spiritual-vital force or essence. It is one aspect of the anima mundi and therefore the source of all astral-physical phenomena, whether as energy or substance; also called Father-Ether.
Archeus: See Paracelsus. -- R.B.W.
Assasiel. In Paracelsus, Talismans, the angel of
Azoth [from Arabic azzaug the metal mercury] Used by Paracelsus for his universal remedy; mercury was regarded as a sort of common or root-metal contained in all other metals. Such words as mercury, in alchemical language, were generic rather than specific, and gross elements were considered as derivative from subtle ones. Thus a unitary and radical element, the parent of the other elements, is intended; the synthesis of the four elements, one aspect of the astral light.
azoth ::: n. --> The first principle of metals, i. e., mercury, which was formerly supposed to exist in all metals, and to be extractable from them.
The universal remedy of Paracelsus.
Bartyabel—according to Paracelsus in his
“Blood begets phantoms. . . . Paracelsus writes that with the fumes of blood one is enabled to call forth any spirit we desire to see; for with its emanations it will build itself an appearance, a visible body — only this is sorcery” (IU 2:567).
Paracelsus adopted Ares as signifying the power back of the differentiating forces in the kosmos, or those differentiated forces themselves, which Blavatsky equates with fohat.
Paracelsus cites Iofiel as the intelligence of the
Paracelsus’ doctrine of Talismans, Agiel is the
Paracelsus. Four Treatises. Tr. from the German by
Paracelsus in his doctrine of Talismans. [Rf.
Paracelsus, Theophrastus Bombast: (1493-1541) Of Hohenheim, was a physician who endeavored to use philosophy as one of the "pillars" of medical science. His philosophy is a weird combination of Neo-Platonism, experimentalism, and superstitious magic. He rejected much of the traditional theory of Galen and the Arab physicians. His works (Labyrinthus, Opus paramirum, Die grosse Wundarznei, De natura rerum) were written in Swiss-German, translated into Latin by his followers, recent investigators make no attempt to distinguish his personal thought from that of his school. Thorndyke, L., Hist. of Magic and Experimental Science (N. Y., 1941), V, 615-651. -- V.J.B.
Chasmodai—according to Paracelsus in his
En (Greek) [from en, eis one; cf Latin unum] With Pythagoras and Empedocles, it corresponds to the yliaster (primordial matter or matrix) of Paracelsus, and to akasa, anima mundi, or alaya. (BCW 7:283)
Fire-philosophers Philosophers of medieval Europe who regarded fire as the supreme principle. Their ideas were largely those of Oriental occult or semi-occult bodies; hence they may be described as either the Persian Magi, or the European followers of Robert Fludd (1574-1637), a student of Paracelsus who taught the analogy of macrocosm and microcosm and the four elements.
Flagae Used by Paracelsus to denote an order of spiritual beings which correspond to the Christian guardian angels, or what would be called in theosophy the higher pitris or the sixfold dhyani-chohans — that class of the dhyani-chohans in whom six of the seven constitutional principles of nature are more or less actively manifest.
Gnome [from Greek gnome thought, intelligence; or gnomon one who knows, an instructor, interpreter, guardian] Coined by Paracelsus for the elemental beings pertaining to the element earth, hence popularly believed in Medieval Europe to inhabit mines and caves, pictured as very small men, ugly and often misshapen. The females, called gnomides, were supposed to be of extreme beauty and goodness, being the especial guardians of diamonds. Elemental beings generally “are the Soul of the elements, the capricious forces in Nature, acting under one immutable Law, inherent in these Centres of Force, with undeveloped consciousness and bodies of plastic mould, which can be shaped according to the conscious or unconscious will of the human being who puts himself en rapport with them” (BCW 6:189). They belong to the three elemental kingdoms below the mineral kingdom.
Guardian Angel Christian term for the various classes of dhyanis which guard the worlds, races, nations, and mankind pertaining to them. The five middle human principles are the essence of the sixfold dhyani-chohans and of the pitris. Equivalents are daimones, genii, theoi, devas, gods, Paracelsus’ flagae, etc. The personal quality that pervades so much of Christianity represents them as special to each individual, which is true enough in a sense; and they may be anything from a ray of divine light from the core of our being, to the kind of karmic heirloom designated as one’s lucky star. As a matter of fact, there is for each human individual an ever watching, forever guiding and stimulating spiritual power within himself, his own spiritual ego which, when allowed by the brain-mind, infills the individual with its strength, wisdom, and peace.
Homunculi (Latin) Mannikins; in medieval alchemical thought, artificially created little men, little not necessarily in stature but in being incomplete. Paracelsus claims to have made them, and detailed sometimes gruesome accounts of their manufacture, and the result can be found in old books on magic. The principles of earth and water are required to give a body and vitality, the will of the magician is the directive force, and some kind of nature spirit must be imbodied therein, as the ’Ishonim mentioned in the Zohar. But this makes only an animal with human (or other) shape; and to make a complete human being it would be necessary to imitate the act of the manasaputras. Blavatsky anticipates that science may and undoubtedly one day will be able to make homunculi, as the medieval alchemists dreamed of doing.
Ideos Used by Paracelsus to denote primordial undifferentiated matter in Chaos.
Iliados Used by Paracelsus as synonymous with Ideos, primordial matter in the subjective state.
In the Talismans of Paracelsus, the angel of Satur¬
Limbus Major (Latin) [from limbus border + major great] Used by Paracelsus for the fundamental matter from which all creatures have sprung — Adam’s Earth. He also applied it to the manifestation of that primordial substance in each one of the creatures.
Liquor Vitae (Latin) Life-fluid; used by Paracelsus to describe the life principle in the nerves, apparently the same as prana or Dr. B. W. Richardson’s nervous ether. Prana is but a generalizing term for the five or seven distinct pranas which collectively form the life principle or vital essences in the human constitution.
Magnes (Latin, Greek) Loadstone; used by Paracelsus, medieval theosophists, and alchemists for a mysterious and potent fluid, the spirit of light, whose description answers to the akasa, aether, or the most spiritual parts of the astral light. It thus corresponds to the anima mundi.
Medicine was originally a divine science, providing for the well-being of the spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and physical man. Archaic medicine included a profound knowledge of genuine astrology, of true alchemy, of occult physiology, of the finer forces vibrating as sound, color, form, thought, and feeling, and whatever related man to his home universe of natural law and order. This was the basis of the natural “magic” which tradition has linked with the medical art. This knowledge was dual in its power to work for life or death, for good or evil ends. Its full comprehension required not only a trained intellect, but the intuitive understanding of a pure spiritual nature. Nevertheless, the Atlanteans acquired enough knowledge of the use of dangerous powers that they became — albeit with numerous and noteworthy exceptions — a nation of sorcerers. Then, the white magicians established the Mystery schools in which to safeguard the sacred teachings from evildoers and to protect humanity from their influence. Thus, the deeper truths of the healing art have ever since been entrusted only to pledged disciples and initiates. Such fragments of it as have been rediscovered by intuitive physicians from time to time have usually been in keeping with the general cultural level of their civilization. The exceptions have been men who have frequently been too far ahead of their times to be understood. Such a man was Paracelsus in medieval Europe, persecuted for heretical teachings such as the psychoelectric and magnetic play of sidereal forces which linked man with the stars — the spiritus vitae in man came from the spiritus mundi.
microcosm ::: n. --> A little world; a miniature universe. Hence (so called by Paracelsus), a man, as a supposed epitome of the exterior universe or great world. Opposed to macrocosm.
Mysteria Specialia [from mysteria mystery + specialia particular, specific] Particular mystery; used by European Medieval alchemico-mystical philosophers, such as Paracelsus. Mysterium is used by Paracelsus to denote the germinal state of a being, which is afterwards produced in the differentiated state; thus the seed is the mysterium of the future plant. Specialia implies that each organism pre-exists in its own special mysterium. Thus is indicated an intermediate state of differentiation, between the condition of undifferentiated chaos and that of separate and developed organisms.
Mysterium Magnum (Latin) The great mystery; used by Paracelsus and other alchemists to denote primordial undifferentiated matter, from which all the elements sprang, sometimes compared with Brahma, at others with aether the garment of akasa.
of powers, as is the planet Jupiter. In Paracelsus’
One of the earliest physicians in Europe to bring herbs into medical practice was Paracelsus, who taught that every plant on earth belonged to, or had its origin in, a star. Following him there were many who allocated the herbs and plants as pertaining to the seven sacred planets of the ancients. The Hermetists of old also had the plants so listed.
paracelsian ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or in conformity with, the practice of Paracelsus, a Swiss physician of the 15th century. ::: n. --> A follower of Paracelsus or his practice or teachings.
Salt Used in alchemy for a fundamental principle of nature, a member of the triad mercury, sulphur, and salt, corresponding to spirit, soul, and body; or to fire (or air), water, and earth. Paracelsus regarded these as the mystical elements of all compound bodies. All forms of matter were reducible to one or other of them — everything was either a sulphur, a mercury, a salt, or a compound. The philosopher’s stone was said to be a compound of all three. Thus salt is the physical rudiment, as illustrated by the cubical crystals of common salt. Ancient thought regarded such elements as fundamental principles which manifest on various planes, nor did it make hard and fast distinctions between physical and nonphysical; but modern thought has given a fictitious reality to physical objects, and regards the ancient use of the terms as metaphorical. The veneration shown for salt was not a mere deification of its physical virtues, but a recognition of the salt-principle in nature, of which ordinary salt is merely a physical emblem. The well-known stimulant, flavoring, and preservative qualities of salt prove it to be a physical manifestation of an important principle; such phrases as bread and salt, and salt of the earth are therefore theosophy, as concerns not merely figures of speech but a use of salt in its more radical sense. For the same reason it played an important part, along with other substances, in sacrificial ceremonies. The word was also used to include other bodies besides sodium chloride or common salt, and is still used in chemistry in this generic sense. With some alchemists we find arsenic taking the place of salt in the fundamental triad, and this would be one of the salts of arsenic.
Sidereal Force Used by Paracelsus to denote an emanation from the stars or stellar regions, which helps to build and feed one of the inner human principles. He recognized the existence of higher forms of matter, subtler imbodiments of the monad, and the intimate relations between the universe and man its offspring. There are a number of such sidereal forces, each one of which has its respective influence upon the different principles of the human constitution.
Silver In Greek and Roman mythology, a racial or age division in the Hesiodic cycle of gold, silver, bronze, and iron, corresponding in the Hindu yugas to the treta yuga. This metal was regarded as standing next to gold in importance. The quicksilver of Paracelsus was not the mercury of familiar knowledge alone, but also the living spirit of silver. Silver in astrological symbolism corresponds to the moon.
Smaragdine Tablet The emerald tablet, alleged mystically to be of the Egyptian Hermes or Thoth, on which was inscribed, according to the Hermeticists, “the whole of magic in a single page.” In a letter to the Sophists, Paracelsus says: “The ancient Emerald Table shows more art and experience in Philosophy, Alchemy, Magic, and the like than ever could be taught by you or your crowd of followers.” Masons and Christian Qabbalists alleged it to have been found on the dead body of Hermes by Sarai, Abraham’s wife; this allegory may mean that Sarasvati (wife of Brahma and a legendary prototype of Sarai) found much of the ancient wisdom latent in the dead body of humanity and revivified it. It is also said that the Emerald Tablet was found at Hebron, the city of the kabeiroi or cabiri (the gibborim, the Four Mighty Ones), by an Essenian initiate (TG 302, SD 2:556). It exists only in a late Latin form referred to in the 7th century.
Suroth —in Paracelsus’ doctrine of Talismans,
Sylph The nature sprites or elemental beings inhabiting the element air, defined by Paracelsus for instance as holding a place between immaterial and material beings. “In space there are millions of beings, not literally spiritual, for they have all, like the animalculae [animacula] unseen by the naked eye, certain forms of matter, though matter so delicate, air-drawn, and subtile, that it is, as it were, but a film, a gossamer, that clothes the spirit. . . . Yet, in truth, these races differ most widely . . . some of surpassing wisdom, some of horrible malignity; some hostile as fiends to men, others gentle as messengers between earth and heaven” (Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni; italics Blavatsky’s).
The astral light is virtually the same as the sidereal light of Paracelsus and other medieval mystic philosophers who followed him. The reason for calling this kosmic plane astral or sidereal is that all nature being a vast and intricately interwoven organism, the stars and planets emanate into each other their respective celestial energies and substances. Thus, because there is this constant interchange of starry fluids emanating from the different celestial bodies, the term astral light has a foundation of esoteric scientific fact. It is applied specifically to the second kosmic plane only because it is nearest to the physical and beings living on the physical plane at times become sensible of the existence of the second kosmic plane by means of flashes of starry light or sensations of luminosity. Hence the ancient initiates, knowing the source of this starry substance, properly called it the astral or sidereal light, or by some similar expression. The astral light, finally, is the very dregs of akasa, and is virtually the same as the hypothetical ether of science.
“The kabalist is a student of ‘secret science,’ one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabalah, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical. This secret doctrine is identical with that of the Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or ‘magic.’ History catches glimpses of famous kabalists ever since the eleventh century. The Mediaeval ages, and even our own times, have had an enormous number of the most learned and intellectual men who were students of the Kabala . . . The most famous among the former were Paracelsus, Henry Khunrath, Jacob Bohmen, Robert Fludd, the two Van Helmonts, the Abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardinal Nicolao Cusani, Jerome Carden, Pope Sixtus IV., and such Christian scholars as Raymond Lully, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Guillaume Postel, the great John Reuchlin, Dr. Henry More, Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), the erudite Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Christian Knorr (Baron) von Rosenroth; then Sir Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Lord Bacon, Spinosa, etc., etc., the list being almost inexhaustible. As remarked by Mr. Isaac Myer, in his Qabbalah [p. 170], the ideas of the Kabalists have largely influenced European literature. ‘Upon the practical Qabbalah, the Abbe de Villars (nephew of de Montfaucon) in 1670, published his celebrated satirical novel, “The Count de Gabalis,” upon which Pope based his “Rape of the Lock.” Qabbalism ran through the Mediaeval poems, the “Romance of the Rose,” and permeates the writings of Dante.’ No two of them, however, agreed upon the origin of the Kabala, the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah, etc. Some show it as coming from the Biblical Patriarchs, Abraham, and even Seth; others from Egypt, others again from Chaldea. The system is certainly very old; but like all the rest of systems, whether religious or philosophical, the Kabala is derived directly from the primeval Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, the Upanishads, Orpheus and Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians. Whatever its source, its substratum is at any rate identical with that of all the other systems from the Book of the Dead down to the later Gnostics” (TG 167-8).
-. The Prophecies of Paracelsus, (tr.) J. K. London:
The symbol of a cross within a circle, supposed to represent a rose with a cross in it, is really a perversion by Western Christian Qabbalists, who call it the great mystery of occult generation, whereas the true symbol of the reawakening of the universe is a circle with a point in it, and the circle with a cross is the true mundane cross. The real symbol of the Rosicrucians is that of a pelican tearing open its breast to feed its seven little ones — the symbol of the 18th degree of the order. The rosy cross is the cube unfolded (cf SD 2:19, 80, 601). Many associations, since the disappearance of the medieval Rosicrucians, have existed and still exist, who have borrowed the name and apparently as much of the Rosicrucians’ teachings as they could understand. Blavatsky mentions Paracelsus as having been a true Rosicrucian, and Eliphas Levi as having had access to Rosicrucian manuscripts.
The word became familiar to Greeks in the 3rd century with Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Neoplatonists or Theurgists, who taught of divine emanations, whereby the entire universe as well as humans and all other beings are shown to be descendants of the highest gods. Theosophist is also applied to mystics in later times such as Eckhart, Boehme, and Paracelsus. It was adopted in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and others associated with her at the founding of the Theosophical Society as the name for the modern form of the archaic wisdom-religion which she promulgated. This wisdom-religion “was ever one and being the last word of possible human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully preserved. It preceded by long ages the Alexandrian Theosophists, reached the modern, and will survive every other religion and philosophy” (Key 7-8).
to Paracelsus’ doctrine of Talismans. [Rf. Christian,
to Paracelsus in his doctrine of Talismans, a spirit
Undine [from Latin undina water spirit from unda wave, water] The class of nature sprites, elementals, or elemental beings inhabiting and forming water, generally but wrongly described as always being female. Paracelsus stated that if an undine ever should marry a mortal and bear a child, the undine-mother would receive a soul.
Vitality The jiva or life-force which manifests through the different principles of the human septenary being, as well as through the multiform hierarchies of nature. It animates the cosmic entity in which we live as vital monadic units and in man manifests as the pranas: “there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our [solar] system, of which the Sun is the heart — the same as the circulation of the blood in the human body . . .” (SD 1:541). The lowest principle of cosmic jiva is diffused through all nature and, among its innumerable activities on all the cosmic planes, on our plane produces all living beings and entities — man, beast, plant, mineral, and the three kingdoms of the elemental world. “The animal tissues only absorb it according to their more or less morbid or healthy state,” matter being the necessary vehicle for its manifestation on this plane (SD 1:537). On cosmic planes of consciousness, the corresponding aspects of jiva are the vehicles of cosmic thought or ideation which manifest more or less consciously in entities, and automatically as the laws of nature. Likewise, in the human being the psychoelectric field of life-currents, vital fluids, or pranas provides the vehicles or avenues for transmitting his thought, feeling, emotion, and instincts. The tension of this life principle — in one sense the liquor vitae of Paracelsus — may be too high or too low, owing to the nervous changes in the matter it invests. Thus, an equilibrium of the vital currents of the body means a state of health, as disturbed or disordered conditions make for disease.
Will power is a mighty, colorless force or energy which can be set in motion by one who has the power and knowledge to do so. In India, in combination with abstract desire, it is mentioned as one of six primary powers (ichchhasakti) by which the adept accomplishes many of his wonders. “The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one’s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result . . . For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of the primordial divine Light and eternal Life “(SD 2:173). The occult power of will explains many scientific problems of animate and inanimate matter. In human beings, it may consciously and unconsciously act upon other human wills and upon that of beasts; likewise, it may act upon physical and astral substance to produce various phenomena such as levitation, fire-walking, birthmarks, etc. “Paracelsus teaches that ‘determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain’ ” (TG 370).
Yliaster Used by Paracelsus for primordial matter, the universal matrix of the kosmos, identical with the highest part of the anima mundi, alaya, and akasa. These highest parts are, so far as consciousness goes, nirvana; whereas the lowest parts of the anima mundi or yliaster are the astral light.
KEYS (10k)
11 Paracelsus
2 Carl Jung
1 Manly P Hall
1 Aleister Crowley
1 ?
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
120 Paracelsus
9 Robert Browning
4 Philip Ball
3 Michael Pollan
2 Manly P Hall
2 Cassandra Clare
2 Carl Jung
2 Anonymous
1:Be not another, if you can be yourself. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
2:I am different. Let this not upset you.
~ Paracelsus,#KEYS
3:The best travel has aways been in the realm of the imagination. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
4:Sorcery has been called Magic: but Magic is Wisdom, and there is no wisdom in Sorcery ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
5:All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
6:All knowledge comes from the stars. Men do not invent or create ideas; the ideas exist and men are able to grasp them. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
7:The greater the tension, the greater the potential. Great energy springs from a correspondingly great tension of opposites. ~ Carl Jung, "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon" (1942), CW 13, § 154., #KEYS
8:Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
9:Man is a thinker. He is that what he thinks. When he thinks fire he is fire. When he thinks war, he will create war. Everything depends if his entire imagination will be an entire sun, that is, that he will imagine himself completely that what he wants. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
10:For who could be taught the knowledge of experience from paper? Since paper has the property to produce lazy and sleepy people, who are haughty and learn to persuade themselves and to fly without wings. . . . Therefore the most fundamental thing is to hasten to experience. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
11:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees ... The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love.... Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
12:They made figures of brass, and tried to induce souls to indwell them. In some accounts we read that they succeeded; Friar Bacon was credited with one such Homunculus; so was Albertus Magnus, and, I think, Paracelsus. "He had, at least, a devil in his long sword 'which taught him all the cunning pranks of past and future mountebanks, ~ Aleister Crowley, Moonchild, #KEYS
13:There is an earthly sun, which is the cause of all heat, and all who are able to see may see the sun; and those who are blind and cannot see him may feel his heat. There is an Eternal Sun, which is the source of all wisdom, and those whose spiritual senses have awakened to life will see that sun and be conscious of His existence; but those who have not attained spiritual consciousness may yet feel His power by an inner faculty which is called Intuition. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
14:Medieval alchemy prepared the way for the greatest intervention in the divine world that man has ever attempted: alchemy was the dawn of the scientific age, when the daemon of the scientific spirit compelled the forces of nature to serve man to an extent that had never been known before. It was from the spirit of alchemy that Goethe wrought the figure of the "superman" Faust, and this superman led Nietzsche's Zarathustra to declare that God was dead and to proclaim the will to give birth to the superman, to "create a god for yourself out of your seven devils." Here we find the true roots, the preparatory processes deep in the psyche, which unleashed the forces at work in the world today. Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter. ~ Carl Jung, "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon" (1942), CW 13, § 163., #KEYS
15:In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called 'the resurrection body ' and 'the glorified body.' The prophet Isaiah said, 'The dead shall live, their bodies shall rise' (Isa. 26:19). St. Paul called it 'the celestial body' or 'spiritual body ' (soma pneumatikon) (I Corinthians 15:40). In Sufism it is called 'the most sacred body ' (wujud al-aqdas) and 'supracelestial body ' (jism asli haqiqi). In Taoism, it is called 'the diamond body,' and those who have attained it are called 'the immortals' and 'the cloudwalkers.' In Tibetan Buddhism it is called 'the light body.' In Tantrism and some schools of yoga, it is called 'the vajra body,' 'the adamantine body,' and 'the divine body.' In Kriya yoga it is called 'the body of bliss.' In Vedanta it is called 'the superconductive body.' In Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, it is called 'the radiant body.' In the alchemical tradition, the Emerald Tablet calls it 'the Glory of the Whole Universe' and 'the golden body.' The alchemist Paracelsus called it 'the astral body.' In the Hermetic Corpus, it is called 'the immortal body ' (soma athanaton). In some mystery schools, it is called 'the solar body.' In Rosicrucianism, it is called 'the diamond body of the temple of God.' In ancient Egypt it was called 'the luminous body or being' (akh). In Old Persia it was called 'the indwelling divine potential' (fravashi or fravarti). In the Mithraic liturgy it was called 'the perfect body ' (soma teilion). In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is called 'the divine body,' composed of supramental substance. In the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, it is called 'the ultrahuman'.
~ ?, http://herebedragons.weebly.com/homo-lumen.html,#KEYS
16:Although a devout student of the Bible, Paracelsus instinctively adopted the broad patterns of essential learning, as these had been clarified by Pythagoras of Samos and Plato of Athens. Being by nature a mystic as well as a scientist, he also revealed a deep regard for the Neoplatonic philosophy as expounded by Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Neoplatonism is therefore an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the Paracelsian doctrine.
Paracelsus held that true knowledge is attained in two ways, or rather that the pursuit of knowledge is advanced by a two-fold method, the elements of which are completely interdependent. In our present terminology, we can say that these two parts of method are intuition and experience. To Paracelsus, these could never be divided from each other.
The purpose of intuition is to reveal certain basic ideas which must then be tested and proven by experience. Experience, in turn, not only justifies intuition, but contributes certain additional knowledge by which the impulse to further growth is strengthened and developed. Paracelsus regarded the separation of intuition and experience to be a disaster, leading inevitably to greater error and further disaster. Intuition without experience allows the mind to fall into an abyss of speculation without adequate censorship by practical means. Experience without intuition could never be fruitful because fruitfulness comes not merely from the doing of things, but from the overtones which stimulate creative thought. Further, experience is meaningless unless there is within man the power capable of evaluating happenings and occurrences. The absence of this evaluating factor allows the individual to pass through many kinds of experiences, either misinterpreting them or not inter preting them at all. So Paracelsus attempted to explain intuition and how man is able to apprehend that which is not obvious or apparent. Is it possible to prove beyond doubt that the human being is capable of an inward realization of truths or facts without the assistance of the so-called rational faculty?
According to Paracelsus, intuition was possible because of the existence in nature of a mysterious substance or essence-a universal life force. He gave this many names, but for our purposes, the simplest term will be appropriate. He compared it to light, further reasoning that there are two kinds of light: a visible radiance, which he called brightness, and an invisible radiance, which he called darkness. There is no essential difference between light and darkness. There is a dark light, which appears luminous to the soul but cannot be sensed by the body. There is a visible radiance which seems bright to the senses, but may appear dark to the soul. We must recognize that Paracelsus considered light as pertaining to the nature of being, the total existence from which all separate existences arise. Light not only contains the energy needed to support visible creatures, and the whole broad expanse of creation, but the invisible part of light supports the secret powers and functions of man, particularly intuition. Intuition, therefore, relates to the capacity of the individual to become attuned to the hidden side of life. By light, then, Paracelsus implies much more than the radiance that comes from the sun, a lantern, or a candle. To him, light is the perfect symbol, emblem, or figure of total well-being. Light is the cause of health. Invisible light, no less real if unseen, is the cause of wisdom. As the light of the body gives strength and energy, sustaining growth and development, so the light of the soul bestows understanding, the light of the mind makes wisdom possible, and the light of the spirit confers truth. Therefore, truth, wisdom, understanding, and health are all manifesta tions or revelations ot one virtue or power. What health is to the body, morality is to the emotions, virtue to the soul, wisdom to the mind, and reality to the spirit. This total content of living values is contained in every ray of visible light. This ray is only a manifestation upon one level or plane of the total mystery of life. Therefore, when we look at a thing, we either see its objective, physical form, or we apprehend its inner light Everything that lives, lives in light; everything that has an existence, radiates light. All things derive their life from light, and this light, in its root, is life itself. This, indeed, is the light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world. ~ Manly P Hall, Paracelsus,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The dose makes the poison. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
2:The dose makes the poison... ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
3:As you talk, so is your heart. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
4:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
5:The main reason for healing is love. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
6:Man is ill because he is never still. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
7:I am different. Let this not upset you ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
8:Be not another, if you can be yourself. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
9:A little bit of beer is divine medicine. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
10:Be not another, if you can be yourself. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
11:The highest degree of a medicine is Love. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
12:I am different. Let this not upset you.
~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
13:The interpretation of dreams is a great art. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
14:Women's regular bleeding engenders phantoms. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
15:Everything is a drug; it depends on the dose. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
16:The art of medicine has its roots in the heart. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
17:Let no one who can be his own belong to another. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
18:One who lives within reason lives without the spirit ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
19:That which lives on reason lives against the spirit. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
20:The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
21:All things are poison, and nothing is without poison. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
22:Fasting is the greatest remedy-- the physician within. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
23:All drugs are poisons the benefit depends on the dosage. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
24:As Paracelsus said, ‘Dose alone makes a poison.’” The ~ Mary Jo Putney, #NFDB
25:This process is alchemy: its founder is the smith Vulcan. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
26:The most secure method, to ruin your health, is a SICK BED! ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
27:Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
28:The beginning of wisdom is the beginning of supernatural power. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
29:The best travel has aways been in the realm of the imagination. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
30:Truly it has been said that there is nothing new under the sun, ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
31:In every human being there is a special heaven, whole and unbroken. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
32:Dreams must be heeded and accepted. For a great many of them come true. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
33:Whether wine is a nourishment, medicine or poison is a matter of dosage ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
34:The art of medicine cannot be inherited, nor can it be copied from books ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
35:Nothing is hidden so much that it wouldn't be revealed through its fruit. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
36:Medicine rests upon four pillars - philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
37:The learned Paracelsus wrote that anything is poisonous in sufficient dosage. ~ Dave Duncan, #NFDB
38:Know that the philosopher has power over the stars, and not the stars over him. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
39:The human body is vapor materialized by sunshine mixed with the life of the stars. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
40:Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison.
It is the dose that makes the poison ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
41:Sorcery has been called Magic: but Magic is Wisdom, and there is no wisdom in Sorcery ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
42:Nature also forges man, now a gold man, now a silver man, now a fig man, now a bean man. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
43:There is no substance which is not a poison; all are poisonous. Only the dose determines. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
44:Every body consists of three ingredients. The names of these are Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
45:Consider that we shouldn't call our brother a fool, since we don't know ourselves what we are. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
46:All things are poisons. It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a poison and a remedy. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
47:The saints are in heaven, not in wood.
—De morbis ex incantationibus et impressionibus ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
48:Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
49:Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest. (Let no man belong to another that can belong to himself.) ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
50:Could we but rightly comprehend the mind of man, nothing would be impossible to us upon the earth. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
51:The book of Nature is that which the physician must read; and to do so he must walk over the leaves. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
52:This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and chemist of the medicine. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
53:What the eyes perceive in herbs or stones or trees is not yet a remedy; the eyes see only the dross. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
54:...anyone who thinks that all fruits ripen at the same time as strawberries, knows nothing of grapes. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
55:God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations. ~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus (1835), Part II, #NFDB
56:All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
57:Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
58:Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
59:The ultimate cause of human disease is the consequence of our transgression of the universal laws of life. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
60:The physician must give heed to the region in which the patient lives, that is to say, to its type and peculiarities. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
61:That we devote ourselves to God is seen In living just as though no God there were. ~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus (1835), Part I, #NFDB
62:All knowledge comes from the stars. Men do not invent or create ideas; the ideas exist and men are able to grasp them. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
63:All that man needs for health and healing has been provided by God in nature, the Challenge of science is to find it. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
64:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
65:Love, hope, fear, faith—these make humanity; These are its sign and note and character —Robert Browning, Paracelsus ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
66:Men who are devoid of the power of spiritual perception are unable to recognize anything that cannot be seen externally. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
67:All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
68:Dreams are not without meaning wherever they may come from — from fantasy, from the elements, or from another inspiration. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
69:Love, hope, fear, faith—these make humanity; These are its sign and note and character —Robert Browning, Paracelsus In ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
70:What we should be after death, we have to attain in life, i.e. holiness and bliss. Here on earth the Kingdom of God begins. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
71:The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
72:As man imagines himself to be, so shall he be, and he is that which he imagines.” So said Paracelsus in the fifteenth century. ~ Liane Moriarty, #NFDB
73:Then God sends us such a messenger who appears to us in spirit, warns us, consoles us, teaches us, and brings us His good tidings. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
74:Europe shall be the head, Asia the crown, but Africa shall be the jewel.
"Another Prognostication by Theophrastus Paracelsus ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
75:For it is we who must pray for our daily bread, and if He grants it to us, it is only through our labour, our skill and preparation. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
76:Medicine is not merely a science but an art. The character of the physician may act more powerfully upon the patient than the drugs employed. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
77:There is in each person, in every animal, bird and plant a star which mirrors, matches or is in some sense the same as a star in the heavens. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
78:A mortal lives not through that breath that flows in and that flows out. The source of his life is another and this causes the breath to flow. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
79:Since nothing is so secret or hidden that it cannot be revealed, everything depends on the discovery of those things that manifest the hidden. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
80:What sense would it make or what would it benfit a physician if he discovered the origin of the diseases but could not cure or alleviate them? ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
81:All numbers are multiples of one, all sciences converge to a common point, all wisdom comes out of one center, and the number of wisdom is one. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
82:Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new... but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design? ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
83:It would be an error to try to build the Kingdom of Heaven upon envy. For nothing that is founded on envy can thrive; it must have another root. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
84:All arts lie in man, though not all are apparent. Awakening brings them out. To be taught is nothing; everything is in man waiting to be awakened. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
85:From time immemorial artistic insights have been revealed to artists in their sleep and in dreams, so that at all times they ardently desired them. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
86:Although Alchemy has now fallen into contempt, and is even considered a thing of the past, the physicain should not be influenced by such judgements. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
87:But is not He who created it for the sake of the sick body more than the remedy? And is not He who cures the soul, which is more than the body, greater? ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
88:Every physician must be rich in knowledge, and not only of that which is written in books; his patients should be his book, they will never mislead him. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
89:We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
90:Death is the midwife of very great things.... It brings about the birth and rebirth of forms a thousand times improved. This is the highest mystery of God. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
91:Magic has power to experience and fathom things which are inaccessible to human reason. For magic is a great secret wisdom, just as reason is a great public folly. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
92:For one country is different from another; its earth is different, as are its stones, wines, bread, meat, and everything that grows and thrives in a specific region. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
93:Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
94:"As in the heavens so also in the body the stars float free, pure, and have an invisible influence, like the arcana." ~ Paracelsus, Paragranum, p. 50, cited by C.G. Jung, CW 15, par. 29, note 24, #NFDB
95:And it is true, best is nothing concealed which shall not be discovered; for which cause a marvellous being shall come after me, who as yet lives not, and who shall reveal many things. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
96:Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
97:The greater the tension, the greater the potential. Great energy springs from a correspondingly great tension of opposites. ~ Carl Jung, "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon" (1942), CW 13, § 154., #NFDB
98:Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
99:The most interesting challenge in the sixteenth century to academic Galenic medicine came from the students of the German physician Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
100:However, anyone to whom this happens should not leave his room upon awakening, should speak to no-one, but remain alone and sober until everything comes back to him, and he recalls the dream. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
101:If we want to make a statement about a man's nature on the basis of his physiognomy, we must take everything into account; it is in his distress that a man is tested, for then his nature is revealed. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
102:Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
103:Thoughts are free and subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature...create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy from which new arts flow. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
104:Determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
105:The dreams which reveal the supernatural are promises and messages that God sends us directly: they are nothing but His angels, His ministering spirits , who usually appear to us when we are in a great predicament. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
106:ALKAHEST (A'LKAHEST) n.s.A word used first by Paracelsus, and adopted by his followers, to signify an universal dissolvent, or liquour, which has the power of resolving all things into their first principles. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
107:It should be forbidden and severely punished to remove cancer by cutting, burning, cautery, and other fiendish tortures. It is from nature that the disease comes, and from nature comes the cure, not from physicians. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
108:It is said that a wise man rules over the stars, but this does not mean that he rules over the influences which come from the stars in the sky. It means that he rules over the powers which exist in his own constitution. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
109:When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
110:Some children are born from heaven and others are born from hell, because each human being has his inherent tendencies, and these tendencies belong to his spirit, and indicate the state in which he existed before he was born. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
111:Nature is a light, and by looking at Nature in her own light we will understand her. Visible Nature may be seen in her visible light; invisible Nature may become visible if we acquire the power to perceive her invisible light. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
112:He who knows nothing loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees. The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
113:Once a disease has entered the body, all parts which are healthy must fight it: not one alone, but all. Because a disease might mean their common death. Nature knows this; and Nature attacks the disease with whatever help she can muster. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
114:The universities do not teach all things ... so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. A doctor must be a traveller . . . Knowledge is experience. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
115:Paracelsus developed a fourfold theory around how the light of nature is manifest in individual men: through the limbs, through the head and face, through the form of the body as a whole, and through bearing, or the way a man carries himself. ~ Teju Cole, #NFDB
116:All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
117:Thoughts give birth to a creative force that is neither elemental nor sidereal. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow. When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
118:For God, who is in heaven, is in man. Where else can heaven be, if not in man? As we need it, it must be within us. Therefore it knows our prayer even before we have uttered it, for it is closer to our hearts than to our words.
—Opus paramirum, I:ix ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
119:There is nothing more mysterious than blood. Paracelsus considered it a condensation of light. I believe that the Aryan, Hyperborean blood is that — but not the light of the Golden Sun, not of a galactic sun, but of the light of the Black Sun, of the Green Ray. ~ Miguel Serrano, #NFDB
120:Every drug, the sixteenth-century physician Paracelsus once opined, is a poison in disguise. Cancer chemotherapy, consumed by its fiery obsession to obliterate the cancer cell, found its roots in the obverse logic: every poison might be a drug in disguise. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
121:We watch Paracelsus in Basle as though seeing a man run headlong toward a precipice. Like an indestructible lunatic, he will do so again and again throughout his life. ~ Philip Ball, #NFDB
122:For who could be taught the knowledge of experience from paper? Since paper has the property to produce lazy and sleepy people, who are haughty and learn to persuade themselves and to fly without wings. . . . Therefore the most fundamental thing is to hasten to experience. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
123:For who could be taught the
knowledge of experience from paper? Since paper has the property to produce
lazy and sleepy people, who are haughty and learn to persuade themselves and
to fl y without wings. . . . Therefore the most fundamental thing is to hasten to
experience. ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
124:Ter calma e uma alma forte, limpa e sincera, assim tudo sairá bem. Não sentir-se só nem débil, porque detrás de cada pessoa há exércitos poderosos que não podemos conceber nem sequer sonhar. Quando se eleva o pensamento, não há mal que possa alcançar. O único inimigo que se deve temer é a nós mesmos. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
125:Paracelsus, the Cabalist, says that man's spirit comes from the stars, his soul from the planets, his body from the elements. This is the arrangement set forth in the structure of the Tabernacle, and is an important key to the interpretation of all sacred places, shrines, and temples. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
126:The spirit is the master; imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material ...The power of the imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce diseases in man and in animals, and it may cure them ..Ills of the body may be cured by physical remedies or by the power of the spirit acting through the soul. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
127:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees...The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love...Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
128:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees....The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love....Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
129:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also
loves, notices, sees … The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love.… Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes. ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
130:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees ... The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love.... Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
131:Quien no conoce nada, no ama nada. Quien no puede hacer
nada, no comprende nada. Quien nada comprende, nada vale. Pero quien comprende
también ama, observa, ve… Cuanto mayor es el conocimiento inherente a una
cosa, más grande es el amor… Quien cree que todas las frutas maduran al mismo
tiempo que las frutillas nada sabe acerca de las uvas. ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
132:They made figures of brass, and tried to induce souls to indwell them. In some accounts we read that they succeeded; Friar Bacon was credited with one such Homunculus; so was Albertus Magnus, and, I think, Paracelsus. "He had, at least, a devil in his long sword 'which taught him all the cunning pranks of past and future mountebanks, ~ Aleister Crowley, Moonchild, #NFDB
133:He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who
can do nothing understands nothing. He who
understands nothing is worthless. But he who
understands also loves, notices, sees. . . . The
more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the
greater the love. . . . Anyone who imagines
that all fruits ripen at the same time as the
strawberries knows nothing about grapes. ~ Paracelsus,#NFDB
134:So that human beings were miraculous indeed - conscious creators, walking this new world like fresh young gods, wielding immense alchemical powers. So that anyone Michel met on Mars he regarded curiously, wondering as he looked at their often innocuous exteriors what kind of new Paracelsus or Isaac of Holland stood before him, and whether they would turn lead to gold, or cause rocks to blossom. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
135:It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say ‘if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,’ we might believe them; but were they to cry ‘if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,’ we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific. ~ Cyril Connolly, #NFDB
136:Paracelsus At times I almost dream I too have spent a life the sages’ way, And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance Ages ago; and in that act a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, so Instinct with better light let in by death, That life was blotted out — not so completely But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
137:There is an earthly sun, which is the cause of all heat, and all who are able to see may see the sun; and those who are blind and cannot see him may feel his heat. There is an Eternal Sun, which is the source of all wisdom, and those whose spiritual senses have awakened to life will see that sun and be conscious of His existence; but those who have not attained spiritual consciousness may yet feel His power by an inner faculty which is called Intuition. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
138:There is an earthly sun, which is the cause of all heat, and all who are able to see may see the sun; and those who are blind and cannot see him may feel his heat. There is an Eternal Sun, which is the source of all wisdom, and those whose spiritual senses have awakened to life will see that sun and be conscious of His existence; but those who have not attained spiritual consciousness may yet feel His power by an inner faculty which is called Intuition. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
139:Paracelsus
At times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages’ way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted out — not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again. ~ Robert Browning,#NFDB
140:Most recently, as the medical value of marijuana has been rediscovered, medicine has been searching for ways to “pharmaceuticalize” the plant—find a way to harness its easily accessible benefits in a patch or inhaler that doctors can prescribe, corporations patent, and governments regulate. Whenever possible, Paracelsus’s lab-coated descendants have synthesized the active ingredients in plant drugs, allowing medicine to dispense with the plant itself—and any reminders of its pagan past. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
141:And when with excellent Microscopes I discern in otherwise invisible Objects the Inimitable Subtlety of Nature's Curious Workmanship; And when, in a word, by the help of Anatomicall Knives, and the light of Chymicall Furnaces, I study the Book of Nature, and consult the Glosses of Aristotle, Epicurus, Paracelsus, Harvey, Helmont, and other learn'd Expositors of that instructive Volumne; I find my self oftentimes reduc'd to exclaim with the Psalmist, How manifold are thy works, O Lord? In wisdom hast thou made them all. ~ Robert Boyle, #NFDB
142:Paracelsus’s grand project, which arguably is still going on today,* represents one of the many ways the Judeo-Christian tradition has deployed its genius to absorb, or co-opt, the power of the pagan faith it set out to uproot. In much the same way that the new monotheism folded into its rituals the people’s traditional pagan holidays and spectacles, it desperately needed to do something about their ancient devotion to magic plants. Indeed, the story of the forbidden fruit in Genesis suggests that nothing was more important. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
143:Carnal Protestants, who are strangers to godly sorrow. They cannot endure a serious thought, nor do they love to trouble their heads about sin. Paracelsus[34] spoke of a frenzy some have which will make them die dancing. Likewise, sinners spend their days in mirth; they fling away sorrow and go dancing to damnation. Some have lived many years, yet never put a drop in God’s bottle, nor do they know what a broken heart means. They weep and wring their hands as if they were undone when their estates are gone, but have no agony of soul for sin. ~ Thomas Watson, #NFDB
144:Bombast, an old Swabian name, has inevitably given rise to the idea that Paracelsus's bluster and arrogance lie at the root of the word "bombastic." One feels that it ought to be so, but it is not. Baum means "tree" in German (in the Swabian dialect it is rendered Bom), and Baumbast is the fibrous layer of a tree's bark. But in the sixteenth century "bombast" had also come to mean cotton padding, inappropriately derived from bombax, the medieval Latin name for the silkworm, and it is from this origin that the connotation of puffed up derives. ~ Philip Ball, #NFDB
145:PARACELSUS IN EXCELSIS
Being no longer human, why should I
Pretend humanity or don the frail attire?
Men have I known and men, but never one
Was grown so free an essence, or become
So simply element as what I am.
The mist goes from the mirror and I see.
Behold! the world of forms is swept beneath-
Turmoil grown visible beneath our peace,
And we that are grown formless, rise above-
Fluids intangible that have been men,
We seem as statues round whose high-risen base
Some overflowing river is run mad,
In us alone the element of calm. ~ Ezra Pound,#NFDB
146:Medicine rests upon four pillars—philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. The first pillar is the philosophical knowledge of earth and water; the second, astronomy, supplies its full understanding of that which is of fiery and airy nature; the third is an adequate explanation of the properties of all the four elements—that is to say, of the whole cosmos—and an introduction into the art of their transformations; and finally, the fourth shows the physician those virtues which must stay with him up until his death, and it should support and complete the three other pillars. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
147:...all our nourishment becomes ourselves; we eat ourselves into being... For every bite we take contains in itself all our organs, all that is included in the whole man, all of which he is constituted... We do not eat bone, blood vessels, ligaments, and seldom brain, heart, and entrails, nor fat, therefore bone does not make bone, nor brain make brain, but every bite contains all these. Bread is blood, but who sees it? It is fat, who sees it? ...for the master craftsman in the stomach is good. He can make iron out of brimstone: he is there daily and shapes the man according to his form. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
148:Medieval alchemy prepared the way for the greatest intervention in the divine world that man has ever attempted: alchemy was the dawn of the scientific age, when the daemon of the scientific spirit compelled the forces of nature to serve man to an extent that had never been known before. It was from the spirit of alchemy that Goethe wrought the figure of the "superman" Faust, and this superman led Nietzsche's Zarathustra to declare that God was dead and to proclaim the will to give birth to the superman, to "create a god for yourself out of your seven devils." Here we find the true roots, the preparatory processes deep in the psyche, which unleashed the forces at work in the world today. Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter. ~ Carl Jung, "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon" (1942), CW 13, § 163., #NFDB
149:The church of medicine has its own saintly patrons, the most prominent being Hypocrites who founded a new religion and its sacred oath and originated a new era of humanity. Then comes Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, who promoted herbal medicine, iatrochemistry and pharmacognosy. Next, Pasteur, the father of vaccines, who, like Moses, shepherded humanity away from the captivity of infectious diseases, led it towards the promised land of health and provided it with the tools for its salvation 8 (Clerc 2004: 7). There is Freud who founded a new sect within medicine— psychoanalysis (Cioffi 1998 [2010]; Rieff 1973) while Watson and Crick revealed to humanity the sacred mystery of life. Among these saints there are also martyrs, like the promoter of jogging Jim Fixx, who died of heart attack while running, or Rosalind Franklin, who died of cancer caused by her exposure to X-ray radiation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
150:It all had to do with time. "Time can be overcome," Mircea Eliade wrote. That's what it's all about. The great mystery of Eleusis, of the Orphies, of the early Christians, of Sarpis, of the Greco-Roman mystery religions, of Hermes Trismegistos, of the Renaissance Hermetic Alchemists, of the Rose Cross Brotherhood, of Apollonius of Tyana, of Simon Magus, of Asklepios, of Paracelsus, of Bruno, consists of the abolition of time. The techniques are there. Dante discusses them in the Comedy. It has to do with the loss of amnesia; when forgetfulness is lost, true memory spreads out backward and forward, into the past and into the future, and also, oddly, into alternate universes; it is orthogonal as well as linear.
This is why Elijah could be said correctly to be immortal; he had entered the Upper Realm (as Fat calls it) and is no longer subject to time. Time equals what the ancients called "astral determinism." The purpose of the mysteries was to free the initate from astral determinism, which roughly equals fate. ~ Philip K Dick,#NFDB
151:Witches the Church simply burned at the stake, but something more interesting happened to the witches’ magic plants. The plants were too precious to banish from human society, so in the decades after Pope Innocent’s fiat against witchcraft, cannabis, opium, belladonna, and the rest were simply transferred from the realm of sorcery to medicine, thanks largely to the work of a sixteenth-century Swiss alchemist and physician named Paracelsus. Sometimes called the “Father of Medicine,” Paracelsus established a legitimate pharmacology largely on the basis of the ingredients found in flying ointments. (Among his many accomplishments was the invention of laudanum, the tincture of opium that was perhaps the most important drug in the pharmacopoeia until the twentieth century.) Paracelsus often said that he had learned everything he knew about medicine from the sorceresses. Working under the rational sign of Apollo, he domesticated their forbidden Dionysian knowledge, turning the pagan potions into healing tinctures, bottling the magic plants and calling them medicines. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
152:Forty of Paracelsus's theological manuscripts still survive, as well as sixteen Bible commentaries, twenty sermons, twenty works on the Eucharist, and seven on the Virgin Mary. Half of these have never been properly edited, let alone printed in modern form. There is no question that Paracelsus thought long and hard about Christianity, and by styling himself a professor of theology (without, it seems, any official academic sanction) he implies that he regarded this component of his output to be the equal of his medical and chemical theories. That his role in the history of science and medicine has received far more attention than his theological oeuvre is, however, understandable and probably apt, for it cannot be said that he had much influence even on the religious debates of his day. In theology he never aspired to be a Luther, and that would in any case have been a futile aspiration for one so lacking in political acumen or the ability to foster disciples. ~ Philip Ball, #NFDB
153:Some say that the spiritual founder of the Rosicrucians was Paracelsus himself. In Huser's edition of his Prognostication Concerning the Next Twenty-four Years there is a woodcut of a child looking toward a heap of Paracelsus's books, some inscribed with a capital R and one bearing the word Rosa. But the significance of this imagery for the Rosicrucians seems spurious.* The rose that the secret society chose as its symbol is in fact derived from the emblem of Martin Luther, in which a heart and cross spring from the center of the flower. The movement began as a society of Protestant Paracelsians founded by the alchemist Johann Valentin Andreae of Herrenberg.
*The Paracelsus connection remains puzzling, however. In the first edition of the Philosophia Magna, published by Birckmann in 1567, the Hirschvogel woodcut of Paracelsus appears in modified form with various strange images in the background that later became clearly associated with Rosicrucianism, such as a child's head emerging from a cleft in the ground. What is the significance of these symbols, fifty years before the Rosicrucian movement came into the open? ~ Philip Ball,#NFDB
154:In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called 'the resurrection body ' and 'the glorified body.' The prophet Isaiah said, 'The dead shall live, their bodies shall rise' (Isa. 26:19). St. Paul called it 'the celestial body' or 'spiritual body ' (soma pneumatikon) (I Corinthians 15:40). In Sufism it is called 'the most sacred body ' (wujud al-aqdas) and 'supracelestial body ' (jism asli haqiqi). In Taoism, it is called 'the diamond body,' and those who have attained it are called 'the immortals' and 'the cloudwalkers.' In Tibetan Buddhism it is called 'the light body.' In Tantrism and some schools of yoga, it is called 'the vajra body,' 'the adamantine body,' and 'the divine body.' In Kriya yoga it is called 'the body of bliss.' In Vedanta it is called 'the superconductive body.' In Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, it is called 'the radiant body.' In the alchemical tradition, the Emerald Tablet calls it 'the Glory of the Whole Universe' and 'the golden body.' The alchemist Paracelsus called it 'the astral body.' In the Hermetic Corpus, it is called 'the immortal body ' (soma athanaton). In some mystery schools, it is called 'the solar body.' In Rosicrucianism, it is called 'the diamond body of the temple of God.' In ancient Egypt it was called 'the luminous body or being' (akh). In Old Persia it was called 'the indwelling divine potential' (fravashi or fravarti). In the Mithraic liturgy it was called 'the perfect body ' (soma teilion). In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is called 'the divine body,' composed of supramental substance. In the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, it is called 'the ultrahuman'.
~ ?, http://herebedragons.weebly.com/homo-lumen.html,#NFDB
155:Often we are told, and rightly so, that we can know God by knowing ourselves, for we are made in His image. We are not base, it is said, but divine. Yet this, perhaps, is saying too much. For even in our baseness—in our excrement—we might discern the work of our Creator. All things come from God, Crivano says. Even shit can be sublimed. But should it be? Tristão fixes Crivano with a fierce glare. Then he steps to the windows, and with a smooth sudden motion slings the chamberpot’s contents into the canal below. The liquid strikes the surface with a weak slap. Should it be sublimed? Tristão says. Should it be transcended? When we seek to do this, is our desire truly to know God? Or is it to know that God truly is as we always have imagined him: the perfect distillate of our corrupt selves? So—we are made in the image of God. Have we considered what this might mean? Innumerable are the egos in man, Paracelsus writes, and in him are angels and devils, heaven and hell. Perhaps God too is like this. Pure and impure. Is it so difficult to imagine? A God of flesh and bone? A God that shits? His voice chokes off, as if overwhelmed by some passion: rage, sorrow, Crivano can’t guess which. Tristão drifts away, toward his own approaching form in the mirror-talisman; the image of his torso gradually fills the glass. With the silver window eclipsed the room seems to grow smaller; Crivano shuffles his feet to keep his balance. I want to know, Tristão says, how God is unlike us. I want to know how our eyes become traitors. To know what they refuse to see. I no longer seek to transcend, nor even to understand. I want only to dirty my hands. To smell. To feel. Like a child who plays with mud. I believe the key is here— His fingers brush the flat glass before him; they’re met by fingers from the opposite side. —but not in the way that others have said. The Nolan warned us of this. Do you remember? He said the image in the mirror is like the image in a dream: only fools and infants mistake it for the true likeness of the world, but likewise it is foolish to ignore what it shows us. Therein lies the danger. Do we look upon these reflections without delusion, like bold Actaeon? Or, like Narcissus, do we see only what we wish to see? How can we be certain? With love in our hearts, we creep toward each shining surface, but we are all haunted, always, by ourselves. ~ Martin Seay, #NFDB
156:In A Copy Of Browning
BROWNING, old fellow,
Your leaves grow yellow,
Beginning to mellow
As seasons pass.
Your cover is wrinkled,
And stained and sprinkled,
And warped and crinkled
From sleep on the grass.
Is it a wine stain,
Or only a pine stain,
That makes such a fine stain
On your dull blue,—
Got as we numbered
The clouds that lumbered
Southward and slumbered
When day was through?
What is the dear mark
There like an earmark,
Only a tear mark
A woman let fall?—
As bending over
She bade me discover,
'Who plays the lover,
He loses all!'
With you for teacher
We learned love's feature
In every creature
That roves or grieves;
When winds were brawling,
Or bird-folk calling,
Or leaf-folk falling,
About our eaves.
No law must straiten
The ways they wait in,
Whose spirits greaten
93
And hearts aspire.
The world may dwindle,
And summer brindle,
So love but kindle
The soul to fire.
Here many a red line,
Or pencilled headline,
Shows love could wed line
To golden sense;
And something better
Than wisdom's fetter
Has made your letter
Dense to the dense.
No April robin,
Nor clacking bobbin,
Can make of Dobbin
A Pegasus;
But Nature's pleading
To man's unheeding,
Your subtile reading
Made clear to us.
You made us farers
And equal sharers
With homespun wearers
In home-made joys;
You made us princes
No plea convinces
That spirit winces
At dust and noise.
When Fate was nagging,
And days were dragging,
And fancy lagging,
You gave it scope,—
When eaves were drippy,
And pavements slippy,—
From Lippo Lippi
To Evelyn Hope.
94
When winter's arrow
Pierced to the marrow,
And thought was narrow,
You gave it room;
We guessed the warder
On Roland's border,
And helped to order
The Bishop's Tomb.
When winds were harshish,
And ways were marshish,
We found with Karshish
Escape at need;
Were bold with Waring
In far seafaring,
And strong in sharing
Ben Ezra's creed.
We felt the menace
Of lovers pen us,
Afloat in Venice
Devising fibs;
And little mattered
The rain that pattered,
While Blougram chattered
To Gigadibs.
And we too waited
With heart elated
And breathing bated,
For Pippa's song;
Saw Satan hover,
With wings to cover
Porphyria's lover,
Pompilia's wrong.
Long thoughts were started,
When youth departed
From the half-hearted
Riccardi's bride;
For, saith your fable,
Great Love is able
95
To slip the cable
And take the tide.
Or truth compels us
With Paracelsus,
Till nothing else is
Of worth at all.
Del Sarto's vision
Is our own mission,
And art's ambition
Is God's own call.
Through all the seasons,
You gave us reasons
For splendid treasons
To doubt and fear;
Bade no foot falter,
Though weaklings palter,
And friendships alter
From year to year.
Since first I sought you,
Found you and bought you,
Hugged you and brought you
Home from Cornhill,
While some upbraid you,
And some parade you,
Nine years have made you
My master still.
~ Bliss William Carman,#NFDB
157:Although a devout student of the Bible, Paracelsus instinctively adopted the broad patterns of essential learning, as these had been clarified by Pythagoras of Samos and Plato of Athens. Being by nature a mystic as well as a scientist, he also revealed a deep regard for the Neoplatonic philosophy as expounded by Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Neoplatonism is therefore an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the Paracelsian doctrine.
Paracelsus held that true knowledge is attained in two ways, or rather that the pursuit of knowledge is advanced by a two-fold method, the elements of which are completely interdependent. In our present terminology, we can say that these two parts of method are intuition and experience. To Paracelsus, these could never be divided from each other.
The purpose of intuition is to reveal certain basic ideas which must then be tested and proven by experience. Experience, in turn, not only justifies intuition, but contributes certain additional knowledge by which the impulse to further growth is strengthened and developed. Paracelsus regarded the separation of intuition and experience to be a disaster, leading inevitably to greater error and further disaster. Intuition without experience allows the mind to fall into an abyss of speculation without adequate censorship by practical means. Experience without intuition could never be fruitful because fruitfulness comes not merely from the doing of things, but from the overtones which stimulate creative thought. Further, experience is meaningless unless there is within man the power capable of evaluating happenings and occurrences. The absence of this evaluating factor allows the individual to pass through many kinds of experiences, either misinterpreting them or not inter preting them at all. So Paracelsus attempted to explain intuition and how man is able to apprehend that which is not obvious or apparent. Is it possible to prove beyond doubt that the human being is capable of an inward realization of truths or facts without the assistance of the so-called rational faculty?
According to Paracelsus, intuition was possible because of the existence in nature of a mysterious substance or essence-a universal life force. He gave this many names, but for our purposes, the simplest term will be appropriate. He compared it to light, further reasoning that there are two kinds of light: a visible radiance, which he called brightness, and an invisible radiance, which he called darkness. There is no essential difference between light and darkness. There is a dark light, which appears luminous to the soul but cannot be sensed by the body. There is a visible radiance which seems bright to the senses, but may appear dark to the soul. We must recognize that Paracelsus considered light as pertaining to the nature of being, the total existence from which all separate existences arise. Light not only contains the energy needed to support visible creatures, and the whole broad expanse of creation, but the invisible part of light supports the secret powers and functions of man, particularly intuition. Intuition, therefore, relates to the capacity of the individual to become attuned to the hidden side of life. By light, then, Paracelsus implies much more than the radiance that comes from the sun, a lantern, or a candle. To him, light is the perfect symbol, emblem, or figure of total well-being. Light is the cause of health. Invisible light, no less real if unseen, is the cause of wisdom. As the light of the body gives strength and energy, sustaining growth and development, so the light of the soul bestows understanding, the light of the mind makes wisdom possible, and the light of the spirit confers truth. Therefore, truth, wisdom, understanding, and health are all manifesta tions or revelations ot one virtue or power. What health is to the body, morality is to the emotions, virtue to the soul, wisdom to the mind, and reality to the spirit. This total content of living values is contained in every ray of visible light. This ray is only a manifestation upon one level or plane of the total mystery of life. Therefore, when we look at a thing, we either see its objective, physical form, or we apprehend its inner light Everything that lives, lives in light; everything that has an existence, radiates light. All things derive their life from light, and this light, in its root, is life itself. This, indeed, is the light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world. ~ Manly P Hall, Paracelsus,#NFDB
158:Scene. Constantinople; the house of a Greek Conjurer. 1521.
Paracelsus.
Paracelsus.
Over the waters in the vaporous West
The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold
Behind the arm of the city, which between,
With all that length of domes and minarets,
Athwart the splendour, black and crooked runs
Like a Turk verse along a scimitar.
There lie, sullen memorial, and no more
Possess my aching sight! 'T is done at last.
Strangeand the juggles of a sallow cheat
Have won me to this act! 'T is as yon cloud
Should voyage unwrecked o'er many a mountain-top
And break upon a molehill. I have dared
Come to a pause with knowledge; scan for once
The heights already reached, without regard
To the extent above; fairly compute
All I have clearly gained; for once excluding
A brilliant future to supply and perfect
All half-gains and conjectures and crude hopes:
And all because a fortune-teller wills
His credulous seekers should inscribe thus much
Their previous life's attainment, in his roll,
Before his promised secret, as he vaunts,
Make up the sum: and here amid the scrawled
Uncouth recordings of the dupes of this
Old arch-genethliac, lie my life's results!
A few blurred characters suffice to note
A stranger wandered long through many lands
And reaped the fruit he coveted in a few
Discoveries, as appended here and there,
The fragmentary produce of much toil,
In a dim heap, fact and surmise together
Confusedly massed as when acquired; he was
Intent on gain to come too much to stay
And scrutinize the little gained: the whole
Slipt in the blank space 'twixt an idiot's gibber
And a mad lover's dittythere it lies.
And yet those blottings chronicle a life
A whole life, and my life! Nothing to do,
No problem for the fancy, but a life
Spent and decided, wasted past retrieve
Or worthy beyond peer. Stay, what does this
Remembrancer set down concerning "life"?
"'Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream,'
"It is the echo of time; and he whose heart
"Beat first beneath a human heart, whose speech
"Was copied from a human tongue, can never
"Recall when he was living yet knew not this.
"Nevertheless long seasons pass o'er him
"Till some one hour's experience shows what nothing,
"It seemed, could clearer show; and ever after,
"An altered brow and eye and gait and speech
"Attest that now he knows the adage true
"'Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream.'"
Ay, my brave chronicler, and this same hour
As well as any: now, let my time be!
Now! I can go no farther; well or ill,
'T is done. I must desist and take my chance.
I cannot keep on the stretch: 't is no back-shrinking
For let but some assurance beam, some close
To my toil grow visible, and I proceed
At any price, though closing it, I die.
Else, here I pause. The old Greek's prophecy
Is like to turn out true: "I shall not quit
"His chamber till I know what I desire!"
Was it the light wind sang it o'er the sea?
An end, a rest! strange how the notion, once
Encountered, gathers strength by moments! Rest!
Where has it kept so long? this throbbing brow
To cease, this beating heart to cease, all cruel
And gnawing thoughts to cease! To dare let down
My strung, so high-strung brain, to dare unnerve
My harassed o'ertasked frame, to know my place,
My portion, my reward, even my failure,
Assigned, made sure for ever! To lose myself
Among the common creatures of the world,
To draw some gain from having been a man,
Neither to hope nor fear, to live at length!
Even in failure, rest! But rest in truth
And power and recompense . . . I hoped that once!
What, sunk insensibly so deep? Has all
Been undergone for this? This the request
My labour qualified me to present
With no fear of refusal? Had I gone
Slightingly through my task, and so judged fit
To moderate my hopes; nay, were it now
My sole concern to exculpate myself,
End things or mend them,why, I could not choose
A humbler mood to wait for the event!
No, no, there needs not this; no, after all,
At worst I have performed my share of the task
The rest is God's concern; mine, merely this,
To know that I have obstinately held
By my own work. The mortal whose brave foot
Has trod, unscathed, the temple-court so far
That he descries at length the shrine of shrines,
Must let no sneering of the demons' eyes,
Whom he could pass unquailing, fasten now
Upon him, fairly past their power; no, no
He must not stagger, faint, fall down at last,
Having a charm to baffle them; behold,
He bares his front: a mortal ventures thus
Serene amid the echoes, beams and glooms!
If he be priest henceforth, if he wake up
The god of the place to ban and blast him there,
Both well! What's failure or success to me?
I have subdued my life to the one purpose
Whereto I ordained it; there alone I spy,
No doubt, that way I may be satisfied.
Yes, well have I subdued my life! beyond
The obligation of my strictest vow,
The contemplation of my wildest bond,
Which gave my nature freely up, in truth,
But in its actual state, consenting fully
All passionate impulses its soil was formed
To rear, should wither; but foreseeing not
The tract, doomed to perpetual barrenness,
Would seem one day, remembered as it was,
Beside the parched sand-waste which now it is,
Already strewn with faint blooms, viewless then.
I ne'er engaged to root up loves so frail
I felt them not; yet now, 't is very plain
Some soft spots had their birth in me at first,
If not love, say, like love: there was a time
When yet this wolfish hunger after knowledge
Set not remorselessly love's claims aside.
This heart was human once, or why recall
Einsiedeln, now, and Wrzburg which the Mayne
Forsakes her course to fold as with an arm?
And Festusmy poor Festus, with his praise
And counsel and grave fearswhere is he now
With the sweet maiden, long ago his bride?
I surely loved themthat last night, at least,
When we . . . gone! gone! the better. I am saved
The sad review of an ambitious youth
Choked by vile lusts, unnoticed in their birth,
But let grow up and wind around a will
Till action was destroyed. No, I have gone
Purging my path successively of aught
Wearing the distant likeness of such lusts.
I have made life consist of one idea:
Ere that was master, up till that was born,
I bear a memory of a pleasant life
Whose small events I treasure; till one morn
I ran o'er the seven little grassy fields,
Startling the flocks of nameless birds, to tell
Poor Festus, leaping all the while for joy,
To leave all trouble for my future plans,
Since I had just determined to become
The greatest and most glorious man on earth.
And since that morn all life has been forgotten;
All is one day, one only step between
The outset and the end: one tyrant all-
Absorbing aim fills up the interspace,
One vast unbroken chain of thought, kept up
Through a career apparently adverse
To its existence: life, death, light and shadow,
The shows of the world, were bare receptacles
Or indices of truth to be wrung thence,
Not ministers of sorrow or delight:
A wondrous natural robe in which she went.
For some one truth would dimly beacon me
From mountains rough with pines, and flit and wink
O'er dazzling wastes of frozen snow, and tremble
Into assured light in some branching mine
Where ripens, swathed in fire, the liquid gold
And all the beauty, all the wonder fell
On either side the truth, as its mere robe;
I see the robe nowthen I saw the form.
So far, then, I have voyaged with success,
So much is good, then, in this working sea
Which parts me from that happy strip of land:
But o'er that happy strip a sun shone, too!
And fainter gleams it as the waves grow rough,
And still more faint as the sea widens; last
I sicken on a dead gulf streaked with light
From its own putrefying depths alone.
Then, God was pledged to take me by the hand;
Now, any miserable juggle can bid
My pride depart. All is alike at length:
God may take pleasure in confounding pride
By hiding secrets with the scorned and base
I am here, in short: so little have I paused
Throughout! I never glanced behind to know
If I had kept my primal light from wane,
And thus insensibly amwhat I am!
Oh, bitter; very bitter!
And more bitter,
To fear a deeper curse, an inner ruin,
Plague beneath plague, the last turning the first
To light beside its darkness. Let me weep
My youth and its brave hopes, all dead and gone,
In tears which burn! Would I were sure to win
Some startling secret in their stead, a tincture
Of force to flush old age with youth, or breed
Gold, or imprison moonbeams till they change
To opal shafts!only that, hurling it
Indignant back, I might convince myself
My aims remained supreme and pure as ever!
Even now, why not desire, for mankind's sake,
That if I fail, some fault may be the cause,
That, though I sink, another may succeed?
O God, the despicable heart of us!
Shut out this hideous mockery from my heart!
'T was politic in you, Aureole, to reject
Single rewards, and ask them in the lump;
At all events, once launched, to hold straight on:
For now' t is all or nothing. Mighty profit
Your gains will bring if they stop short of such
Full consummation! As a man, you had
A certain share of strength; and that is gone
Already in the getting these you boast.
Do not they seem to laugh, as who should say
"Great master, we are here indeed, dragged forth
"To light; this hast thou done: be glad! Now, seek
"The strength to use which thou hast spent in getting!"
And yet't is much, surely't is very much,
Thus to have emptied youth of all its gifts,
To feed a fire meant to hold out till morn
Arrived with inexhaustible light; and lo,
I have heaped up my last, and day dawns not!
And I am left with grey hair, faded hands,
And furrowed brow. Ha, have I, after all,
Mistaken the wild nursling of my breast?
Knowledge it seemed, and power, and recompense!
Was she who glided through my room of nights,
Who laid my head on her soft knees and smoothed
The damp locks,whose sly soothings just began
When my sick spirit craved repose awhile
God! was I fighting sleep off for death's sake?
God! Thou art mind! Unto the master-mind
Mind should be precious. Spare my mind alone!
All else I will endure; if, as I stand
Here, with my gains, thy thunder smite me down,
I bow me; 't is thy will, thy righteous will;
I o'erpass life's restrictions, and I die;
And if no trace of my career remain
Save a thin corpse at pleasure of the wind
In these bright chambers level with the air,
See thou to it! But if my spirit fail,
My once proud spirit forsake me at the last,
Hast thou done well by me? So do not thou!
Crush not my mind, dear God, though I be crushed!
Hold me before the frequence of thy seraphs
And say"I crushed him, lest he should disturb
"My law. Men must not know their strength: behold
"Weak and alone, how he had raised himself!"
But if delusions trouble me, and thou,
Not seldom felt with rapture in thy help
Throughout my toils and wanderings, dost intend
To work man's welfare through my weak endeavour,
To crown my mortal forehead with a beam
From thine own blinding crown, to smile, and guide
This puny hand and let the work so wrought
Be styled my work,hear me! I covet not
An influx of new power, an angel's soul:
It were no marvel thenbut I have reached
Thus far, a man; let me conclude, a man!
Give but one hour of my first energy,
Of that invincible faith, but only one!
That I may cover with an eagle-glance
The truths I have, and spy some certain way
To mould them, and completing them, possess!
Yet God is good: I started sure of that,
And why dispute it now? I'll not believe
But some undoubted warning long ere this
Had reached me: a fire-labarum was not deemed
Too much for the old founder of these walls.
Then, if my life has not been natural,
It has been monstrous: yet, till late, my course
So ardently engrossed me, that delight,
A pausing and reflecting joy,'t is plain,
Could find no place in it. True, I am worn;
But who clothes summer, who is life itself?
God, that created all things, can renew!
And then, though after-life to please me now
Must have no likeness to the past, what hinders
Reward from springing out of toil, as changed
As bursts the flower from earth and root and stalk?
What use were punishment, unless some sin
Be first detected? let me know that first!
No man could ever offend as I have done . . .
[A voice from within.]
I hear a voice, perchance I heard
Long ago, but all too low,
So that scarce a care it stirred
If the voice were real or no:
I heard it in my youth when first
The waters of my life outburst:
But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear
That voice, still low, but fatal-clear
As if all poets, God ever meant
Should save the world, and therefore lent
Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused
To do his work, or lightly used
Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour,
So, mourn cast off by him for ever,
As if these leaned in airy ring
To take me; this the song they sing.
"Lost, lost! yet come,
With our wan troop make thy home.
Come, come! for we
Will not breathe, so much as breathe
Reproach to thee,
Knowing what thou sink'st beneath.
So sank we in those old years,
We who bid thee, come! thou last
Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast.
And altogether we, thy peers,
Will pardon crave for thee, the last
Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast
With those who watch but work no more,
Who gaze on life but live no more.
Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak
The message which our lips, too weak,
Refused to utter,shouldst redeem
Our fault: such trust, and all a dream!
Yet we chose thee a birthplace
Where the richness ran to flowers:
Couldst not sing one song for grace?
Not make one blossom man's and ours?
Must one more recreant to his race
Die with unexerted powers,
And join us, leaving as he found
The world, he was to loosen, bound?
Anguish! ever and for ever;
Still beginning, ending never.
Yet, lost and last one, come!
How couldst understand, alas,
What our pale ghosts strove to say,
As their shades did glance and pass
Before thee night and day?
Thou wast blind as we were dumb:
Once more, therefore, come, O come!
How should we clothe, how arm the spirit
Shall next thy post of life inherit
How guard him from thy speedy ruin?
Tell us of thy sad undoing
Here, where we sit, ever pursuing
Our weary task, ever renewing
Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave
Our powers, and man they could not save!"
Aprile enters.
Aprile.
Ha, ha! our king that wouldst be, here at last?
Art thou the poet who shall save the world?
Thy hand to mine! Stay, fix thine eyes on mine!
Thou wouldst be king? Still fix thine eyes on mine!
Paracelsus.
Ha, ha! why crouchest not? Am I not king?
So torture is not wholly unavailing!
Have my fierce spasms compelled thee from thy lair?
Art thou the sage I only seemed to be,
Myself of after-time, my very self
With sight a little clearer, strength more firm,
Who robes him in my robe and grasps my crown
For just a fault, a weakness, a neglect?
I scarcely trusted God with the surmise
That such might come, and thou didst hear the while!
Aprile.
Thine eyes are lustreless to mine; my hair
Is soft, nay silken soft: to talk with thee
Flushes my cheek, and thou art ashy-pale.
Truly, thou hast laboured, hast withstood her lips,
The siren's! Yes, 't is like thou hast attained!
Tell me, dear master, wherefore now thou comest?
I thought thy solemn songs would have their meed
In after-time; that I should hear the earth
Exult in thee and echo with thy praise,
While I was laid forgotten in my grave.
Paracelsus.
Ah fiend, I know thee, I am not thy dupe!
Thou art ordained to follow in my track,
Reaping my sowing, as I scorned to reap
The harvest sown by sages passed away.
Thou art the sober searcher, cautious striver,
As if, except through me, thou hast searched or striven!
Ay, tell the world! Degrade me after all,
To an aspirant after fame, not truth
To all but envy of thy fate, be sure!
Aprile.
Nay, sing them to me; I shall envy not:
Thou shalt be king! Sing thou, and I will sit
Beside, and call deep silence for thy songs,
And worship thee, as I had ne'er been meant
To fill thy throne: but none shall ever know!
Sing to me; for already thy wild eyes
Unlock my heart-strings, as some crystal-shaft
Reveals by some chance blaze its parent fount
After long time: so thou reveal'st my soul.
All will flash forth at last, with thee to hear!
Paracelsus.
(His secret! I shall get his secretfool!)
I am he that aspired to know: and thou?
Aprile.
I would love infinitely, and be loved!
Paracelsus.
Poor slave! I am thy king indeed.
Aprile.
Thou deem'st
Thatborn a spirit, dowered even as thou,
Born for thy fatebecause I could not curb
My yearnings to possess at once the full
Enjoyment, but neglected all the means
Of realizing even the frailest joy,
Gathering no fragments to appease my want,
Yet nursing up that want till thus I die
Thou deem'st I cannot trace thy safe sure march
O'er perils that o'erwhelm me, triumphing,
Neglecting nought below for aught above,
Despising nothing and ensuring all
Nor that I could (my time to come again)
Lead thus my spirit securely as thine own.
Listen, and thou shalt see I know thee well.
I would love infinitely . . . Ah, lost! lost!
Oh ye who armed me at such cost,
How shall I look on all of ye
With your gifts even yet on me?
Paracelsus.
(Ah, 't is some moonstruck creature after all!
Such fond fools as are like to haunt this den:
They spread contagion, doubtless: yet he seemed
To echo one foreboding of my heart
So truly, that . . . no matter! How he stands
With eve's last sunbeam staying on his hair
Which turns to it as if they were akin:
And those clear smiling eyes of saddest blue
Nearly set free, so far they rise above
The painful fruitless striving of the brow
And enforced knowledge of the lips, firm-set
In slow despondency's eternal sigh!
Has he, too, missed life's end, and learned the cause?)
I charge thee, by thy fealty, be calm!
Tell me what thou wouldst be, and what I am.
Aprile.
I would love infinitely, and be loved.
First: I would carve in stone, or cast in brass,
The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted
Up to the gods by his renown, no nymph
Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree
Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star,
Should be too hard for me; no shepherd-king
Regal for his white locks; no youth who stands
Silent and very calm amid the throng,
His right hand ever hid beneath his robe
Until the tyrant pass; no lawgiver,
No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils
Given by a god for love of hertoo hard!
Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man,
Would I express and clothe it in its right form,
Or blend with others struggling in one form,
Or show repressed by an ungainly form.
Oh, if you marvelled at some mighty spirit
With a fit frame to execute its will
Even unconsciously to work its will
You should be moved no less beside some strong
Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body,
Endeavouring to subdue it and inform it
With its own splendour! All this I would do:
And I would say, this done, "His sprites created,
"God grants to each a sphere to be its world,
"Appointed with the various objects needed
"To satisfy its own peculiar want;
"So, I create a world for these my shapes
"Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength!"
And, at the word, I would contrive and paint
Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and wastes,
Lakes which, when morn breaks on their quivering bed,
Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun,
And ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking
A dead whale, who should find them, would swim thrice
Around them, and fare onwardall to hold
The offspring of my brain. Nor these alone:
Bronze labyrinth, palace, pyramid and crypt,
Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces,
Marts, theatres and wharfsall filled with men,
Men everywhere! And this performed in turn,
When those who looked on, pined to hear the hopes
And fears and hates and loves which moved the crowd,
I would throw down the pencil as the chisel,
And I would speak; no thought which ever stirred
A human breast should be untold; all passions,
All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir
Within a heart fed with desires like mine,
To the last comfort shutting the tired lids
Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away
Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well:
And this in language as the need should be,
Now poured at once forth in a burning flow,
Now piled up in a grand array of words.
This done, to perfect and consummate all,
Even as a luminous haze links star to star,
I would supply all chasms with music, breathing
Mysterious motions of the soul, no way
To be defined save in strange melodies.
Last, having thus revealed all I could love,
Having received all love bestowed on it,
I would die: preserving so throughout my course
God full on me, as I was full on men:
He would approve my prayer, "I have gone through
"The loveliness of life; create for me
"If not for men, or take me to thyself,
"Eternal, infinite love!"
If thou hast ne'er
Conceived this mighty aim, this full desire,
Thou hast not passed my trial, and thou art
No king of mine.
Paracelsus.
Ah me!
Aprile.
But thou art here!
Thou didst not gaze like me upon that end
Till thine own powers for compassing the bliss
Were blind with glory; nor grow mad to grasp
At once the prize long patient toil should claim,
Nor spurn all granted short of that. And I
Would do as thou, a second time: nay, listen!
Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great,
Our time so brief, 't is clear if we refuse
The means so limited, the tools so rude
To execute our purpose, life will fleet,
And we shall fade, and leave our task undone.
We will be wise in time: what though our work
Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service,
Be crippled every way? 'T were little praise
Did full resources wait on our goodwill
At every turn. Let all be as it is.
Some say the earth is even so contrived
That tree and flower, a vesture gay, conceal
A bare and skeleton framework. Had we means
Answering to our mind! But now I seem
Wrecked on a savage isle: how rear thereon
My palace? Branching palms the props shall be,
Fruit glossy mingling; gems are for the East;
Who heeds them? I can pass them. Serpents' scales,
And painted birds' down, furs and fishes' skins
Must help me; and a little here and there
Is all I can aspire to: still my art
Shall show its birth was in a gentler clime.
"Had I green jars of malachite, this way
"I'd range them: where those sea-shells glisten above,
"Cressets should hang, by right: this way we set
"The purple carpets, as these mats are laid,
"Woven of fern and rush and blossoming flag."
Or if, by fortune, some completer grace
Be spared to me, some fragment, some slight sample
Of the prouder workmanship my own home boasts,
Some trifle little heeded there, but here
The place's one perfectionwith what joy
Would I enshrine the relic, cheerfully
Foregoing all the marvels out of reach!
Could I retain one strain of all the psalm
Of the angels, one word of the fiat of God,
To let my followers know what such things are!
I would adventure nobly for their sakes:
When nights were still, and still the moaning sea
And far away I could descry the land
Whence I departed, whither I return,
I would dispart the waves, and stand once more
At home, and load my bark, and hasten back,
And fling my gains to them, worthless or true.
"Friends," I would say, "I went far, far for them,
"Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the mounds
"Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out,
"Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand,
"Till, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly
"Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud,
"In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds,
"But happy plucking them at any price.
"To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil,
"They are scarce lovely: plait and wear them, you!
"And guess, from what they are, the springs that fed them,
"The stars that sparkled o'er them, night by night,
"The snakes that travelled far to sip their dew!"
Thus for my higher loves; and thus even weakness
Would win me honour. But not these alone
Should claim my care; for common life, its wants
And ways, would I set forth in beauteous hues:
The lowest hind should not possess a hope,
A fear, but I'd be by him, saying better
Than he his own heart's language. I would live
For ever in the thoughts I thus explored,
As a discoverer's memory is attached
To all he finds; they should be mine henceforth,
Imbued with me, though free to all before:
For clay, once cast into my soul's rich mine,
Should come up crusted o'er with gems. Nor this
Would need a meaner spirit, than the first;
Nay, 't would be but the selfsame spirit, clothed
In humbler guise, but still the selfsame spirit:
As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow
And comforts violets in their hermitage.
But, master, poet, who hast done all this,
How didst thou'scape the ruin whelming me?
Didst thou, when nerving thee to this attempt,
Ne'er range thy mind's extent, as some wide hall,
Dazzled by shapes that filled its length with light,
Shapes clustered there to rule thee, not obey,
That will not wait thy summons, will not rise
Singly, nor when thy practised eye and hand
Can well transfer their loveliness, but crowd
By thee for ever, bright to thy despair?
Didst thou ne'er gaze on each by turns, and ne'er
Resolve to single out one, though the rest
Should vanish, and to give that one, entire
In beauty, to the world; forgetting, so,
Its peers, whose number baffles mortal power?
And, this determined, wast thou ne'er seduced
By memories and regrets and passionate love,
To glance once more farewell? and did their eyes
Fasten thee, brighter and more bright, until
Thou couldst but stagger back unto their feet,
And laugh that man's applause or welfare ever
Could tempt thee to forsake them? Or when years
Had passed and still their love possessed thee wholly,
When from without some murmur startled thee
Of darkling mortals famished for one ray
Of thy so-hoarded luxury of light,
Didst thou ne'er strive even yet to break those spells
And prove thou couldst recover and fulfil
Thy early mission, long ago renounced,
And to that end, select some shape once more?
And did not mist-like influences, thick films,
Faint memories of the rest that charmed so long
Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee off,
As whirling snow-drifts blind a man who treads
A mountain ridge, with guiding spear, through storm?
Say, though I fell, I had excuse to fall;
Say, I was tempted sorely: say but this,
Dear lord, Aprile's lord!
Paracelsus.
Clasp me not thus,
Aprile! That the truth should reach me thus!
We are weak dust. Nay, clasp not or I faint!
Aprile.
My king! and envious thoughts could outrage thee?
Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice
In thy success, as thou! Let our God's praise
Go bravely through the world at last! What care
Through me or thee? I feel thy breath. Why, tears?
Tears in the darkness, and from thee to me?
Paracelsus.
Love me henceforth, Aprile, while I learn
To love; and, merciful God, forgive us both!
We wake at length from weary dreams; but both
Have slept in fairy-land: though dark and drear
Appears the world before us, we no less
Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still.
I too have sought to know as thou to love
Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge.
Still thou hast beauty and I, power. We wake:
What penance canst devise for both of us?
Aprile.
I hear thee faintly. The thick darkness! Even
Thine eyes are hid. 'T is as I knew: I speak,
And now I die. But I have seen thy face!
O poet, think of me, and sing of me!
But to have seen thee and to die so soon!
Paracelsus.
Die not, Aprile! We must never part.
Are we not halves of one dissevered world,
Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part? never!
Till thou the lover, know; and I, the knower,
Loveuntil both are saved. Aprile, hear!
We will accept our gains, and use themnow!
God, he will die upon my breast! Aprile!
Aprile.
To speak but once, and die! yet by his side.
Hush! hush!
Ha! go you ever girt about
With phantoms, powers? I have created such,
But these seem real as I.
Paracelsus.
Whom can you see
Through the accursed darkness?
Aprile.
Stay; I know,
I know them: who should know them well as I?
White brows, lit up with glory; poets all!
Paracelsus.
Let him but live, and I have my reward!
Aprile.
Yes; I see now. God is the perfect poet,
Who in his person acts his own creations.
Had you but told me this at first! Hush! hush!
Paracelsus.
Live! for my sake, because of my great sin,
To help my brain, oppressed by these wild words
And their deep import. Live! 't is not too late.
I have a quiet home for us, and friends.
Michal shall smile on you. Hear you? Lean thus,
And breathe my breath. I shall not lose one word
Of all your speech, one little word, Aprile!
Aprile.
No, no. Crown me? I am not one of you!
'T is he, the king, you seek. I am not one.
Paracelsus.
Thy spirit, at least, Aprile! Let me love!
I have attained, and now I may depart.
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part II - Paracelsus Attains
,#NFDB
159:Scene. Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.
Paracelsus, Festus.
Paracelsus
[to Johannes Oporinus, his Secretary].
Sic itur ad astra! Dear Von Visenburg
Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralysed,
And every honest soul that Basil holds
Aghast; and yet we live, as one may say,
Just as though Liechtenfels had never set
So true a value on his sorry carcass,
And learned Ptter had not frowned us dumb.
We live; and shall as surely start to morrow
For Nuremberg, as we drink speedy scathe
To Basil in this mantling wine, suffused
A delicate blush, no fainter tinge is born
I' the shut heart of a bud. Pledge me, good John
"Basil; a hot plague ravage it, and Ptter
"Oppose the plague!" Even so? Do you too share
Their panic, the reptiles? Ha, ha; faint through these,
Desist for these! They manage matters so
At Basil, 't is like: but others may find means
To bring the stoutest braggart of the tribe
Once more to crouch in silencemeans to breed
A stupid wonder in each fool again,
Now big with admiration at the skill
Which stript a vain pretender of his plumes:
And, that done,means to brand each slavish brow
So deeply, surely, ineffaceably,
That henceforth flattery shall not pucker it
Out of the furrow; there that stamp shall stay
To show the next they fawn on, what they are,
This Basil with its magnates,fill my cup,
Whom I curse soul and limb. And now despatch,
Despatch, my trusty John; and what remains
To do, whate'er arrangements for our trip
Are yet to be completed, see you hasten
This night; we'll weather the storm at least: to-morrow
For Nuremberg! Now leave us; this grave clerk
Has divers weighty matters for my ear:
[Oporinus goes out.
And spare my lungs. At last, my gallant Festus,
I am rid of this arch-knave that dogs my heels
As a gaunt crow a gasping sheep; at last
May give a loose to my delight. How kind,
How very kind, my first best only friend!
Why, this looks like fidelity. Embrace me!
Not a hair silvered yet? Right! you shall live
Till I am worth your love; you shall be pround,
And Ibut let time show! Did you not wonder?
I sent to you because our compact weighed
Upon my conscience(you recall the night
At Basil, which the gods confound!)because
Once more I aspire. I call you to my side:
You come. You thought my message strange?
Festus.
So strange
That I must hope, indeed, your messenger
Has mingled his own fancies with the words
Purporting to be yours.
Paracelsus.
He said no more,
'T is probable, than the precious folk I leave
Said fiftyfold more roughly. Well-a-day,
'T is true! poor Paracelsus is exposed
At last; a most egregious quack he proves:
And those he overreached must spit their hate
On one who, utterly beneath contempt,
Could yet deceive their topping wits. You heard
Bare truth; and at my bidding you come here
To speed me on my enterprise, as once
Your lavish wishes sped me, my own friend!
Festus.
What is your purpose, Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Oh, for purpose,
There is no lack of precedents in a case
Like mine; at least, if not precisely mine,
The case of men cast off by those they sought
To benefit.
Festus.
They really cast you off?
I only heard a vague tale of some priest,
Cured by your skill, who wrangled at your claim,
Knowing his life's worth best; and how the judge
The matter was referred to, saw no cause
To interfere, nor you to hide your full
Contempt of him; nor he, again, to smother
His wrath thereat, which raised so fierce a flame
That Basil soon was made no place for you.
Paracelsus.
The affair of Liechtenfels? the shallowest fable,
The last and silliest outragemere pretence!
I knew it, I foretold it from the first,
How soon the stupid wonder you mistook
For genuine loyaltya cheering promise
Of better things to comewould pall and pass;
And every word comes true. Saul is among
The prophets! Just so long as I was pleased
To play off the mere antics of my art,
Fantastic gambols leading to no end,
I got huge praise: but one can ne'er keep down
Our foolish nature's weakness. There they flocked,
Poor devils, jostling, swearing and perspiring,
Till the walls rang again; and all for me!
I had a kindness for them, which was right;
But then I stopped not till I tacked to that
A trust in them and a respecta sort
Of sympathy for them; I must needs begin
To teach them, not amaze them, "to impart
"The spirit which should instigate the search
"Of truth," just what you bade me! I spoke out.
Forthwith a mighty squadron, in disgust,
Filed off"the sifted chaff of the sack," I said,
Redoubling my endeavours to secure
The rest. When lo! one man had tarried so long
Only to ascertain if I supported
This tenet of his, or that; another loved
To hear impartially before he judged,
And having heard, now judged; this bland disciple
Passed for my dupe, but all along, it seems,
Spied error where his neighbours marvelled most;
That fiery doctor who had hailed me friend,
Did it because my by-paths, once proved wrong
And beaconed properly, would commend again
The good old ways our sires jogged safely o'er,
Though not their squeamish sons; the other worthy
Discovered divers verses of St. John,
Which, read successively, refreshed the soul,
But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the stone,
The colic and what not. Quid multa? The end
Was a clear class-room, and a quiet leer
From grave folk, and a sour reproachful glance
From those in chief who, cap in hand, installed
The new professor scarce a year before;
And a vast flourish about patient merit
Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but sure
Sooner or later to emerge in splendour
Of which the example was some luckless wight
Whom my arrival had discomfited,
But now, it seems, the general voice recalled
To fill my chair and so efface the stain
Basil had long incurred. I sought no better,
Only a quiet dismissal from my post,
And from my heart I wished them better suited
And better served. Good night to Basil, then!
But fast as I proposed to rid the tribe
Of my obnoxious back, I could not spare them
The pleasure of a parting kick.
Festus.
You smile:
Despise them as they merit!
Paracelsus.
If I smile,
'T is with as very contempt as ever turned
Flesh into stone. This courteous recompense,
This grateful . . . Festus, were your nature fit
To be defiled, your eyes the eyes to ache
At gangrene-blotches, eating poison-blains,
The ulcerous barky scurf of leprosy
Which findsa man, and leavesa hideous thing
That cannot but be mended by hell fire,
I would lay bare to you the human heart
Which God cursed long ago, and devils make since
Their pet nest and their never-tiring home.
Oh, sages have discovered we are born
For various endsto love, to know: has ever
One stumbled, in his search, on any signs
Of a nature in us formed to hate? To hate?
If that be our true object which evokes
Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 't is hate!
Yet men have doubted if the best and bravest
Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone.
I had not the monopoly of fools,
It seems, at Basil.
Festus.
But your plans, your plans!
I have yet to learn your purpose, Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Whether to sink beneath such ponderous shame,
To shrink up like a crushed snail, undergo
In silence and desist from further toil,
and so subside into a monument
Of one their censure blasted? or to bow
Cheerfully as submissively, to lower
My old pretensions even as Basil dictates,
To drop into the rank her wits assign me
And live as they prescribe, and make that use
Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow,
Proud to be patted now and then, and careful
To practise the true posture for receiving
The amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance
When they shall condescend to tutor me?
Then, one may feel resentment like a flame
Within, and deck false systems in truth's garb,
And tangle and entwine mankind with error,
And give them darkness for a dower and falsehood
For a possession, ages: or one may mope
Into a shade through thinking, or else drowse
Into a dreamless sleep and so die off.
But I,now Festus shall divine!but I
Am merely setting out once more, embracing
My earliest aims again! What thinks he now?
Festus.
Your aims? the aims?to Know? and where is found
The early trust . . .
Paracelsus.
Nay, not so fast; I say,
The aimsnot the old means. You know they made me
A laughing-stock; I was a fool; you know
The when and the how: hardly those means again!
Not but they had their beauty; who should know
Their passing beauty, if not I? Still, dreams
They were, so let them vanish, yet in beauty
If that may be. Stay: thus they pass in song!
[He sings.
Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes
Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,
Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes
From out her hair: such balsam falls
Down sea-side mountain pedestals,
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,
Spent with the vast and howling main,
To treasure half their island-gain.
And strew faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
From closet long to quiet vowed,
With mothed and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering her lute and books among,
As when a queen, long dead, was young.
Mine, every word! And on such pile shall die
My lovely fancies, with fair perished things,
Themselves fair and forgotten; yes, forgotten,
Or why abjure them? So, I made this rhyme
That fitting dignity might be preserved;
No little proud was I; though the list of drugs
Smacks of my old vocation, and the verse
Halts like the best of Luther's psalms.
Festus.
But, Aureole,
Talk not thus wildly and madly. I am here
Did you know all! I have travelled far, indeed,
To learn your wishes. Be yourself again!
For in this mood I recognize you less
Than in the horrible despondency
I witnessed last. You may account this, joy;
But rather let me gaze on that despair
Than hear these incoherent words and see
This flushed cheek and intensely-sparkling eye.
Paracelsus.
Why, man, I was light-hearted in my prime
I am light-hearted now; what would you have?
Aprile was a poet, I make songs
'T is the very augury of success I want!
Why should I not be joyous now as then?
Festus.
Joyous! and how? and what remains for joy?
You have declared the ends (which I am sick
Of naming) are impracticable.
Paracelsus.
Ay,
Pursued as I pursued themthe arch-fool!
Listen: my plan will please you not, 't is like,
But you are little versed in the world's ways.
This is my plan(first drinking its good luck)
I will accept all helps; all I despised
So rashly at the outset, equally
With early impulses, late years have quenched:
I have tried each way singly: now for both!
All helps! no one sort shall exclude the rest.
I seek to know and to enjoy at once,
Not one without the other as before.
Suppose my labour should seem God's own cause
Once more, as first I dreamed,it shall not baulk me
Of the meanest earthliest sensualest delight
That may be snatched; for every joy is gain,
And gain is gain, however small. My soul
Can die then, nor be taunted"what was gained?"
Nor, on the other hand, should pleasure follow
As though I had not spurned her hitherto,
Shall she o'ercloud my spirit's rapt communion
With the tumultuous past, the teeming future,
Glorious with visions of a full success.
Festus.
Success!
Paracelsus.
And wherefore not? Why not prefer
Results obtained in my best state of being,
To those derived alone from seasons dark
As the thoughts they bred? When I was best, my youth
Unwasted, seemed success not surest too?
It is the nature of darkness to obscure.
I am a wanderer: I remember well
One journey, how I feared the track was missed,
So long the city I desired to reach
Lay hid; when suddenly its spires afar
Flashed through the circling clouds; you may conceive
My transport. Soon the vapours closed again,
But I had seen the city, and one such glance
No darkness could obscure: nor shall the present
A few dull hours, a passing shame or two,
Destroy the vivid memories of the past.
I will fight the battle out; a little spent
Perhaps, but still an able combatant.
You look at my grey hair and furrowed brow?
But I can turn even weakness to account:
Of many tricks I know, 't is not the least
To push the ruins of my frame, whereon
The fire of vigour trembles scarce alive,
Into a heap, and send the flame aloft.
What should I do with age? So, sickness lends
An aid; it being, I fear, the source of all
We boast of: mind is nothing but disease,
And natural health is ignorance.
Festus.
I see
But one good symptom in this notable scheme.
I feared your sudden journey had in view
To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes
'T is not so: I am glad.
Paracelsus.
And if I please
To spit on them, to trample them, what then?
'T is sorry warfare truly, but the fools
Provoke it. I would spare their self-conceit
But if they must provoke me, cannot suffer
Forbearance on my part, if I may keep
No quality in the shade, must needs put forth
Power to match power, my strength against their strength,
And teach them their own game with their own arms
Why, be it so and let them take their chance!
I am above them like a god, there's no
Hiding the fact: what idle scruples, then,
Were those that ever bade me soften it,
Communicate it gently to the world,
Instead of proving my supremacy,
Taking my natural station o'er their head,
Then owning all the glory was a man's!
And in my elevation man's would be.
But live and learn, though life's short, learning, hard!
And therefore, though the wreck of my past self,
I fear, dear Ptter, that your lecture-room
Must wait awhile for its best ornament,
The penitent empiric, who set up
For somebody, but soon was taught his place;
Now, but too happy to be let confess
His error, snuff the candles, and illustrate
(Fiat experientia corpore vili)
Your medicine's soundness in his person. Wait,
Good Ptter!
Festus.
He who sneers thus, is a god!
Paracelsus.
Ay, ay, laugh at me! I am very glad
You are not gulled by all this swaggering; you
Can see the root of the matter!how I strive
To put a good face on the overthrow
I have experienced, and to bury and hide
My degradation in its length and breadth;
How the mean motives I would make you think
Just mingle as is due with nobler aims,
The appetites I modestly allow
May influence me as being mortal still
Do goad me, drive me on, and fast supplant
My youth's desires. You are no stupid dupe:
You find me out! Yes, I had sent for you
To palm these childish lies upon you, Festus!
Laughyou shall laugh at me!
Festus.
The past, then, Aureole,
Proves nothing? Is our interchange of love
Yet to begin? Have I to swear I mean
No flattery in this speech or that? For you,
Whate'er you say, there is no degradation;
These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind,
Or wherefore this disorder? You are vexed
As much by the intrusion of base views,
Familiar to your adversaries, as they
Were troubled should your qualities alight
Amid their murky souls; not otherwise,
A stray wolf which the winter forces down
From our bleak hills, suffices to affright
A village in the valeswhile foresters
Sleep calm, though all night long the famished troop
Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts.
These evil thoughts are monsters, and will flee.
Paracelsus.
May you be happy, Festus, my own friend!
Festus.
Nay, further; the delights you fain would think
The superseders of your nobler aims,
Though ordinary and harmless stimulants,
Will ne'er content you. . . .
Paracelsus.
Hush! I once despised them,
But that soon passes. We are high at first
In our demand, nor will abate a jot
Of toil's strict value; but time passes o'er,
And humbler spirits accept what we refuse:
In short, when some such comfort is doled out
As these delights, we cannot long retain
Bitter contempt which urges us at first
To hurl it back, but hug it to our breast
And thankfully retire. This life of mine
Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned:
I am just fit for that and nought beside.
I told you once, I cannot now enjoy,
Unless I deem my knowledge gains through joy;
Nor can I know, but straight warm tears reveal
My need of linking also joy to knowledge:
So, on I drive, enjoying all I can,
And knowing all I can. I speak, of course,
Confusedly; this will better explainfeel here!
Quick beating, is it not?a fire of the heart
To work off some way, this as well as any.
So, Festus sees me fairly launched; his calm
Compassionate look might have disturbed me once,
But now, far from rejecting, I invite
What bids me press the closer, lay myself
Open before him, and be soothed with pity;
I hope, if he command hope, and believe
As he directs mesatiating myself
With his enduring love. And Festus quits me
To give place to some credulous disciple
Who holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus
Has his peculiar merits: I suck in
That homage, chuckle o'er that admiration,
And then dismiss the fool; for night is come.
And I betake myself to study again,
Till patient searchings after hidden lore
Half wring some bright truth from its prison; my frame
Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my hair
Tingles for triumph. Slow and sure the morn
Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp
And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores;
When, with a failing heart and throbbing brow,
I must review my captured truth, sum up
Its value, trace what ends to what begins,
Its present power with its eventual bearings,
Latent affinities, the views it opens,
And its full length in perfecting my scheme.
I view it sternly circumscribed, cast down
From the high place my fond hopes yielded it,
Proved worthlesswhich, in getting, yet had cost
Another wrench to this fast-falling frame.
Then, quick, the cup to quaff, that chases sorrow!
I lapse back into youth, and take again
My fluttering pulse for evidence that God
Means good to me, will make my cause his own.
See! I have cast off this remorseless care
Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free,
And my dim chamber has become a tent,
Festus is sitting by me, and his Michal . . .
Why do you start? I say, she listening here,
(For yonderWrzburg through the orchard-bough!)
Motions as though such ardent words should find
No echo in a maiden's quiet soul,
But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill fast
With tears, her sweet lips tremble all the while!
Ha, ha!
Festus.
It seems, then, you expect to reap
No unreal joy from this your present course,
But rather . . .
Paracelsus.
Death! To die! I owe that much
To what, at least, I was. I should be sad
To live contented after such a fall,
To thrive and fatten after such reverse!
The whole plan is a makeshift, but will last
My time.
Festus.
And you have never mused and said,
"I had a noble purpose, and the strength
"To compass it; but I have stopped half-way,
"And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil
"To objects little worthy of the gift.
"Why linger round them still? why clench my fault?
"Why seek for consolation in defeat,
"In vain endeavours to derive a beauty
"From ugliness? why seek to make the most
"Of what no power can change, nor strive instead
"With mighty effort to redeem the past
"And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down,
"To hold a steadfast course till I arrive
"At their fit destination and my own?"
You have never pondered thus?
Paracelsus.
Have I, you ask?
Often at midnight, when most fancies come,
Would some such airy project visit me:
But ever at the end . . . or will you hear
The same thing in a tale, a parable?
You and I, wandering over the world wide,
Chance to set foot upon a desert coast.
Just as we cry, "No human voice before
"Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks!"
Their querulous echo startles us; we turn:
What ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea?
Some characters remain, too! While we read,
The sharp salt wind, impatient for the last
Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes,
Or sings what we recover, mocking it.
This is the record; and my voice, the wind's.
[He sings.
Over the sea our galleys went,
With cleaving prows in order brave
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,
A gallant armament:
Each bark built out of a forest-tree
Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nailed all over the gaping sides,
Within and without, with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
To bear the playful billows' game:
So, each good ship was rude to see,
Rude and bare to the outward view,
But each upbore a stately tent
Where cedar pales in scented row
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
And an awning drooped the mast below,
In fold on fold of the purple fine,
That neither noontide nor starshine
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,
Might pierce the regal tenement.
When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad
We set the sail and plied the oar;
But when the night-wind blew like breath,
For joy of one day's voyage more,
We sang together on the wide sea,
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
Each helm made sure by the twilight star,
And in a sleep as calm as death,
We, the voyagers from afar,
Lay stretched along, each weary crew
In a circle round its wondrous tent
Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent,
And with light and perfume, music too:
So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past,
And at morn we started beside the mast,
And still each ship was sailing fast.
Now, one morn, land appeareda speck
Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky:
"Avoid it," cried our pilot, "check
"The shout, restrain the eager eye!"
But the heaving sea was black behind
For many a night and many a day,
And land, though but a rock, drew nigh;
So, we broke the cedar pales away,
Let the purple awning flap in the wind,
And a statute bright was on every deck!
We shouted, every man of us,
And steered right into the harbour thus,
With pomp and pan glorious.
A hundred shapes of lucid stone!
All day we built its shrine for each,
A shrine of rock for every one,
Nor paused till in the westering sun
We sat together on the beach
To sing because our task was done.
When lo! what shouts and merry songs!
What laughter all the distance stirs!
A loaded raft with happy throngs
Of gentle islanders!
"Our isles are just at hand," they cried,
"Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping
"Our temple-gates are opened wide,
"Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping
"For these majestic forms"they cried.
Oh, then we awoke with sudden start
From our deep dream, and knew, too late,
How bare the rock, how desolate,
Which had received our precious freight:
Yet we called out"Depart!
"Our gifts, once given, must here abide.
"Our work is done; we have no heart
"To mar our work,"we cried.
Festus.
In truth?
Paracelsus.
Nay, wait: all this in tracings faint
On rugged stones strewn here and there, but piled
In order once: then followsmark what follows!
"The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung
"To their first fault, and withered in their pride."
Festus.
Come back then, Aureole; as you fear God, come!
This is foul sin; come back! Renounce the past,
Forswear the future; look for joy no more,
But wait death's summons amid holy sights,
And trust me for the eventpeace, if not joy.
Return with me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus.
No way, no way! it would not turn to good.
A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss
'T is well for him; but when a sinful man,
Envying such slumber, may desire to put
His guilt away, shall he return at once
To rest by lying there? Our sires knew well
(Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons)
The fitting course for such: dark cells, dim lamps,
A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm:
No mossy pillow blue with violets!
Festus.
I see no symptom of these absolute
And tyrannous passions. You are calmer now.
This verse-making can purge you well enough
Without the terrible penance you describe.
You love me still: the lusts you fear will never
Outrage your friend. To Einsiedeln, once more!
Say but the word!
Paracelsus.
No, no; those lusts forbid:
They crouch, I know, cowering with half-shut eye
Beside you; 't is their nature. Thrust yourself
Between them and their prey; let some fool style me
Or king or quack, it matters notthen try
Your wisdom, urge them to forego their treat!
No, no; learn better and look deeper, Festus!
If you knew how a devil sneers within me
While you are talking now of this, now that,
As though we differed scarcely save in trifles!
Festus.
Do we so differ? True, change must proceed,
Whether for good or ill; keep from me, which!
Do not confide all secrets: I was born
To hope, and you . . .
Paracelsus.
To trust: you know the fruits!
Festus.
Listen: I do believe, what you call trust
Was self-delusion at the best: for, see!
So long as God would kindly pioneer
A path for you, and screen you from the world,
Procure you full exemption from man's lot,
Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere pretext
Of your engagement in his serviceyield you
A limitless licence, make you God, in fact,
And turn your slaveyou were content to say
Most courtly praises! What is it, at last,
But selfishness without example? None
Could trace God's will so plain as you, while yours
Remained implied in it; but now you fail,
And we, who prate about that will, are fools!
In short, God's service is established here
As he determines fit, and not your way,
And this you cannot brook. Such discontent
Is weak. Renounce all creatureship at once!
Affirm an absolute right to have and use
Your energies; as though the rivers should say
"We rush to the ocean; what have we to do
"With feeding streamlets, lingering in the vales,
"Sleeping in lazy pools?" Set up that plea,
That will be bold at least!
Paracelsus.
'T is like enough.
The serviceable spirits are those, no doubt,
The East produces: lo, the master bids,
They wake, raise terraces and garden-grounds
In one night's space; and, this done, straight begin
Another century's sleep, to the great praise
Of him that framed them wise and beautiful,
Till a lamp's rubbing, or some chance akin,
Wake them again. I am of different mould.
I would have soothed my lord, and slaved for him
And done him service past my narrow bond,
And thus I get rewarded for my pains!
Beside, 't is vain to talk of forwarding
God's glory otherwise; this is alone
The sphere of its increase, as far as men
Increase it; why, then, look beyond this sphere?
We are his glory; and if we be glorious,
Is not the thing achieved?
Festus.
Shall one like me
Judge hearts like yours? Though years have changed you much,
And you have left your first love, and retain
Its empty shade to veil your crooked ways,
Yet I still hold that you have honoured God.
And who shall call your course without reward?
For, wherefore this repining at defeat
Had triumph ne'er inured you to high hopes?
I urge you to forsake the life you curse,
And what success attends me?simply talk
Of passion, weakness and remorse; in short,
Anything but the naked truthyou choose
This so-despised career, and cheaply hold
My happiness, or rather other men's.
Once more, return!
Paracelsus.
And quickly. John the thief
Has pilfered half my secrets by this time:
And we depart by daybreak. I am weary,
I know not how; not even the wine-cup soothes
My brain to-night . . .
Do you not thoroughly despise me, Festus?
No flattery! One like you needs not be told
We live and breathe deceiving and deceived.
Do you not scorn me from your heart of hearts,
Me and my cant, each petty subterfuge,
My rhymes and all this frothy shower of words,
My glozing self-deceit, my outward crust
Of lies which wrap, as tetter, morphew, furfair
Wrapt the sound flesh?so, see you flatter not!
Even God flatters: but my friend, at least,
Is true. I would depart, secure henceforth
Against all further insult, hate and wrong
From puny foes; my one friend's scorn shall brand me:
No fear of sinking deeper!
Festus.
No, dear Aureole!
No, no; I came to counsel faithfully.
There are old rules, made long ere we were born,
By which I judge you. I, so fallible,
So infinitely low beside your mighty
Majestic spirit!even I can see
You own some higher law than ours which call
Sin, what is no sinweakness, what is strength.
But I have only these, such as they are,
To guide me; and I blame you where they bid,
Only so long as blaming promises
To win peace for your soul: the more, that sorrow
Has fallen on me of late, and they have helped me
So that I faint not under my distress.
But wherefore should I scruple to avow
In spite of all, as brother judging brother,
Your fate is most inexplicable to me?
And should you perish without recompense
And satisfaction yettoo hastily
I have relied on love: you may have sinned,
But you have loved. As a mere human matter
As I would have God deal with fragile men
In the endI say that you will triumph yet!
Paracelsus.
Have you felt sorrow, Festus?'t is because
You love me. Sorrow, and sweet Michal yours!
Well thought on: never let her know this last
Dull winding-up of all: these miscreants dared
Insult meme she loved:so, grieve her not!
Festus.
Your ill success can little grieve her now.
Paracelsus.
Michal is dead! pray Christ we do not craze!
Festus.
Aureole, dear Aureole, look not on me thus!
Fool, fool! this is the heart grown sorrow-proof
I cannot bear those eyes.
Paracelsus.
Nay, really dead?
Festus.
'T is scarce a month.
Paracelsus.
Stone dead!then you have laid her
Among the flowers ere this. Now, do you know,
I can reveal a secret which shall comfort
Even you. I have no julep, as men think,
To cheat the grave; but a far better secret.
Know, then, you did not ill to trust your love
To the cold earth: I have thought much of it:
For I believe we do not wholly die.
Festus.
Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Nay, do not laugh; there is a reason
For what I say: I think the soul can never
Taste death. I am, just now, as you may see,
Very unfit to put so strange a thought
In an intelligible dress of words;
But take it as my trust, she is not dead.
Festus.
But not on this account alone? you surely,
Aureole, you have believed this all along?
Paracelsus.
And Michal sleeps among the roots and dews,
While I am moved at Basil, and full of schemes
For Nuremberg, and hoping and despairing,
As though it mattered how the farce plays out,
So it be quickly played. Away, away!
Have your will, rabble! while we fight the prize,
Troop you in safety to the snug back-seats
And leave a clear arena for the brave
About to perish for your sport!Behold!
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part IV - Paracelsus Aspires
,#NFDB
160:Scene. Wrzburg; a garden in the environs. 1512.
Festus, Paracelsus, Michal.
Paracelsus.
Come close to me, dear friends; still closer; thus!
Close to the heart which, though long time roll by
Ere it again beat quicker, pressed to yours,
As now it beatsperchance a long, long time
At least henceforth your memories shall make
Quiet and fragrant as befits their home.
Nor shall my memory want a home in yours
Alas, that it requires too well such free
Forgiving love as shall embalm it there!
For if you would remember me aright,
As I was born to be, you must forget
All fitful strange and moody waywardness
Which e'er confused my better spirit, to dwell
Only on moments such as these, dear friends!
My heart no truer, but my words and ways
More true to it: as Michal, some months hence,
Will say, "this autumn was a pleasant time,"
For some few sunny days; and overlook
Its bleak wind, hankering after pining leaves.
Autumn would fain be sunny; I would look
Liker my nature's truth: and both are frail,
And both beloved, for all our frailty.
Michal.
Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Drop by drop! she is weeping like a child!
Not so! I am contentmore than content;
Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay:
Look up, sweet Michal, nor esteem the less
Your stained and drooping vines their grapes bow down,
Nor blame those creaking trees bent with their fruit,
That apple-tree with a rare after-birth
Of peeping blooms sprinkled its wealth among!
Then for the windswhat wind that ever raved
Shall vex that ash which overlooks you both,
So proud it wears its berries? Ah, at length,
The old smile meet for her, the lady of this
Sequestered nest!this kingdom, limited
Alone by one old populous green wall
Tenanted by the ever-busy flies,
Grey crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders,
Each family of the silver-threaded moss
Which, look through near, this way, and it appears
A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh
Of bulrush whitening in the sun: laugh now!
Fancy the crickets, each one in his house,
Looking out, wondering at the worldor best,
Yon painted snail with his gay shell of dew,
Travelling to see the glossy balls high up
Hung by the caterpillar, like gold lamps.
Michal.
In truth we have lived carelessly and well.
Paracelsus.
And shall, my perfect pair!each, trust me, born
For the other; nay, your very hair, when mixed,
Is of one hue. For where save in this nook
Shall you two walk, when I am far away,
And wish me prosperous fortune? Stay: that plant
Shall never wave its tangles lightly and softly,
As a queen's languid and imperial arm
Which scatters crowns among her lovers, but you
Shall be reminded to predict to me
Some great success! Ah see, the sun sinks broad
Behind Saint Saviour's: wholly gone, at last!
Festus.
Now, Aureole, stay those wandering eyes awhile!
You are ours to-night, at least; and while you spoke
Of Michal and her tears, I thought that none
Could willing leave what he so seemed to love:
But that last look destroys my dreamthat look
As if, where'er you gazed, there stood a star!
How far was Wrzburg with its church and spire
And garden-walls and all things they contain,
From that look's far alighting?
Paracelsus.
I but spoke
And looked alike from simple joy to see
The beings I love best, shut in so well
From all rude chances like to be my lot,
That, when afar, my weary spirit,disposed
To lose awhile its care in soothing thoughts
Of them, their pleasant features, looks and words,
Needs never hesitate, nor apprehend
Encroaching trouble may have reached them too,
Nor have recourse to fancy's busy aid
And fashion even a wish in their behalf
Beyond what they possess already here;
But, unobstructed, may at once forget
Itself in them, assured how well they fare.
Beside, this Festus knows he holds me one
Whom quiet and its charms arrest in vain,
One scarce aware of all the joys I quit,
Too filled with airy hopes to make account
Of soft delights his own heart garners up:
Whereas behold how much our sense of all
That's beauteous proves alike! When Festus learns
That every common pleasure of the world
Affects me as himself; that I have just
As varied appetite for joy derived
From common things; a stake in life, in short,
Like his; a stake which rash pursuit of aims
That life affords not, would as soon destroy;
He may convince himself that, this in view,
I shall act well advised. And last, because,
Though heaven and earth and all things were at stake,
Sweet Michal must not weep, our parting eve.
Festus.
True: and the eve is deepening, and we sit
As little anxious to begin our talk
As though to-morrow I could hint of it
As we paced arm-in-arm the cheerful town
At sun-dawn; or could whisper it by fits
(Trithemius busied with his class the while)
In that dim chamber where the noon-streaks peer
Half-frightened by the awful tomes around;
Or in some grassy lane unbosom all
From even-blush to midnight: but, to-morrow!
Have I full leave to tell my inmost mind?
We have been brothers, and henceforth the world
Will rise between us:all my freest mind?
'T is the last night, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Oh, say on!
Devise some test of love, some arduous feat
To be performed for you: say on! If night
Be spent the while, the better! Recall how oft
My wondrous plans and dreams and hopes and fears
Havenever wearied you, oh no!as I
Recall, and never vividly as now,
Your true affection, born when Einsiedeln
And its green hills were all the world to us;
And still increasing to this night which ends
My further stay at Wrzburg. Oh, one day
You shall be very proud! Say on, dear friends!
Festus.
In truth? 'T is for my proper peace, indeed,
Rather than yours; for vain all projects seem
To stay your course: I said my latest hope
Is fading even now. A story tells
Of some far embassy despatched to win
The favour of an eastern king, and how
The gifts they offered proved but dazzling dust
Shed from the ore-beds native to his clime.
Just so, the value of repose and love,
I meant should tempt you, better far than I
You seem to comprehend; and yet desist
No whit from projects where repose nor love
Has part.
Paracelsus.
Once more? Alas! As I foretold.
Festus.
A solitary briar the bank puts forth
To save our swan's nest floating out to sea.
Paracelsus.
Dear Festus, hear me. What is it you wish?
That I should lay aside my heart's pursuit,
Abandon the sole ends for which I live,
Reject God's great commission, and so die!
You bid me listen for your true love's sake:
Yet how has grown that love? Even in a long
And patient cherishing of the self-same spirit
It now would quell; as though a mother hoped
To stay the lusty manhood of the child
Once weak upon her knees. I was not born
Informed and fearless from the first, but shrank
From aught which marked me out apart from men:
I would have lived their life, and died their death,
Lost in their ranks, eluding destiny:
But you first guided me through doubt and fear,
Taught me to know mankind and know myself;
And now that I am strong and full of hope,
That, from my soul, I can reject all aims
Save those your earnest words made plain to me,
Now that I touch the brink of my design,
When I would have a triumph in their eyes,
A glad cheer in their voicesMichal weeps,
And Festus ponders gravely!
Festus.
When you deign
To hear my purpose . . .
Paracelsus.
Hear it? I can say
Beforehand all this evening's conference!
'T is this way, Michal, that he uses: first,
Or he declares, or I, the leading points
Of our best scheme of life, what is man's end
And what God's will; no two faiths e'er agreed
As his with mine. Next, each of us allows
Faith should be acted on as best we may;
Accordingly, I venture to submit
My plan, in lack of better, for pursuing
The path which God's will seems to authorize.
Well, he discerns much good in it, avows
This motive worthy, that hope plausible,
A danger here to be avoided, there
An oversight to be repaired: in fine
Our two minds go togetherall the good
Approved by him, I gladly recognize,
All he counts bad, I thankfully discard,
And nought forbids my looking up at last
For some stray comfort in his cautious brow.
When, lo! I learn that, spite of all, there lurks
Some innate and inexplicable germ
Of failure in my scheme; so that at last
It all amounts to thisthe sovereign proof
That we devote ourselves to God, is seen
In living just as though no God there were;
A life which, prompted by the sad and blind
Folly of man, Festus abhors the most;
But which these tenets sanctify at once,
Though to less subtle wits it seems the same,
Consider it how they may.
Michal.
Is it so, Festus
He speaks so calmly and kindly: is it so?
Paracelsus.
Reject those glorious visions of God's love
And man's design; laugh loud that God should send
Vast longings to direct us; say how soon
Power satiates these, or lust, or gold; I know
The world's cry well, and how to answer it.
But this ambiguous warfare . . .
Festus.
. . . Wearies so
That you will grant no last leave to your friend
To urge it?for his sake, not yours? I wish
To send my soul in good hopes after you;
Never to sorrow that uncertain words
Erringly apprehended, a new creed
Ill understood, begot rash trust in you,
Had share in your undoing.
Paracelsus.
Choose your side,
Hold or renounce: but meanwhile blame me not
Because I dare to act on your own views,
Nor shrink when they point onward, nor espy
A peril where they most ensure success.
Festus.
Prove that to mebut that! Prove you abide
Within their warrant, nor presumptuous boast
God's labour laid on you; prove, all you covet
A mortal may expect; and, most of all,
Prove the strange course you now affect, will lead
To its attainmentand I bid you speed,
Nay, count the minutes till you venture forth!
You smile; but I had gathered from slow thought
Much musing on the fortunes of my friend
Matter I deemed could not be urged in vain;
But it all leaves me at my need: in shreds
And fragments I must venture what remains.
Michal.
Ask at once, Festus, wherefore he should scorn . . .
Festus.
Stay, Michal: Aureole, I speak guardedly
And gravely, knowing well, whate'er your error,
This is no ill-considered choice of yours,
No sudden fancy of an ardent boy.
Not from your own confiding words alone
Am I aware your passionate heart long since
Gave birth to, nourished and at length matures
This scheme. I will not speak of Einsiedeln,
Where I was born your elder by some years
Only to watch you fully from the first:
In all beside, our mutual tasks were fixed
Even then't was mine to have you in my view
As you had your own soul and those intents
Which filled it when, to crown your dearest wish,
With a tumultuous heart, you left with me
Our childhood's home to join the favoured few
Whom, here, Trithemius condescends to teach
A portion of his lore: and not one youth
Of those so favoured, whom you now despise,
Came earnest as you came, resolved, like you,
To grasp all, and retain all, and deserve
By patient toil a wide renown like his.
Now, this new ardour which supplants the old
I watched, too; 't was significant and strange,
In one matched to his soul's content at length
With rivals in the search for wisdom's prize,
To see the sudden pause, the total change;
From contest, the transition to repose
From pressing onward as his fellows pressed,
To a blank idleness, yet most unlike
The dull stagnation of a soul, content,
Once foiled, to leave betimes a thriveless quest.
That careless bearing, free from all pretence
Even of contempt for what it ceased to seek
Smiling humility, praising much, yet waiving
What it professed to praisethough not so well
Maintained but that rare outbreaks, fierce and brief,
Revealed the hidden scorn, as quickly curbed.
That ostentatious show of past defeat,
That ready acquiescence in contempt,
I deemed no other than the letting go
His shivered sword, of one about to spring
Upon his foe's throat; but it was not thus:
Not that way looked your brooding purpose then.
For after-signs disclosed, what you confirmed,
That you prepared to task to the uttermost
Your strength, in furtherance of a certain aim
Whichwhile it bore the name your rivals gave
Their own most puny effortswas so vast
In scope that it included their best flights,
Combined them, and desired to gain one prize
In place of many,the secret of the world,
Of man, and man's true purpose, path and fate.
That you, not nursing as a mere vague dream
This purpose, with the sages of the past,
Have struck upon a way to this, if all
You trust be true, which following, heart and soul,
You, if a man may, dare aspire to know:
And that this aim shall differ from a host
Of aims alike in character and kind,
Mostly in this,that in itself alone
Shall its reward be, not an alien end
Blending therewith; no hope nor fear nor joy
Nor woe, to elsewhere move you, but this pure
Devotion to sustain you or betray:
Thus you aspire.
Paracelsus.
You shall not state it thus:
I should not differ from the dreamy crew
You speak of. I profess no other share
In the selection of my lot, than this
My ready answer to the will of God
Who summons me to be his organ. All
Whose innate strength supports them shall succeed
No better than the sages.
Festus.
Such the aim, then,
God sets before you; and't is doubtless need
That he appoint no less the way of praise
Than the desire to praise; for, though I hold
With you, the setting forth such praise to be
The natural end and service of a man,
And hold such praise is best attained when man
Attains the general welfare of his kind
Yet this, the end, is not the instrument.
Presume not to serve God apart from such
Appointed channel as he wills shall gather
Imperfect tributes, for that sole obedience
Valued perchance! He seeks not that his altars
Blaze, careless how, so that they do but blaze.
Suppose this, then; that God selected you
To know (heed well your answers, for my faith
Shall meet implicitly what they affirm)
I cannot think you dare annex to such
Selection aught beyond a steadfast will,
An intense hope; nor let your gifts create
Scorn or neglect of ordinary means
Conducive to success, make destiny
Dispense with man's endeavour. Now, dare you search
Your inmost heart, and candidly avow
Whether you have not rather wild desire
For this distinction than security
Of its existence? whether you discern
The path to the fulfilment of your purpose
Clear as that purposeand again, that purpose
Clear as your yearning to be singled out
For its pursuer. Dare you answer this?
Paracelsus
[after a pause].
No, I have nought to fear! Who will may know
The secret'st workings of my soul. What though
It be so?if indeed the strong desire
Eclipse the aim in me?if splendour break
Upon the outset of my path alone,
And duskest shade succeed? What fairer seal
Shall I require to my authentic mission
Than this fierce energy?this instinct striving
Because its nature is to strive?enticed
By the security of no broad course,
Without success forever in its eyes!
How know I else such glorious fate my own,
But in the restless irresistible force
That works within me? Is it for human will
To institute such impulses?still less,
To disregard their promptings! What should I
Do, kept among you all; your loves, your cares,
Your lifeall to be mine? Be sure that God
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart!
Ask the geier-eagle why she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss,
What full-grown power informs her from the first,
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating
The silent boundless regions of the sky!
Be sure they sleep not whom God needs! Nor fear
Their holding light his charge, when every hour
That finds that charge delayed, is a new death.
This for the faith in which I trust; and hence
I can abjure so well the idle arts
These pedants strive to learn and teach; Black Arts,
Great Works, the Secret and Sublime, forsooth
Let others prize: too intimate a tie
Connects me with our God! A sullen fiend
To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites
To help mewhat are these, at best, beside
God helping, God directing everywhere,
So that the earth shall yield her secrets up,
And every object there be charged to strike,
Teach, gratify her master God appoints?
And I am young, my Festus, happy and free!
I can devote myself; I have a life
To give; I, singled out for this, the One!
Think, think! the wide East, where all Wisdom sprung;
The bright South, where she dwelt; the hopeful North,
All are passed o'erit lights on me! 'T is time
New hopes should animate the world, new light
Should dawn from new revealings to a race
Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus shall
The heaven reserved for us at last receive
Creatures whom no unwonted splendours blind,
But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze.
Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage,
Not seldom glorified their life below.
Festus.
My words have their old fate and make faint stand
Against your glowing periods. Call this, truth
Why not pursue it in a fast retreat,
Some one of Learning's many palaces,
After approved example?seeking there
Calm converse with the great dead, soul to soul,
Who laid up treasure with the like intent
So lift yourself into their airy place,
And fill out full their unfulfilled careers,
Unravelling the knots their baffled skill
Pronounced inextricable, true!but left
Far less confused. A fresh eye, a fresh hand,
Might do much at their vigour's waning-point;
Succeeding with new-breathed new-hearted force,
As at old games the runner snatched the torch
From runner still: this way success might be.
But you have coupled with your enterprise,
An arbitrary self-repugnant scheme
Of seeking it in strange and untried paths.
What books are in the desert? Writes the sea
The secret of her yearning in vast caves
Where yours will fall the first of human feet?
Has wisdom sat there and recorded aught
You press to read? Why turn aside from her
To visit, where her vesture never glanced,
Nowsolitudes consigned to barrenness
By God's decree, which who shall dare impugn?
Nowruins where she paused but would not stay,
Old ravaged cities that, renouncing her,
She called an endless curse on, so it came:
Or worst of all, nowmen you visit, men,
Ignoblest troops who never heard her voice
Or hate it, men without one gift from Rome
Or Athens,these shall Aureole's teachers be!
Rejecting past example, practice, precept,
Aidless'mid these he thinks to stand alone:
Thick like a glory round the Stagirite
Your rivals throng, the sages: here stand you!
Whatever you may protest, knowledge is not
Paramount in your love; or for her sake
You would collect all help from every source
Rival, assistant, friend, foe, all would merge
In the broad class of those who showed her haunts,
And those who showed them not.
Paracelsus.
What shall I say?
Festus, from childhood I have been possessed
By a fireby a true fire, or faint or fierce,
As from without some master, so it seemed,
Repressed or urged its current: this but ill
Expresses what would I convey: but rather
I will believe an angel ruled me thus,
Than that my soul's own workings, own high nature,
So became manifest. I knew not then
What whispered in the evening, and spoke out
At midnight. If some mortal, born too soon,
Were laid away in some great trancethe ages
Coming and going all the whiletill dawned
His true time's advent; and could then record
The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed,
Then I might tell more of the breath so light
Upon my eyelids, and the fingers light
Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never
So dull was I but, when that spirit passed,
I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns
A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep.
And having this within me and about me
While Einsiedeln, its mountains, lakes and woods
Confined mewhat oppressive joy was mine
When life grew plain, and I first viewed the thronged,
The everlasting concourse of mankind!
Believe that ere I joined them, ere I knew
The purpose of the pageant, or the place
Consigned me in its rankswhile, just awake,
Wonder was freshest and delight most pure
'T was then that least supportable appeared
A station with the brightest of the crowd,
A portion with the proudest of them all.
And from the tumult in my breast, this only
Could I collect, that I must thenceforth die
Or elevate myself far, far above
The gorgeous spectacle. I seemed to long
At once to trample on, yet save mankind,
To make some unexampled sacrifice
In their behalf, to wring some wondrous good
From heaven or earth for them, to perish, winning
Eternal weal in the act: as who should dare
Pluck out the angry thunder from its cloud,
That, all its gathered flame discharged on him,
No storm might threaten summer's azure sleep:
Yet never to be mixed with men so much
As to have part even in my own work, share
In my own largess. Once the feat achieved,
I would withdraw from their officious praise,
Would gently put aside their profuse thanks.
Like some knight traversing a wilderness,
Who, on his way, may chance to free a tribe
Of desert-people from their dragon-foe;
When all the swarthy race press round to kiss
His feet, and choose him for their king, and yield
Their poor tents, pitched among the sand-hills, for
His realm: and he points, smiling, to his scarf
Heavy with riveled gold, his burgonet
Gay set with twinkling stonesand to the East,
Where these must be displayed!
Festus.
Good: let us hear
No more about your nature, "which first shrank
"From all that marked you out apart from men!"
Paracelsus.
I touch on that; these words but analyse
The first mad impulse: 't was as brief as fond,
For as I gazed again upon the show,
I soon distinguished here and there a shape
Palm-wreathed and radiant, forehead and full eye.
Well pleased was I their state should thus at once
Interpret my own thoughts:"Behold the clue
"To all," I rashly said, "and what I pine
"To do, these have accomplished: we are peers.
"They know and therefore rule: I, too, will know!"
You were beside me, Festus, as you say;
You saw me plunge in their pursuits whom fame
Is lavish to attest the lords of mind,
Not pausing to make sure the prize in view
Would satiate my cravings when obtained,
But since they strove I strove. Then came a slow
And strangling failure. We aspired alike,
Yet not the meanest plodder, Tritheim counts
A marvel, but was all-sufficient, strong,
Or staggered only at his own vast wits;
While I was restless, nothing satisfied,
Distrustful, most perplexed. I would slur over
That struggle; suffice it, that I loathed myself
As weak compared with them, yet felt somehow
A mighty power was brooding, taking shape
Within me; and this lasted till one night
When, as I sat revolving it and more,
A still voice from without said"Seest thou not,
"Desponding child, whence spring defeat and loss?
"Even from thy strength. Consider: hast thou gazed
"Presumptuously on wisdom's countenance,
"No veil between; and can thy faltering hands,
"Unguided by the brain the sight absorbs,
"Pursue their task as earnest blinkers do
"Whom radiance ne'er distracted? Live their life
"If thou wouldst share their fortune, choose their eyes
"Unfed by splendour. Let each task present
"Its petty good to thee. Waste not thy gifts
"In profitless waiting for the gods' descent,
"But have some idol of thine own to dress
"With their array. Know, not for knowing's sake,
"But to become a star to men for ever;
"Know, for the gain it gets, the praise it brings,
"The wonder it inspires, the love it breeds:
"Look one step onward, and secure that step!"
And I smiled as one never smiles but once,
Then first discovering my own aim's extent,
Which sought to comprehend the works of God,
And God himself, and all God's intercourse
With the human mind; I understood, no less,
My fellows' studies, whose true worth I saw,
But smiled not, well aware who stood by me.
And softer came the voice"There is a way:
"'T is hard for flesh to tread therein, imbued
"With frailtyhopeless, if indulgence first
"Have ripened inborn germs of sin to strength:
"Wilt thou adventure for my sake and man's,
"Apart from all reward?" And last it breathed
"Be happy, my good soldier; I am by thee,
"Be sure, even to the end!"I answered not,
Knowing him. As he spoke, I was endued
With comprehension and a steadfast will;
And when he ceased, my brow was sealed his own.
If there took place no special change in me,
How comes it all things wore a different hue
Thenceforward?pregnant with vast consequence,
Teeming with grand result, loaded with fate?
So that when, quailing at the mighty range
Of secret truths which yearn for birth, I haste
To contemplate undazzled some one truth,
Its bearings and effects aloneat once
What was a speck expands into a star,
Asking a life to pass exploring thus,
Till I near craze. I go to prove my soul!
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time!
Michal.
Vex him no further, Festus; it is so!
Festus.
Just thus you help me ever. This would hold
Were it the trackless air, and not a path
Inviting you, distinct with footprints yet
Of many a mighty marcher gone that way.
You may have purer views than theirs, perhaps,
But they were famous in their daythe proofs
Remain. At least accept the light they lend.
Paracelsus.
Their light! the sum of all is briefly this:
They laboured and grew famous, and the fruits
Are best seen in a dark and groaning earth
Given over to a blind and endless strife
With evils, what of all their lore abates?
No; I reject and spurn them utterly
And all they teach. Shall I still sit beside
Their dry wells, with a white lip and filmed eye,
While in the distance heaven is blue above
Mountains where sleep the unsunned tarns?
Festus.
And yet
As strong delusions have prevailed ere now.
Men have set out as gallantly to seek
Their ruin. I have heard of such: yourself
Avow all hitherto have failed and fallen.
Michal.
Nay, Festus, when but as the pilgrims faint
Through the drear way, do you expect to see
Their city dawn amid the clouds afar?
Paracelsus.
Ay, sounds it not like some old well-known tale?
For me, I estimate their works and them
So rightly, that at times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages' way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted outnot so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,
Is foolish, and only meansthe flesh I wear,
The earth I tread, are not more clear to me
Than my belief, explained to you or no.
Festus.
And who am I, to challenge and dispute
That clear belief? I will divest all fear.
Michal.
Then Aureole is God's commissary! he shall
Be great and grandand all for us!
Paracelsus.
No, sweet!
Not great and grand. If I can serve mankind
'T is well; but there our intercourse must end:
I never will be served by those I serve.
Festus.
Look well to this; here is a plague-spot, here,
Disguise it how you may! 'T is true, you utter
This scorn while by our side and loving us;
'T is but a spot as yet: but it will break
Into a hideous blotch if overlooked.
How can that course be safe which from the first
Produces carelessness to human love?
It seems you have abjured the helps which men
Who overpass their kind, as you would do,
Have humbly sought; I dare not thoroughly probe
This matter, lest I learn too much. Let be
That popular praise would little instigate
Your efforts, nor particular approval
Reward you; put reward aside; alone
You shall go forth upon your arduous task,
None shall assist you, none partake your toil,
None share your triumph: still you must retain
Some one to cast your glory on, to share
Your rapture with. Were I elect like you,
I would encircle me with love, and raise
A rampart of my fellows; it should seem
Impossible for me to fail, so watched
By gentle friends who made my cause their own.
They should ward off fate's envythe great gift,
Extravagant when claimed by me alone,
Being so a gift to them as well as me.
If danger daunted me or ease seduced,
How calmly their sad eyes should gaze reproach!
Michal.
O Aureole, can I sing when all alone,
Without first calling, in my fancy, both
To listen by my sideeven I! And you?
Do you not feel this? Say that you feel this!
Paracelsus.
I feel't is pleasant that my aims, at length
Allowed their weight, should be supposed to need
A further strengthening in these goodly helps!
My course allures for its own sake, its sole
Intrinsic worth; and ne'er shall boat of mine
Adventure forth for gold and apes at once.
Your sages say, "if human, therefore weak:"
If weak, more need to give myself entire
To my pursuit; and by its side, all else . . .
No matter! I deny myself but little
In waiving all assistance save its own.
Would there were some real sacrifice to make!
Your friends the sages threw their joys away,
While I must be content with keeping mine.
Festus.
But do not cut yourself from human weal!
You cannot thrivea man that dares affect
To spend his life in service to his kind
For no reward of theirs, unbound to them
By any tie; nor do so, Aureole! No
There are strange punishments for such. Give up
(Although no visible good flow thence) some part
Of the glory to another; hiding thus,
Even from yourself, that all is for yourself.
Say, say almost to God"I have done all
"For her, not for myself!"
Paracelsus.
And who but lately
Was to rejoice in my success like you?
Whom should I love but both of you?
Festus.
I know not:
But know this, you, that't is no will of mine
You should abjure the lofty claims you make;
And this the causeI can no longer seek
To overlook the truth, that there would be
A monstrous spectacle upon the earth,
Beneath the pleasant sun, among the trees:
A being knowing not what love is. Hear me!
You are endowed with faculties which bear
Annexed to them as't were a dispensation
To summon meaner spirits to do their will
And gather round them at their need; inspiring
Such with a love themselves can never feel,
Passionless'mid their passionate votaries.
I know not if you joy in this or no,
Or ever dream that common men can live
On objects you prize lightly, but which make
Their heart's sole treasure: the affections seem
Beauteous at most to you, which we must taste
Or die: and this strange quality accords,
I know not how, with you; sits well upon
That luminous brow, though in another it scowls
An eating brand, a shame. I dare not judge you.
The rules of right and wrong thus set aside,
There's no alternativeI own you one
Of higher order, under other laws
Than bind us; therefore, curb not one bold glance!
'T is best aspire. Once mingled with us all . . .
Michal.
Stay with us, Aureole! cast those hopes away,
And stay with us! An angel warns me, too,
Man should be humble; you are very proud:
And God, dethroned, has doleful plagues for such!
Warns me to have in dread no quick repulse,
No slow defeat, but a complete success:
You will find all you seek, and perish so!
Paracelsus
[after a pause].
Are these the barren firstfruits of my quest?
Is love like this the natural lot of all?
How many years of pain might one such hour
O'erbalance? Dearest Michal, dearest Festus,
What shall I say, if not that I desire
To justify your love; and will, dear friends,
In swerving nothing from my first resolves.
See, the great moon! and ere the mottled owls
Were wide awake, I was to go. It seems
You acquiesce at last in all save this
If I am like to compass what I seek
By the untried career I choose; and then,
If that career, making but small account
Of much of life's delight, will yet retain
Sufficient to sustain my soul: for thus
I understand these fond fears just expressed.
And first; the lore you praise and I neglect,
The labours and the precepts of old time,
I have not lightly disesteemed. But, friends,
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fulness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perceptionwhich is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly
The demonstration of a truth, its birth,
And you trace back the effluence to its spring
And source within us; where broods radiance vast,
To be elicited ray by ray, as chance
Shall favour: chancefor hitherto, your sage
Even as he knows not how those beams are born,
As little knows he what unlocks their fount:
And men have oft grown old among their books
To die case-hardened in their ignorance,
Whose careless youth had promised what long years
Of unremitted labour ne'er performed:
While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day,
To autumn loiterers just as fancy-free
As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last
To truthproduced mysteriously as cape
Of cloud grown out of the invisible air.
Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all,
The lowest as the highest? some slight film
The interposing bar which binds a soul
And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage
Some film removed, the happy outlet whence
Truth issues proudly? See this soul of ours!
How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed
In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled
By age and waste, set free at last by death:
Why is it, flesh enthrals it or enthrones?
What is this flesh we have to penetrate?
Oh, not alone when life flows still, do truth
And power emerge, but also when strange chance
Ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture,
When sickness breaks the bodyhunger, watching,
Excess or languoroftenest death's approach,
Peril, deep joy or woe. One man shall crawl
Through life surrounded with all stirring things,
Unmoved; and he goes mad: and from the wreck
Of what he was, by his wild talk alone,
You first collect how great a spirit he hid.
Therefore, set free the soul alike in all,
Discovering the true laws by which the flesh
Accloys the spirit! We may not be doomed
To cope with seraphs, but at least the rest
Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God,
But elevate the race at once! We ask
To put forth just our strength, our human strength,
All starting fairly, all equipped alike,
Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted
See if we cannot beat thine angels yet!
Such is my task. I go to gather this
The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed
About the world, long lost or never found.
And why should I be sad or lorn of hope?
Why ever make man's good distinct from God's,
Or, finding they are one, why dare mistrust?
Who shall succeed if not one pledged like me?
Mine is no mad attempt to build a world
Apart from his, like those who set themselves
To find the nature of the spirit they bore,
And, taught betimes that all their gorgeous dreams
Were only born to vanish in this life,
Refused to fit them to its narrow sphere,
But chose to figure forth another world
And other frames meet for their vast desires,
And all a dream! Thus was life scorned; but life
Shall yet be crowned: twine amaranth! I am priest!
And all for yielding with a lively spirit
A poor existence, parting with a youth
Like those who squander every energy
Convertible to good, on painted toys,
Breath-bubbles, gilded dust! And though I spurn
All adventitious aims, from empty praise
To love's award, yet whoso deems such helps
Important, and concerns himself for me,
May know even these will follow with the rest
As in the steady rolling Mayne, asleep
Yonder, is mixed its mass of schistous ore.
My own affections laid to rest awhile,
Will waken purified, subdued alone
By all I have achieved. Till thentill then . . .
Ah, the time-wiling loitering of a page
Through bower and over lawn, till eve shall bring
The stately lady's presence whom he loves
The broken sleep of the fisher whose rough coat
Enwraps the queenly pearlthese are faint types!
See, see, they look on me: I triumph now!
But one thing, Festus, Michal! I have told
All I shall e'er disclose to mortal: say
Do you believe I shall accomplish this?
Festus.
I do believe!
Michal.
I ever did believe!
Paracelsus.
Those words shall never fade from out my brain!
This earnest of the end shall never fade!
Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal,
Two points in the adventure of the diver,
Onewhen, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,
Onewhen, a prince, he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge!
Festus.
We wait you when you rise!
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part I - Paracelsus Aspires
,#NFDB
161:Scene. Salzburg; a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541.
Festus, Paracelsus.
Festus.
No change! The weary night is well-nigh spent,
The lamp burns low, and through the casement-bars
Grey morning glimmers feebly: yet no change!
Another night, and still no sigh has stirred
That fallen discoloured mouth, no pang relit
Those fixed eyes, quenched by the decaying body,
Like torch-flame choked in dust. While all beside
Was breaking, to the last they held out bright,
As a stronghold where life intrenched itself;
But they are dead nowvery blind and dead:
He will drowse into death without a groan.
My Aureolemy forgotten, ruined Aureole!
The days are gone, are gone! How grand thou wast!
And now not one of those who struck thee down
Poor glorious spiritconcerns him even to stay
And satisfy himself his little hand
Could turn God's image to a livid thing.
Another night, and yet no change! 'T is much
That I should sit by him, and bathe his brow,
And chafe his hands; 't is much: but he will sure
Know me, and look on me, and speak to me
Once morebut only once! His hollow cheek
Looked all night long as though a creeping laugh
At his own state were just about to break
From the dying man: my brain swam, my throat swelled,
And yet I could not turn away. In truth,
They told me how, when first brought here, he seemed
Resolved to live, to lose no faculty;
Thus striving to keep up his shattered strength,
Until they bore him to this stifling cell:
When straight his features fell, an hour made white
The flushed face, and relaxed the quivering limb,
Only the eye remained intense awhile
As though it recognized the tomb-like place,
And then he lay as here he lies.
Ay, here!
Here is earth's noblest, nobly garlanded
Her bravest champion with his well-won prize
Her best achievement, her sublime amends
For countless generations fleeting fast
And followed by no trace;the creature-god
She instances when angels would dispute
The title of her brood to rank with them.
Angels, this is our angel! Those bright forms
We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones,
Are human, but not his; those are but men
Whom other men press round and kneel before;
Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind;
Higher provision is for him you seek
Amid our pomps and glories: see it here!
Behold earth's paragon! Now, raise thee, clay!
God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that
Even as I watch beside thy tortured child
Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him,
So doth thy right hand guide us through the world
Wherein we stumble. God! what shall we say?
How has he sinned? How else should he have done?
Surely he sought thy praisethy praise, for all
He might be busied by the task so much
As half forget awhile its proper end.
Dost thou well, Lord? Thou canst not but prefer
That I should range myself upon his side
How could he stop at every step to set
Thy glory forth? Hadst thou but granted him
Success, thy honour would have crowned success,
A halo round a star. Or, say he erred,
Save him, dear God; it will be like thee: bathe him
In light and life! Thou art not made like us;
We should be wroth in such a case; but thou
Forgivestso, forgive these passionate thoughts
Which come unsought and will not pass away!
I know thee, who hast kept my path, and made
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow
So that it reached me like a solemn joy;
It were too strange that I should doubt thy love.
But what am I? Thou madest him and knowest
How he was fashioned. I could never err
That way: the quiet place beside thy feet,
Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts:
But hethou shouldst have favoured him as well!
Ah! he wakens! Aureole, I am here! 't is Festus!
I cast away all wishes save one wish
Let him but know me, only speak to me!
He mutters; louder and louder; any other
Than I, with brain less laden, could collect
What he pours forth. Dear Aureole, do but look!
Is it talking or singing, this he utters fast?
Misery that he should fix me with his eye,
Quick talking to some other all the while!
If he would husband this wild vehemence
Which frustrates its intent!I heard, I know
I heard my name amid those rapid words.
Oh, he will know me yet! Could I divert
This current, lead it somehow gently back
Into the channels of the past!His eye
Brighter than ever! It must recognize me!
I am Erasmus: I am here to pray
That Paracelsus use his skill for me.
The schools of Paris and of Padua send
These questions for your learning to resolve.
We are your students, noble master: leave
This wretched cell, what business have you here?
Our class awaits you; come to us once more!
(O agony! the utmost I can do
Touches him not; how else arrest his ear?)
I am commissioned . . . I shall craze like him.
Better be mute and see what God shall send.
Paracelsus.
Stay, stay with me!
Festus.
I will; I am come here
To stay with youFestus, you loved of old;
Festus, you know, you must know!
Paracelsus.
Festus! Where's
Aprile, then? Has he not chanted softly
The melodies I heard all night? I could not
Get to him for a cold hand on my breast,
But I made out his music well enough,
O well enough! If they have filled him full
With magical music, as they freight a star
With light, and have remitted all his sin,
They will forgive me too, I too shall know!
Festus.
Festus, your Festus!
Paracelsus.
Ask him if Aprile
Knows as he Lovesif I shall Love and Know?
I try; but that cold hand, like leadso cold!
Festus.
My hand, see!
Paracelsus.
Ah, the curse, Aprile, Aprile!
We get so nearso very, very near!
'T is an old tale: Jove strikes the Titans down,
Not when they set about their mountain-piling
But when another rock would crown the work.
And Phaetondoubtless his first radiant plunge
Astonished mortals, though the gods were calm,
And Jove prepared his thunder: all old tales!
Festus.
And what are these to you?
Paracelsus.
Ay, fiends must laugh
So cruelly, so well! most like I never
Could tread a single pleasure underfoot,
But they were grinning by my side, were chuckling
To see me toil and drop away by flakes!
Hell-spawn! I am glad, most glad, that thus I fail!
Your cunning has o'ershot its aim. One year,
One month, perhaps, and I had served your turn!
You should have curbed your spite awhile. But now,
Who will believe 't was you that held me back?
Listen: there's shame and hissing and contempt,
And none but laughs who names me, none but spits
Measureless scorn upon me, me alone,
The quack, the cheat, the liar,all on me!
And thus your famous plan to sink mankind
In silence and despair, by teaching them
One of their race had probed the inmost truth,
Had done all man could do, yet failed no less
Your wise plan proves abortive. Men despair?
Ha, ha! why, they are hooting the empiric,
The ignorant and incapable fool who rushed
Madly upon a work beyond his wits;
Nor doubt they but the simplest of themselves
Could bring the matter to triumphant issue.
So, pick and choose among them all, accursed!
Try now, persuade some other to slave for you,
To ruin body and soul to work your ends!
No, no; I am the first and last, I think.
Festus.
Dear friend, who are accursed? who has done
Paracelsus.
What have I done? Fiends dare ask that? or you,
Brave men? Oh, you can chime in boldly, backed
By the others! What had you to do, sage peers?
Here stand my rivals; Latin, Arab, Jew,
Greek, join dead hands against me: all I ask
Is, that the world enrol my name with theirs,
And even this poor privilege, it seems,
They range themselves, prepared to disallow.
Only observe! why, fiends may learn from them!
How they talk calmly of my throes, my fierce
Aspirings, terrible watchings, each one claiming
Its price of blood and brain; how they dissect
And sneeringly disparage the few truths
Got at a life's cost; they too hanging the while
About my neck, their lies misleading me
And their dead names browbeating me! Grey crew,
Yet steeped in fresh malevolence from hell,
Is there a reason for your hate? My truths
Have shaken a little the palm about each prince?
Just think, Aprile, all these leering dotards
Were bent on nothing less than to be crowned
As we! That yellow blear-eyed wretch in chief
To whom the rest cringe low with feigned respect,
Galen of Pergamos and hellnay speak
The tale, old man! We met there face to face:
I said the crown should fall from thee. Once more
We meet as in that ghastly vestibule:
Look to my brow! Have I redeemed my pledge?
Festus.
Peace, peace; ah, see!
Paracelsus.
Oh, emptiness of fame!
Oh Persic Zoroaster, lord of stars!
Who said these old renowns, dead long ago,
Could make me overlook the living world
To gaze through gloom at where they stood, indeed,
But stand no longer? What a warm light life
After the shade! In truth, my delicate witch,
My serpent-queen, you did but well to hide
The juggles I had else detected. Fire
May well run harmless o'er a breast like yours!
The cave was not so darkened by the smoke
But that your white limbs dazzled me: oh, white,
And panting as they twinkled, wildly dancing!
I cared not for your passionate gestures then,
But now I have forgotten the charm of charms,
The foolish knowledge which I came to seek,
While I remember that quaint dance; and thus
I am come back, not for those mummeries,
But to love you, and to kiss your little feet
Soft as an ermine's winter coat!
Festus.
A light
Will struggle through these thronging words at last.
As in the angry and tumultuous West
A soft star trembles through the drifting clouds.
These are the strivings of a spirit which hates
So sad a vault should coop it, and calls up
The past to stand between it and its fate.
Were he at Einsiedelnor Michal here!
Paracelsus.
Cruel! I seek her nowI kneelI shriek
I clasp her vesturebut she fades, still fades;
And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!
'T is only when they spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,
And all at once they leave you, and you know them!
We are so fooled, so cheated! Why, even now
I am not too secure against foul play;
The shadows deepen and the walls contract:
No doubt some treachery is going on.
'T is very dusk. Where are we put, Aprile?
Have they left us in the lurch? This murky loathsome
Death-trap, this slaughter-house, is not the hall
In the golden city! Keep by me, Aprile!
There is a hand groping amid the blackness
To catch us. Have the spider-fingers got you,
Poet? Hold on me for your life! If once
They pull you!Hold!
'Tis but a dreamno more!
I have you still; the sun comes out again;
Let us be happy: all will yet go well!
Let us confer: is it not like, Aprile,
That spite of trouble, this ordeal passed,
The value of my labours ascertained,
Just as some stream foams long among the rocks
But after glideth glassy to the sea,
So, full content shall henceforth be my lot?
What think you, poet? Louder! Your clear voice
Vibrates too like a harp-string. Do you ask
How could I still remain on earth, should God
Grant me the great approval which I seek?
I, you, and God can comprehend each other,
But men would murmur, and with cause enough;
For when they saw me, stainless of all sin,
Preserved and sanctified by inward light,
They would complain that comfort, shut from them,
I drank thus unespied; that they live on,
Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy,
For ache and care and doubt and weariness,
While I am calm; help being vouchsafed to me,
And hid from them.'T were best consider that!
You reason well, Aprile; but at least
Let me know this, and die! Is this too much?
I will learn this, if God so please, and die!
If thou shalt please, dear God, if thou shalt please!
We are so weak, we know our motives least
In their confused beginning. If at first
I sought . . . but wherefore bare my heart to thee?
I know thy mercy; and already thoughts
Flock fast about my soul to comfort it,
And intimate I cannot wholly fail,
For love and praise would clasp me willingly
Could I resolve to seek them. Thou art good,
And I should be content. Yetyet first show
I have done wrong in daring! Rather give
The supernatural consciousness of strength
Which fed my youth! Only one hour of that
With thee to helpO what should bar me then!
Lost, lost! Thus things are ordered here! God's creatures,
And yet he takes no pride in us!none, none!
Truly there needs another life to come!
If this be all(I must tell Festus that)
And other life await us notfor one,
I say 't is a poor cheat, a stupid bungle,
A wretched failure. I, for one, protest
Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn.
Well, onward though alone! Small time remains,
And much to do: I must have fruit, must reap
Some profit from my toils. I doubt my body
Will hardly serve me through; while I have laboured
It has decayed; and now that I demand
Its best assistance, it will crumble fast:
A sad thought, a sad fate! How very full
Of wormwood 't is, that just at altar-service,
The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke,
When glory dawns and all is at the best,
The sacred fire may flicker and grow faint
And die for want of a wood-piler's help!
Thus fades the flagging body, and the soul
Is pulled down in the overthrow. Well, well
Let men catch every word, let them lose nought
Of what I say; something may yet be done.
They are ruins! Trust me who am one of you!
All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now.
It makes my heart sick to behold you crouch
Beside your desolate fane: the arches dim,
The crumbling columns grand against the moon,
Could I but rear them up once morebut that
May never be, so leave them! Trust me, friends,
Why should you linger here when I have built
A far resplendent temple, all your own?
Trust me, they are but ruins! See, Aprile,
Men will not heed! Yet were I not prepared
With better refuge for them, tongue of mine
Should ne'er reveal how blank their dwelling is:
I would sit down in silence with the rest.
Ha, what? you spit at me, you grin and shriek
Contempt into my earmy ear which drank
God's accents once? you curse me? Why men, men,
I am not formed for it! Those hideous eyes
Will be before me sleeping, waking, praying,
They will not let me even die. Spare, spare me,
Sinning or no, forget that, only spare me
The horrible scorn! You thought I could support it.
But now you see what silly fragile creature
Cowers thus. I am not good nor bad enough,
Not Christ nor Cain, yet even Cain was saved
From Hate like this. Let me but totter back!
Perhaps I shall elude those jeers which creep
Into my very brain, and shut these scorched
Eyelids and keep those mocking faces out.
Listen, Aprile! I am very calm:
Be not deceived, there is no passion here
Where the blood leaps like an imprisoned thing:
I am calm: I will exterminate the race!
Enough of that: 't is said and it shall be.
And now be merry: safe and sound am I
Who broke through their best ranks to get at you.
And such a havoc, such a rout, Aprile!
Festus.
Have you no thought, no memory for me,
Aureole? I am so wretchedmy pure Michal
Is gone, and you alone are left me now,
And even you forget me. Take my hand
Lean on me thus. Do you not know me, Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Festus, my own friend, you are come at last?
As you say, 't is an awful enterprise;
But you believe I shall go through with it:
'T is like you, and I thank you. Thank him for me,
Dear Michal! See how bright St. Saviour's spire
Flames in the sunset; all its figures quaint
Gay in the glancing light: you might conceive them
A troop of yellow-vested white-haired Jews
Bound for their own land where redemption dawns.
Festus.
Not that blest timenot our youth's time, dear God!
Paracelsus.
Hastay! true, I forgetall is done since,
And he is come to judge me. How he speaks,
How calm, how well! yes, it is true, all true;
All quackery; all deceit; myself can laugh
The first at it, if you desire: but still
You know the obstacles which taught me tricks
So foreign to my natureenvy and hate,
Blind opposition, brutal prejudice,
Bald ignorancewhat wonder if I sunk
To humour men the way they most approved?
My cheats were never palmed on such as you,
Dear Festus! I will kneel if you require me,
Impart the meagre knowledge I possess,
Explain its bounded nature, and avow
My insufficiencywhate'er you will:
I give the fight up: let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
I want to be forgotten even by God.
But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me,
When I shall die, within some narrow grave,
Not by itselffor that would be too proud
But where such graves are thickest; let it look
Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round,
So that the peasant at his brother's bed
May tread upon my own and know it not;
And we shall all be equal at the last,
Or classed according to life's natural ranks,
Fathers, sons, brothers, friendsnot rich, nor wise,
Nor gifted: lay me thus, then say, "He lived
"Too much advanced before his brother men;
"They kept him still in front: 't was for their good
"But yet a dangerous station. It were strange
"That he should tell God he had never ranked
"With men: so, here at least he is a man."
Festus.
That God shall take thee to his breast, dear spirit,
Unto his breast, be sure! and here on earth
Shall splendour sit upon thy name for ever.
Sun! all the heaven is glad for thee: what care
If lower mountains light their snowy phares
At thine effulgence, yet acknowledge not
The source of day? Their theft shall be their bale:
For after-ages shall retrack thy beams,
And put aside the crowd of busy ones
And worship thee alonethe master-mind,
The thinker, the explorer, the creator!
Then, who should sneer at the convulsive throes
With which thy deeds were born, would scorn as well
The sheet of winding subterraneous fire
Which, pent and writhing, sends no less at last
Huge islands up amid the simmering sea.
Behold thy might in me! thou hast infused
Thy soul in mine; and I am grand as thou,
Seeing I comprehend theeI so simple,
Thou so august. I recognize thee first;
I saw thee rise, I watched thee early and late,
And though no glance reveal thou dost accept
My homagethus no less I proffer it,
And bid thee enter gloriously thy rest.
Paracelsus.
Festus!
Festus.
I am for noble Aureole, God!
I am upon his side, come weal or woe.
His portion shall be mine. He has done well.
I would have sinned, had I been strong enough,
As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive
Reward! If thou canst find no place for him,
He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be
His slave for ever. There are two of us.
Paracelsus.
Dear Festus!
Festus.
Here, dear Aureole! ever by you!
Paracelsus.
Nay, speak on, or I dream again. Speak on!
Some story, anythingonly your voice.
I shall dream else. Speak on! ay, leaning so!
Festus.
Thus the Mayne glideth
Where my Love abideth.
Sleep's no softer: it proceeds
On through lawns, on through meads,
On and on, whate'er befall,
Meandering and musical,
Though the ****rd pasturage
Bears not on its shaven ledge
Aught but weeds and waving grasses
To view the river as it passes,
Save here and there a scanty patch
Of primroses too faint to catch
A weary bee.
Paracelsus.
More, more; say on!
Festus.
And scarce it pushes
Its gentle way through strangling rushes
Where the glossy kingfisher
Flutters when noon-heats are near,
Glad the shelving banks to shun,
Red and steaming in the sun,
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat
Burrows, and the speckled stoat;
Where the quick sandpipers flit
In and out the marl and grit
That seems to breed them, brown as they:
Nought disturbs its quiet way,
Save some lazy stork that springs,
Trailing it with legs and wings,
Whom the shy fox from the hill
Rouses, creep he ne'er so still.
Paracelsus.
My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;
Its darkness passes, which nought else could touch:
Like some dark snake that force may not expel,
Which glideth out to music sweet and low.
What were you doing when your voice broke through
A chaos of ugly images? You, indeed!
Are you alone here?
Festus.
All alone: you know me?
This cell?
Paracelsus.
An unexceptionable vault:
Good brick and stone: the bats kept out, the rats
Kept in: a snug nook: how should I mistake it?
Festus.
But wherefore am I here?
Paracelsus.
Ah, well remembered!
Why, for a purposefor a purpose, Festus!
'T is like me: here I trifle while time fleets,
And this occasion, lost, will ne'er return.
You are here to be instructed. I will tell
God's message; but I have so much to say,
I fear to leave half out. All is confused
No doubt; but doubtless you will learn in time.
He would not else have brought you here: no doubt
I shall see clearer soon.
Festus.
Tell me but this
You are not in despair?
Paracelsus.
I? and for what?
Festus.
Alas, alas! he knows not, as I feared!
Paracelsus.
What is it you would ask me with that earnest
Dear searching face?
Festus.
How feel you, Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Well:
Well. 'T is a strange thing: I am dying, Festus,
And now that fast the storm of life subsides,
I first perceive how great the whirl has been.
I was calm then, who am so dizzy now
Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no less
A partner of its motion and mixed up
With its career. The hurricane is spent,
And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather;
But is it earth or sea that heaves below?
The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'erstrewn
With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore;
And now some slet, loosened from the land,
Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean;
And now the air is full of uptorn canes,
Light strippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks
Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them,
All high in the wind. Even so my varied life
Drifts by me; I am young, old, happy, sad,
Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest,
And all at once: that is, those past conditions
Float back at once on me. If I select
Some special epoch from the crowd, 't is but
To will, and straight the rest dissolve away,
And only that particular state is present
With all its long-forgotten circumstance
Distinct and vivid as at firstmyself
A careless looker-on and nothing more,
Indifferent and amused, but nothing more.
And this is death: I understand it all.
New being waits me; new perceptions must
Be born in me before I plunge therein;
Which last is Death's affair; and while I speak,
Minute by minute he is filling me
With power; and while my foot is on the threshold
Of boundless lifethe doors unopened yet,
All preparations not complete within
I turn new knowledge upon old events,
And the effect is . . . but I must not tell;
It is not lawful. Your own turn will come
One day. Wait, Festus! You will die like me.
Festus.
'T is of that past life that I burn to hear.
Paracelsus.
You wonder it engages me just now?
In truth, I wonder too. What 's life to me?
Where'er I look is fire, where'er I listen
Music, and where I tend bliss evermore.
Yet how can I refrain? 'T is a refined
Delight to view those chances,one last view.
I am so near the perils I escape,
That I must play with them and turn them over,
To feel how fully they are past and gone.
Still, it is like, some further cause exists
For this peculiar moodsome hidden purpose;
Did I not tell you something of it, Festus?
I had it fast, but it has somehow slipt
Away from me; it will return anon.
Festus.
(Indeed his cheek seems young again, his voice
Complete with its old tones: that little laugh
Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye,
As though one stooped above his head to whom
He looked for confirmation and approval,
Where was it gone so long, so well preserved?
Then, the fore-finger pointing as he speaks,
Like one who traces in an open book
The matter he declares; 't is many a year
Since I remarked it last: and this in him,
But now a ghastly wreck!)
And can it be,
Dear Aureole, you have then found out at last
That worldly things are utter vanity?
That man is made for weakness, and should wait
In patient ignorance, till God appoint . . .
Paracelsus.
Ha, the purpose: the true purpose: that is it!
How could I fail to apprehend! You here,
I thus! But no more trifling: I see all,
I know all: my last mission shall be done
If strength suffice. No trifling! Stay; this posture
Hardly befits one thus about to speak:
I will arise.
Festus.
Nay, Aureole, are you wild?
You cannot leave your couch.
Paracelsus.
No help; no help;
Not even your hand. So! there, I stand once more!
Speak from a couch? I never lectured thus.
My gownthe scarlet lined with fur; now put
The chain about my neck; my signet-ring
Is still upon my hand, I thinkeven so;
Last, my good sword; ah, trusty Azoth, leapest
Beneath thy master's grasp for the last time?
This couch shall be my throne: I bid these walls
Be consecrate, this wretched cell become
A shrine, for here God speaks to men through me.
Now, Festus, I am ready to begin.
Festus.
I am dumb with wonder.
Paracelsus.
Listen, therefore, Festus!
There will be time enough, but none to spare.
I must content myself with telling only
The most important points. You doubtless feel
That I am happy, Festus; very happy.
Festus.
'T is no delusion which uplifts him thus!
Then you are pardoned, Aureole, all your sin?
Paracelsus.
Ay, pardoned: yet why pardoned?
Festus.
'T is God's praise
That man is bound to seek, and you . . .
Paracelsus.
Have lived!
We have to live alone to set forth well
God's praise. 'T is true, I sinned much, as I thought,
And in effect need mercy, for I strove
To do that very thing; but, do your best
Or worst, praise rises, and will rise for ever
Pardon from him, because of praise denied
Who calls me to himself to exalt himself?
He might laugh as I laugh!
Festus.
But all comes
To the same thing. 'T is fruitless for mankind
To fret themselves with what concerns them not;
They are no use that way: they should lie down
Content as God has made them, nor go mad
In thriveless cares to better what is ill.
Paracelsus.
No, no; mistake me not; let me not work
More harm than I have worked! This is my case:
If I go joyous back to God, yet bring
No offering, if I render up my soul
Without the fruits it was ordained to bear,
If I appear the better to love God
For sin, as one who has no claim on him,-
Be not deceived! It may be surely thus
With me, while higher prizes still await
The mortal persevering to the end.
Beside I am not all so valueless:
I have been something, though too soon I left
Following the instincts of that happy time.
Festus.
What happy time? For God's sake, for man's sake,
What time was happy? All I hope to know
That answer will decide. What happy time?
Paracelsus.
When but the time I vowed myself to man?
Festus.
Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable!
Paracelsus.
Yes, it was in me; I was born for it
I, Paracelsus: it was mine by right.
Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul
Might learn from its own motions that some task
Like this awaited it about the world;
Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours
For fit delights to stay its longings vast;
And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her
To fill the creature full she dared thus frame
Hungry for joy; and, bravely tyrannous,
Grow in demand, still craving more and more,
And make each joy conceded prove a pledge
Of other joy to followbating nought
Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence
To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung
As an extreme, last boon, from destiny,
Into occasion for new coyetings,
New strifes, new triumphs:doubtless a strong soul,
Alone, unaided might attain to this,
So glorious is our nature, so august
Man's inborn uninstructed impulses,
His naked spirit so majestical!
But this was born in me; I was made so;
Thus much time saved: the feverish appeties,
The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed
Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind,
Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears
Were saved me; thus I entered on my course.
You may be sure I was not all exempt
From human trouble; just so much of doubt
As bade me plant a surer foot upon
The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid
The fierce and flashing splendour, set my heart
Trembling so much as warned me I stood there
On sufferancenot to idly gaze, but cast
Light on a darkling race; save for that doubt,
I stood at first where all aspire at last
To stand: the secret of the world was mine.
I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift
And change in the spirit,nay, in every pore
Of the body, even,)what God is, what we are,
What life ishow God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite waysone everlasting bliss,
From whom all being emanates, all power
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest form
Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is he;
With still a flying point of bliss remote,
A happiness in store afar, a sphere
Of distant glory in full view; thus climbs
Pleasure its heights for ever and for ever.
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask
God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When, in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plainand God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To manthe consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life: whose attributes had here and there
Been scattered o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man.
Powerneither put forth blindly, nor controlled
Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be used
At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear:
Knowledgenot intuition, but the slow
Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil,
Strengthened by love: lovenot serenely pure,
But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant
Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds
And softer stains, unknown in happier climes;
Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed
And cherished, suffering much and much sustained,
And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love,
A half-enlightened, often-chequered trust:
Hints and previsions of which faculties,
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last. So far the seal
Is put on life; one stage of being complete,
One scheme wound up: and from the grand result
A supplementary reflux of light,
Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains
Each back step in the circle. Not alone
For their possessor dawn those qualities,
But the new glory mixes with the heaven
And earth; man, once descried, imprints for ever
His presence on all lifeless things: the winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh,
Never a senseless gust now man is born.
The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts
A secret they assemble to discuss
When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare
Like grates of hell: the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head: no bird
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye.
The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops
With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour,
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face:
And this to fill us with regard for man.
With apprehension of his passing worth,
Desire to work his proper nature out,
And ascertain his rank and final place,
For these things tend still upward, progress is
The law of life, man is not Man as yet.
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there a star dispels
The darkness, here and there a towering mind
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host
Is out at once to the despair of night,
When all mankind alike is perfected,
Equal in full-blown powersthen, not till then,
I say, begins man's general infancy.
For wherefore make account of feverish starts
Of restless members of a dormant whole,
Impatient nerves which quiver while the body
Slumbers as in a grave? Oh long ago
The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir,
The peaceful mouth disturbed; half-uttered speech
Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set,
The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched stronger,
As it would pluck a lion by the jaw;
The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep!
But when full roused, each giant-limb awake,
Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast,
He shall start up and stand on his own earth,
Then shall his long triumphant march begin,
Thence shall his being date,thus wholly roused,
What he achieves shall be set down to him.
When all the race is perfected alike
As man, that is; all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far:
But in completed man begins anew
A tendency to God. Prognostics told
Man's near approach; so in man's self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types
Of a dim splendour ever on before
In that eternal circle life pursues.
For men begin to pass their nature's bound,
And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant
Their proper joys and griefs; they grow too great
For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade
Before the unmeasured thirst for good: while peace
Rises within them ever more and more.
Such men are even now upon the earth,
Serene amid the half-formed creatures round
Who should be saved by them and joined with them.
Such was my task, and I was born to it
Free, as I said but now, from much that chains
Spirits, high-dowered but limited and vexed
By a divided and delusive aim,
A shadow mocking a reality
Whose truth avails not wholly to disperse
The flitting mimic called up by itself,
And so remains perplexed and nigh put out
By its fantastic fellow's wavering gleam.
I, from the first, was never cheated thus;
I never fashioned out a fancied good
Distinct from man's; a service to be done,
A glory to be ministered unto
With powers put forth at man's expense, withdrawn
From labouring in his behalf; a strength
Denied that might avail him. I cared not
Lest his success ran counter to success
Elsewhere: for God is glorified in man,
And to man's glory vowed I soul and limb.
Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed,
I failed: I gazed on power till I grew blind.
Power; I could not take my eyes from that:
That only, I thought, should be preserved, increased
At any risk, displayed, struck out at once-
The sign and note and character of man.
I saw no use in the past: only a scene
Of degradation, ugliness and tears,
The record of disgraces best forgotten,
A sullen page in human chronicles
Fit to erase. I saw no cause why man
Should not stand all-sufficient even now,
Or why his annals should be forced to tell
That once the tide of light, about to break
Upon the world, was sealed within its spring:
I would have had one day, one moment's space,
Change man's condition, push each slumbering claim
Of mastery o'er the elemental world
At once to full maturity, then roll
Oblivion o'er the work, and hide from man
What night had ushered morn. Not so, dear child
Of after-days, wilt thou reject the past
Big with deep warnings of the proper tenure
By which thou hast the earth: for thee the present
Shall have distinct and trembling beauty, seen
Beside that past's own shade when, in relief,
Its brightness shall stand out: nor yet on thee
Shall burst the future, as successive zones
Of several wonder open on some spirit
Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven:
But thou shalt painfully attain to joy,
While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man!
All this was hid from me: as one by one
My dreams grew dim, my wide aims circumscribed,
As actual good within my reach decreased,
While obstacles sprung up this way and that
To keep me from effecting half the sum,
Small as it proved; as objects, mean within
The primal aggregate, seemed, even the least,
Itself a match for my concentred strength
What wonder if I saw no way to shun
Despair? The power I sought for man, seemed God's.
In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die,
A strange adventure made me know, one sin
Had spotted my career from its uprise;
I saw Aprilemy Aprile there!
And as the poor melodious wretch disburthened
His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear,
I learned my own deep error; love's undoing
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate,
And what proportion love should hold with power
In his right constitution; love preceding
Power, and with much power, always much more love;
Love still too straitened in his present means,
And earnest for new power to set love free.
I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned:
And thus, when men received with stupid wonder
My first revealings, would have worshipped me,
And I despised and loathed their proffered praise
When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge
For past credulity in casting shame
On my real knowledge, and I hated them
It was not strange I saw no good in man,
To overbalance all the wear and waste
Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born
To prosper in some better sphere: and why?
In my own heart love had not been made wise
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind,
To know even hate is but a mask of love's,
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,
Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts;
All with a touch of nobleness, despite
Their error, upward tending all though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men
Regard me, and the poet dead long ago
Who loved too rashly; and shape forth a third
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both:
As from the over-radiant star too mad
To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself
And the dark orb which borders the abyss,
Ingulfed in icy night,might have its course
A temperate and equidistant world.
Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well.
As yet men cannot do without contempt;
'T is for their good, and therefore fit awhile
That they reject the weak, and scorn the false,
Rather than praise the strong and true, in me:
But after, they will know me. If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day.
You understand me? I have said enough?
Festus.
Now die, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Festus, let my hand
This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend!
Aprile! Hand in hand with you, Aprile!
Festus.
And this was Paracelsus!
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part V - Paracelsus Attains
,#NFDB
162:Scene. Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526.
Paracelsus, Festus.
Paracelsus.
Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out!
Festus.
True, true!
'T is very fit all, time and chance and change
Have wrought since last we sat thus, face to face
And soul to soulall cares, far-looking fears,
Vague apprehensions, all vain fancies bred
By your long absence, should be cast away,
Forgotten in this glad unhoped renewal
Of our affections.
Paracelsus.
Oh, omit not aught
Which witnesses your own and Michal's own
Affection: spare not that! Only forget
The honours and the glories and what not,
It pleases you to tell profusely out.
Festus.
Nay, even your honours, in a sense, I waive:
The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser,
Fate's commissary, idol of the schools
And courts, shall be no more than Aureole still,
Still Aureole and my friend as when we parted
Some twenty years ago, and I restrained
As best I could the promptings of my spirit
Which secretly advanced you, from the first,
To the pre-eminent rank which, since, your own
Adventurous ardour, nobly triumphing,
Has won for you.
Paracelsus.
Yes, yes. And Michal's face
Still wears that quiet and peculiar light
Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl?
Festus.
Just so.
Paracelsus.
And yet her calm sweet countenance,
Though saintly, was not sad; for she would sing
Alone. Does she still sing alone, bird-like,
Not dreaming you are near? Her carols dropt
In flakes through that old leafy bower built under
The sunny wall at Wrzburg, from her lattice
Among the trees above, while I, unseen,
Sat conning some rare scroll from Tritheim's shelves
Much wondering notes so simple could divert
My mind from study. Those were happy days.
Respect all such as sing when all alone!
Festus.
Scarcely alone: her children, you may guess,
Are wild beside her.
Paracelsus.
Ah, those children quite
Unsettle the pure picture in my mind:
A girl, she was so perfect, so distinct:
No change, no change! Not but this added grace
May blend and harmonize with its compeers,
And Michal may become her motherhood;
But't is a change, and I detest all change,
And most a change in aught I loved long since.
So, Michalyou have said she thinks of me?
Festus.
O very proud will Michal be of you!
Imagine how we sat, long winter-nights,
Scheming and wondering, shaping your presumed
Adventure, or devising its reward;
Shutting out fear with all the strength of hope.
For it was strange how, even when most secure
In our domestic peace, a certain dim
And flitting shade could sadden all; it seemed
A restlessness of heart, a silent yearning,
A sense of something wanting, incomplete
Not to be put in words, perhaps avoided
By mute consentbut, said or unsaid, felt
To point to one so loved and so long lost.
And then the hopes rose and shut out the fears
How you would laugh should I recount them now
I still predicted your return at last
With gifts beyond the greatest of them all,
All Tritheim's wondrous troop; did one of which
Attain renown by any chance, I smiled,
As well aware of who would prove his peer
Michal was sure some woman, long ere this,
As beautiful as you were sage, had loved . . .
Paracelsus.
Far-seeing, truly, to discern so much
In the fantastic projects and day-dreams
Of a raw restless boy!
Festus.
Oh, no: the sunrise
Well warranted our faith in this full noon!
Can I forget the anxious voice which said
"Festus, have thoughts like these ere shaped themselves
"In other brains than mine? have their possessors
"Existed in like circumstance? were they weak
"As I, or ever constant from the first,
"Despising youth's allurements and rejecting
"As spider-films the shackles I endure?
"Is there hope for me?"and I answered gravely
As an acknowledged elder, calmer, wiser,
More gifted mortal. O you must remember,
For all your glorious . . .
Paracelsus.
Glorious? ay, this hair,
These handsnay, touch them, they are mine! Recall
With all the said recallings, times when thus
To lay them by your own ne'er turned you pale
As now. Most glorious, are they not?
Festus.
Whywhy
Something must be subtracted from success
So wide, no doubt. He would be scrupulous, truly,
Who should object such drawbacks. Still, still, Aureole,
You are changed, very changed! 'T were losing nothing
To look well to it: you must not be stolen
From the enjoyment of your well-won meed.
Paracelsus.
My friend! you seek my pleasure, past a doubt:
You will best gain your point, by talking, not
Of me, but of yourself.
Festus.
Have I not said
All touching Michal and my children? Sure
You know, by this, full well how Aennchen looks
Gravely, while one disparts her thick brown hair;
And Aureole's glee when some stray gannet builds
Amid the birch-trees by the lake. Small hope
Have I that he will honour (the wild imp)
His namesake. Sigh not! 't is too much to ask
That all we love should reach the same proud fate.
But you are very kind to humour me
By showing interest in my quiet life;
You, who of old could never tame yourself
To tranquil pleasures, must at heart despise . . .
Paracelsus.
Festus, strange secrets are let out by death
Who blabs so oft the follies of this world:
And I am death's familiar, as you know.
I helped a man to die, some few weeks since,
Warped even from his go-cart to one end
The living on princes' smiles, reflected from
A mighty herd of favourites. No mean trick
He left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed
All traces of God's finger out of him:
Then died, grown old. And just an hour before,
Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes,
He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice
Said that in spite of thick air and closed doors
God told him it was June; and he knew well,
Without such telling, harebells grew in June;
And all that kings could ever give or take
Would not be precious as those blooms to him.
Just so, allowing I am passing sage,
It seems to me much worthier argument
Why pansies,[1] eyes that laugh, bear beauty's prize
From violets, eyes that dream(your Michal's choice)
Than all fools find to wonder at in me
Or in my fortunes. And be very sure
I say this from no prurient restlessness,
No self-complacency, itching to turn,
Vary and view its pleasure from all points,
And, in this instance, willing other men
May be at pains, demonstrate to itself
The realness of the very joy it tastes.
What should delight me like the news of friends
Whose memories were a solace to me oft,
As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight?
Ofter than you had wasted thought on me
Had you been wise, and rightly valued bliss.
But there's no taming nor repressing hearts:
God knows I need such!So, you heard me speak?
Festus.
Speak? when?
Paracelsus.
When but this morning at my class?
There was noise and crowd enough. I saw you not.
Surely you know I am engaged to fill
The chair here?that't is part of my proud fate
To lecture to as many thick-skulled youths
As please, each day, to throng the theatre,
To my great reputation, and no small
Danger of Basil's benches long unused
To crack beneath such honour?
Festus.
I was there;
I mingled with the throng: shall I avow
Small care was mine to listen?too intent
On gathering from the murmurs of the crowd
A full corroboration of my hopes!
What can I learn about your powers? but they
Know, care for nought beyond your actual state,
Your actual value; yet they worship you,
Those various natures whom you sway as one!
But ere I go, be sure I shall attend . . .
Paracelsus.
Stop, o' God's name: the thing's by no means yet
Past remedy! Shall I read this morning's labour
At least in substance? Nought so worth the gaining
As an apt scholar! Thus then, with all due
Precision and emphasisyou, beside, are clearly
Guiltless of understanding more, a whit,
The subject than your stoolallowed to be
A notable advantage.
Festus.
Surely, Aureole,
You laugh at me!
Paracelsus.
I laugh? Ha, ha! thank heaven,
I charge you, if't be so! for I forget
Much, and what laughter should be like. No less,
However, I forego that luxury
Since it alarms the friend who brings it back.
True, laughter like my own must echo strangely
To thinking men; a smile were better far;
So, make me smile! If the exulting look
You wore but now be smiling, 't is so long
Since I have smiled! Alas, such smiles are born
Alone of hearts like yours, or herdsmen's souls
Of ancient time, whose eyes, calm as their flocks,
Saw in the stars mere garnishry of heaven,
And in the earth a stage for altars only.
Never change, Festus: I say, never change!
Festus.
My God, if he be wretched after all
Paracelsus.
When last we parted, Festus, you declared,
Or Michal, yes, her soft lips whispered words
I have preserved. She told me she believed
I should succeed (meaning, that in the search
I then engaged in, I should meet success)
And yet be wretched: now, she augured false.
Festus.
Thank heaven! but you spoke strangely: could I venture
To think bare apprehension lest your friend,
Dazzled by your resplendent course, might find
Henceforth less sweetness in his own, could move
Such earnest mood in you? Fear not, dear friend,
That I shall leave you, inwardly repining
Your lot was not my own!
Paracelsus.
And this for ever!
For ever! gull who may, they will be gulled!
They will not look nor think;'t is nothing new
In them: but surely he is not of them!
My Festus, do you know, I reckoned, you
Though all beside were sand-blindyou, my friend,
Would look at me, once close, with piercing eye
Untroubled by the false glare that confounds
A weaker vision: would remain serene,
Though singular amid a gaping throng.
I feared you, or I had come, sure, long ere this,
To Einsiedeln. Well, error has no end,
And Rhasis is a sage, and Basil boasts
A tribe of wits, and I am wise and blest
Past all dispute! 'T is vain to fret at it.
I have vowed long ago my worshippers
Shall owe to their own deep sagacity
All further information, good or bad.
Small risk indeed my reputation runs,
Unless perchance the glance now searching me
Be fixed much longer; for it seems to spell
Dimly the characters a simpler man
Might read distinct enough. Old Eastern books
Say, the fallen prince of morning some short space
Remained unchanged in semblance; nay, his brow
Was hued with triumph: every spirit then
Praising, his heart on flame the while:a tale!
Well, Festus, what discover you, I pray?
Festus.
Some foul deed sullies then a life which else
Were raised supreme?
Paracelsus.
Good: I do well, most well
Why strive to make men hear, feel, fret themselves
With what is past their power to comprehend?
I should not strive now: only, having nursed
The faint surmise that one yet walked the earth,
One, at least, not the utter fool of show,
Not absolutely formed to be the dupe
Of shallow plausibilities alone:
One who, in youth, found wise enough to choose
The happiness his riper years approve,
Was yet so anxious for another's sake,
That, ere his friend could rush upon a mad
And ruinous course, the converse of his own,
His gentle spirit essayed, prejudged for him
The perilous path, foresaw its destiny,
And warned the weak one in such tender words,
Such accentshis whole heart in every tone
That oft their memory comforted that friend
When it by right should have increased despair:
Having believed, I say, that this one man
Could never lose the light thus from the first
His portionhow should I refuse to grieve
At even my gain if it disturb our old
Relation, if it make me out more wise?
Therefore, once more reminding him how well
He prophesied, I note the single flaw
That spoils his prophet's title. In plain words,
You were deceived, and thus were you deceived
I have not been successful, and yet am
Most miserable; 't is said at last; nor you
Give credit, lest you force me to concede
That common sense yet lives upon the world!
Festus.
You surely do not mean to banter me?
Paracelsus.
You know, orif you have been wise enough
To cleanse your memory of such mattersknew,
As far as words of mine could make it clear,
That't was my purpose to find joy or grief
Solely in the fulfilment of my plan
Or plot or whatsoe'er it was; rejoicing
Alone as it proceeded prosperously,
Sorrowing then only when mischance retarded
Its progress. That was in those Wrzburg days!
Not to prolong a theme I thoroughly hate,
I have pursued this plan with all my strength;
And having failed therein most signally,
Cannot object to ruin utter and drear
As all-excelling would have been the prize
Had fortune favoured me. I scarce have right
To vex your frank good spirit late so glad
In my supposed prosperity, I know,
And, were I lucky in a glut of friends,
Would well agree to let your error live,
Nay, strengthen it with fables of success.
But mine is no condition to refuse
The transient solace of so rare a godsend,
My solitary luxury, my one friend:
Accordingly I venture to put off
The wearisome vest of falsehood galling me,
Secure when he is by. I lay me bare
Prone at his mercybut he is my friend!
Not that he needs retain his aspect grave;
That answers not my purpose; for't is like,
Some sunny morningBasil being drained
Of its wise population, every corner
Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks,
Here OEcolampadius, looking worlds of wit,
Here Castellanus, as profound as he,
Munsterus here, Frobenius there, all squeezed
And staring,that the zany of the show,
Even Paracelsus, shall put off before them
His trappings with a grace but seldom judged
Expedient in such cases:the grim smile
That will go round! Is it not therefore best
To venture a rehearsal like the present
In a small way? Where are the signs I seek,
The first-fruits and fair sample of the scorn
Due to all quacks? Why, this will never do!
Festus.
These are foul vapours, Aureole; nought beside!
The effect of watching, study, weariness.
Were there a spark of truth in the confusion
Of these wild words, you would not outrage thus
Your youth's companion. I shall ne'er regard
These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study.
'T is not thus you would trust a trouble to me,
To Michal's friend.
Paracelsus.
I have said it, dearest Festus!
For the manner, 't is ungracious probably;
You may have it told in broken sobs, one day,
And scalding tears, ere long: but I thought best
To keep that off as long as possible.
Do you wonder still?
Festus.
No; it must oft fall out
That one whose labour perfects any work,
Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he
Of all men least can measure the extent
Of what he has accomplished. He alone
Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too,
May clearly scan the little he effects:
But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil,
Estimate each aright.
Paracelsus.
This worthy Festus
Is one of them, at last! 'T is so with all!
First, they set down all progress as a dream;
And next, when he whose quick discomfiture
Was counted on, accomplishes some few
And doubtful steps in his career,behold,
They look for every inch of ground to vanish
Beneath his tread, so sure they spy success!
Festus.
Few doubtful steps? when death retires before
Your presencewhen the noblest of mankind,
Broken in body or subdued in soul,
May through your skill renew their vigour, raise
The shattered frame to pristine stateliness?
When men in racking pain may purchase dreams
Of what delights them most, swooning at once
Into a sea of bliss or rapt along
As in a flying sphere of turbulent light?
When we may look to you as one ordained
To free the flesh from fell disease, as frees
Our Luther's burning tongue the fettered soul?
When . . .
Paracelsus.
When and where, the devil, did you get
This notable news?
Festus.
Even from the common voice;
From those whose envy, daring not dispute
The wonders it decries, attributes them
To magic and such folly.
Paracelsus.
Folly? Why not
To magic, pray? You find a comfort doubtless
In holding, God ne'er troubles him about
Us or our doings: once we were judged worth
The devil's tempting . . . I offend: forgive me,
And rest content. Your prophecy on the whole
Was fair enough as prophesyings go;
At fault a little in detail, but quite
Precise enough in the main; and hereupon
I pay due homage: you guessed long ago
(The prophet!) I should failand I have failed.
Festus.
You mean to tell me, then, the hopes which fed
Your youth have not been realized as yet?
Some obstacle has barred them hitherto?
Or that their innate . . .
Paracelsus.
As I said but now,
You have a very decent prophet's fame,
So you but shun details here. Little matter
Whether those hopes were mad,the aims they sought,
Safe and secure from all ambitious fools;
Or whether my weak wits are overcome
By what a better spirit would scorn: I fail.
And now methinks't were best to change a theme
I am a sad fool to have stumbled on.
I say confusedly what comes uppermost;
But there are times when patience proves at fault,
As now: this morning's strange encounteryou
Beside me once again! you, whom I guessed
Alive, since hitherto (with Luther's leave)
No friend have I among the saints at peace,
To judge by any good their prayers effect.
I knew you would have helped mewhy not he,
My strange competitor in enterprise,
Bound for the same end by another path,
Arrived, or ill or well, before the time,
At our disastrous journey's doubtful close?
How goes it with Aprile? Ah, they miss
Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven,
Our martyrs for the world's sake; heaven shuts fast:
The poor mad poet is howling by this time!
Since you are my sole friend then, here or there,
I could not quite repress the varied feelings
This meeting wakens; they have had their vent,
And now forget them. Do the rear-mice still
Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or what
In my time was a gate) fronting the road
From Einsiedeln to Lachen?
Festus.
Trifle not:
Answer me, for my sake alone! You smiled
Just now, when I supposed some deed, unworthy
Yourself, might blot the else so bright result;
Yet if your motives have continued pure,
Your will unfaltering, and in spite of this,
You have experienced a defeat, why then
I say not you would cheerfully withdraw
From contestmortal hearts are not so fashioned
But surely you would ne'ertheless withdraw.
You sought not fame nor gain nor even love,
No end distinct from knowledge,I repeat
Your very words: once satisfied that knowledge
Is a mere dream, you would announce as much,
Yourself the first. But how is the event?
You are defeatedand I find you here!
Paracelsus.
As though "here" did not signify defeat!
I spoke not of my little labours here,
But of the break-down of my general aims:
For you, aware of their extent and scope,
To look on these sage lecturings, approved
By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse,
As a fit consummation of such aims,
Is worthy notice. A professorship
At Basil! Since you see so much in it,
And think my life was reasonably drained
Of life's delights to render me a match
For duties arduous as such post demands,
Be it far from me to deny my power
To fill the petty circle lotted out
Of infinite space, or justify the host
Of honours thence accruing. So, take notice,
This jewel dangling from my neck preserves
The features of a prince, my skill restored
To plague his people some few years to come:
And all through a pure whim. He had eased the earth
For me, but that the droll despair which seized
The vermin of his household, tickled me.
I came to see. Here, drivelled the physician,
Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault;
There quaked the astrologer, whose horoscope
Had promised him interminable years;
Here a monk fumbled at the sick man's mouth
With some undoubted relica sudary
Of the Virgin; while another piebald knave
Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever)
Was actively preparing 'neath his nose
Such a suffumigation as, once fired,
Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan.
I cursed the doctor and upset the brother,
Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first gust
Of stench from the ingredients just alight
Would raise a cross-grained devil in my sword,
Not easily laid: and ere an hour the prince
Slept as he never slept since prince he was.
A dayand I was posting for my life,
Placarded through the town as one whose spite
Had near availed to stop the blessed effects
Of the doctor's nostrum which, well seconded
By the sudary, and most by the costly smoke
Not leaving out the strenuous prayers sent up
Hard by in the abbeyraised the prince to life:
To the great reputation of the seer
Who, confident, expected all along
The glad eventthe doctor's recompense
Much largess from his highness to the monks
And the vast solace of his loving people,
Whose general satisfaction to increase,
The prince was pleased no longer to defer
The burning of some dozen heretics
Remanded till God's mercy should be shown
Touching his sickness: last of all were joined
Ample directions to all loyal folk
To swell the complement by seizing me
Whodoubtless some rank sorcererendeavoured
To thwart these pious offices, obstruct
The prince's cure, and frustrate heaven by help
Of certain devils dwelling in his sword.
By luck, the prince in his first fit of thanks
Had forced this bauble on me as an earnest
Of further favours. This one case may serve
To give sufficient taste of many such,
So, let them pass. Those shelves support a pile
Of patents, licences, diplomas, titles
From Germany, France, Spain, and Italy;
They authorize some honour; ne'ertheless,
I set more store by this Erasmus sent;
He trusts me; our Frobenius is his friend,
And him "I raised" (nay, read it) "from the dead."
I weary you, I see. I merely sought
To show, there's no great wonder after all
That, while I fill the class-room and attract
A crowd to Basil, I get leave to stay,
And therefore need not scruple to accept
The utmost they can offer, if I please:
For't is but right the world should be prepared
To treat with favour e'en fantastic wants
Of one like me, used up in serving her.
Just as the mortal, whom the gods in part
Devoured, received in place of his lost limb
Some virtue or othercured disease, I think;
You mind the fables we have read together.
Festus.
You do not think I comprehend a word.
The time was, Aureole, you were apt enough
To clothe the airiest thoughts in specious breath;
But surely you must feel how vague and strange
These speeches sound.
Paracelsus.
Well, then: you know my hopes;
I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain;
That truth is just as far from me as ever;
That I have thrown my life away; that sorrow
On that account is idle, and further effort
To mend and patch what's marred beyond repairing,
As useless: and all this was taught your friend
By the convincing good old-fashioned method
Of forceby sheer compulsion. Is that plain?
Festus.
Dear Aureole, can it be my fears were just?
God wills not . . .
Paracelsus.
Now, 't is this I most admire
The constant talk men of your stamp keep up
Of God's will, as they style it; one would swear
Man had but merely to uplift his eye,
And see the will in question charactered
On the heaven's vault. 'T is hardly wise to moot
Such topics: doubts are many and faith is weak.
I know as much of any will of God
As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man,
His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows
That plague him every way; but there, of course,
Where least he suffers, longest he remains
My case; and for such reasons I plod on,
Subdued but not convinced. I know as little
Why I deserve to fail, as why I hoped
Better things in my youth. I simply know
I am no master here, but trained and beaten
Into the path I tread; and here I stay,
Until some further intimation reach me,
Like an obedient drudge. Though I prefer
To view the whole thing as a task imposed
Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done
Yet, I deny not, there is made provision
Of joys which tastes less jaded might affect;
Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride
Pleasures that once were pains: the iron ring
Festering about a slave's neck grows at length
Into the flesh it eats. I hate no longer
A host of petty vile delights, undreamed of
Or spurned before; such now supply the place
Of my dead aims: as in the autumn woods
Where tall trees used to flourish, from their roots
Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale,
Chill mushrooms coloured like a corpse's cheek.
Festus.
If I interpret well your words, I own
It troubles me but little that your aims,
Vast in their dawning and most likely grown
Extravagantly since, have baffled you.
Perchance I am glad; you merit greater praise;
Because they are too glorious to be gained,
You do not blindly cling to them and die;
You fell, but have not sullenly refused
To rise, because an angel worsted you
In wrestling, though the world holds not your peer;
And though too harsh and sudden is the change
To yield content as yet, still you pursue
The ungracious path as though't were rosv-strewn.
'T is well: and your reward, or soon or late,
Will come from him whom no man serves in vain.
Paracelsus.
Ah, very fine! For my part, I conceive
The very pausing from all further toil,
Which you find heinous, would become a seal
To the sincerity of all my deeds.
To be consistent I should die at once;
I calculated on no after-life;
Yet (how crept in, how fostered, I know not)
Here am I with as passionate regret
For youth and health and love so vainly lavished,
As if their preservation had been first
And foremost in my thoughts; and this strange fact
Humbled me wondrously, and had due force
In rendering me the less averse to follow
A certain counsel, a mysterious warning
You will not understandbut't was a man
With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine,
With the same fervour and no more success,
Perishing in my sight; who summoned me
As I would shun the ghastly fate I saw,
To serve my race at once; to wait no longer
That God should interfere in my behalf,
But to distrust myself, put pride away,
And give my gains, imperfect as they were,
To men. I have not leisure to explain
How, since, a singular series of events
Has raised me to the station you behold,
Wherein I seem to turn to most account
The mere wreck of the past,perhaps receive
Some feeble glimmering token that God views
And may approve my penance: therefore here
You find me, doing most good or least harm.
And if folks wonder much and profit little
'T is not my fault; only, I shall rejoice
When my part in the farce is shuffled through,
And the curtain falls: I must hold out till then.
Festus.
Till when, dear Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Till I'm fairly thrust
From my proud eminence. Fortune is fickle
And even professors fall: should that arrive,
I see no sin in ceding to my bent.
You little fancy what rude shocks apprise us
We sin; God's intimations rather fail
In clearness than in energy: 't were well
Did they but indicate the course to take
Like that to be forsaken. I would fain
Be spared a further sample. Here I stand,
And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit.
Festus.
Be you but firm on that head! long ere then
All I expect will come to pass, I trust:
The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared.
Meantime, I see small chance of such event:
They praise you here as one whose lore, already
Divulged, eclipses all the past can show,
But whose achievements, marvellous as they be,
Are faint anticipations of a glory
About to be revealed. When Basil's crowds
Dismiss their teacher, I shall be content
That he depart.
Paracelsus.
This favour at their hands
I look for earlier than your view of things
Would warrant. Of the crowd you saw to-day,
Remove the full half sheer amazement draws,
Mere novelty, nought else; and next, the tribe
Whose innate blockish dulness just perceives
That unless miracles (as seem my works)
Be wrought in their behalf, their chance is slight
To puzzle the devil; next, the numerous set
Who bitterly hate established schools, and help
The teacher that oppugns them, till he once
Have planted his own doctrine, when the teacher
May reckon on their rancour in his turn;
Take, too, the sprinkling of sagacious knaves
Whose cunning runs not counter to the vogue
But seeks, by flattery and crafty nursing,
To force my system to a premature
Short-lived development. Why swell the list?
Each has his end to serve, and his best way
Of serving it: remove all these, remains
A scantling, a poor dozen at the best,
Worthy to look for sympathy and service,
And likely to draw profit from my pains.
Festus.
'T is no encouraging picture: still these few
Redeem their fellows. Once the germ implanted,
Its growth, if slow, is sure.
Paracelsus.
God grant it so!
I would make some amends: but if I fail,
The luckless rogues have this excuse to urge,
That much is in my method and my manner,
My uncouth habits, my impatient spirit,
Which hinders of reception and result
My doctrine: much to say, small skill to speak!
These old aims suffered not a looking-off
Though for an instant; therefore, only when
I thus renounced them and resolved to reap
Some present fruitto teach mankind some truth
So dearly purchasedonly then I found
Such teaching was an art requiring cares
And qualities peculiar to itself:
That to possess was one thingto display
Another. With renown first in my thoughts,
Or popular praise, I had soon discovered it:
One grows but little apt to learn these things.
Festus.
If it be so, which nowise I believe,
There needs no waiting fuller dispensation
To leave a labour of so little use.
Why not throw up the irksome charge at once?
Paracelsus.
A task, a task!
But wherefore hide the whole
Extent of degradation, once engaged
In the confessing vein? Despite of all
My fine talk of obedience and repugnance,
Docility and what not, 't is yet to learn
If when the task shall really be performed,
My inclination free to choose once more,
I shall do aught but slightly modify
The nature of the hated task I quit.
In plain words, I am spoiled; my life still tends
As first it tended; I am broken and trained
To my old habits: they are part of me.
I know, and none so well, my darling ends
Are proved impossible: no less, no less,
Even now what humours me, fond fool, as when
Their faint ghosts sit with me and flatter me
And send me back content to my dull round?
How can I change this soul?this apparatus
Constructed solely for their purposes,
So well adapted to their every want,
To search out and discover, prove and perfect;
This intricate machine whose most minute
And meanest motions have their charm to me
Though to none elsean aptitude I seize,
An object I perceive, a use, a meaning,
A property, a fitness, I explain
And I alone:how can I change my soul?
And this wronged body, worthless save when tasked
Under that soul's dominionused to care
For its bright master's cares and quite subdue
Its proper cravingsnot to ail nor pine
So he but prosperwhither drag this poor
Tried patient body? God! how I essayed
To live like that mad poet, for a while,
To love alone; and how I felt too warped
And twisted and deformed! What should I do,
Even tho'released from drudgery, but return
Faint, as you see, and halting, blind and sore,
To my old life and die as I began?
I cannot feed on beauty for the sake
Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm
From lovely objects for their loveliness;
My nature cannot lose her first imprint;
I still must hoard and heap and class all truths
With one ulterior purpose: I must know!
Would God translate me to his throne, believe
That I should only listen to his word
To further my own aim! For other men,
Beauty is prodigally strewn around,
And I were happy could I quench as they
This mad and thriveless longing, and content me
With beauty for itself alone: alas,
I have addressed a frock of heavy mail
Yet may not join the troop of sacred knights;
And now the forest-creatures fly from me,
The grass-banks cool, the sunbeams warm no more.
Best follow, dreaming that ere night arrive,
I shall o'ertake the company and ride
Glittering as they!
Festus.
I think I apprehend
What you would say: if you, in truth, design
To enter once more on the life thus left,
Seek not to hide that all this consciousness
Of failure is assumed!
Paracelsus.
My friend, my friend,
I toil, you listen; I explain, perhaps
You understand: there our communion ends.
Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse?
When we would thoroughly know the sick man's state
We feel awhile the fluttering pulse, press soft
The hot brow, look upon the languid eye,
And thence divine the rest. Must I lay bare
My heart, hideous and beating, or tear up
My vitals for your gaze, ere you will deem
Enough made known? You! who are you, forsooth?
That is the crowning operation claimed
By the arch-demonstratorheaven the hall,
And earth the audience. Let Aprile and you
Secure good places: 't will be worth the while.
Festus.
Are you mad, Aureole? What can I have said
To call for this? I judged from your own words.
Paracelsus.
Oh, doubtless! A sick wretch describes the ape
That mocks him from the bed-foot, and all gravely
You thither turn at once: or he recounts
The perilous journey he has late performed,
And you are puzzled much how that could be!
You find me here, half stupid and half mad;
It makes no part of my delight to search
Into these matters, much less undergo
Another's scrutiny; but so it chances
That I am led to trust my state to you:
And the event is, you combine, contrast
And ponder on my foolish words as though
They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here
Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage!
Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame?
Will you guess nothing? will you spare me nothing?
Must I go deeper? Ay or no?
Festus.
Dear friend . . .
Paracelsus.
True: I am brutal't is a part of it;
The plague's signyou are not a lazar-haunter,
How should you know? Well then, you think it strange
I should profess to have failed utterly,
And yet propose an ultimate return
To courses void of hope: and this, because
You know not what temptation is, nor how
'T is like to ply men in the sickliest part.
You are to understand that we who make
Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end:
There is not one sharp volley shot at us,
Which 'scaped with life, though hurt, we slacken pace
And gather by the wayside herbs and roots
To staunch our wounds, secure from further harm:
We are assailed to life's extremest verge.
It will be well indeed if I return,
A harmless busy fool, to my old ways!
I would forget hints of another fate,
Significant enough, which silent hours
Have lately scared me with.
Festus.
Another! and what?
Paracelsus.
After all, Festus, you say well: I am
A man yet: I need never humble me.
I would have beensomething, I know not what;
But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl.
There are worse portions than this one of mine.
You say well!
Festus.
Ah!
Paracelsus.
And deeper degradation!
If the mean stimulants of vulgar praise,
If vanity should become the chosen food
Of a sunk mind, should stifle even the wish
To find its early aspirations true,
Should teach it to breathe falsehood like life-breath
An atmosphere of craft and trick and lies;
Should make it proud to emulate, surpass
Base natures in the practices which woke
Its most indignant loathing once . . . No, no!
Utter damnation is reserved for hell!
I had immortal feelings; such shall never
Be wholly quenched: no, no!
My friend, you wear
A melancholy face, and certain't is
There's little cheer in all this dismal work.
But was it my desire to set abroach
Such memories and forebodings? I foresaw
Where they would drive. 'T were better we discuss
News from Lucerne or Zurich; ask and tell
Of Egypt's flaring sky or Spain's cork-groves.
Festus.
I have thought: trust me, this mood will pass away!
I know you and the lofty spirit you bear,
And easily ravel out a clue to all.
These are the trials meet for such as you,
Nor must you hope exemption: to be mortal
Is to be plied with trials manifold.
Look round! The obstacles which kept the rest
From your ambition, have been spurned by you;
Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind themall,
Were flax before your resolute soul, which nought
Avails to awe save these delusions bred
From its own strength, its selfsame strength disguised,
Mocking itself. Be brave, dear Aureole! Since
The rabbit has his shade to frighten him,
The fawn a rustling bough, mortals their cares,
And higher natures yet would slight and laugh
At these entangling fantasies, as you
At trammels of a weaker intellect,
Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts!
I know you.
Paracelsus.
And I know you, dearest Festus!
And how you love unworthily; and how
All admiration renders blind.
Festus.
You hold
That admiration blinds?
Paracelsus.
Ay and alas!
Festus.
Nought blinds you less than admiration, friend!
Whether it be that all love renders wise
In its degree; from love which blends with love
Heart answering heartto love which spends itself
In silent mad idolatry of some
Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of souls,
Which ne'er will know how well it is adored.
I say, such love is never blind; but rather
Alive to every the minutest spot
Which mars its object, and which hate (supposed
So vigilant and searching) dreams not of.
Love broods on such: what then? When first perceived
Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change,
To overflush those blemishes with all
The glow of general goodness they disturb?
To make those very defects an endless source
Of new affection grown from hopes and fears?
And, when all fails, is there no gallant stand
Made even for much proved weak? no shrinking-back
Lest, since all love assimilates the soul
To what it loves, it should at length become
Almost a rival of its idol? Trust me,
If there be fiends who seek to work our hurt,
To ruin and drag down earth's mightiest spirits
Even at God's foot, 't will be from such as love,
Their zeal will gather most to serve their cause;
And least from those who hate, who most essay
By contumely and scorn to blot the light
Which forces entrance even to their hearts:
For thence will our defender tear the veil
And show within each heart, as in a shrine,
The giant image of perfection, grown
In hate's despite, whose calumnies were spawned
In the untroubled presence of its eyes.
True admiration blinds not; nor am I
So blind. I call your sin exceptional;
It springs from one whose life has passed the bounds
Prescribed to life. Compound that fault with God!
I speak of men; to common men like me
The weakness you reveal endears you more,
Like the far traces of decay in suns.
I bid you have good cheer!
Paracelsus.
Proeclare! Optime!
Think of a quiet mountain-cloistered priest
Instructing Paracelsus! yet't is so.
Come, I will show you where my merit lies.
'T is in the advance of individual minds
That the slow crowd should ground their expectation
Eventually to follow; as the sea
Waits ages in its bed till some one wave
Out of the multitudinous mass, extends
The empire of the whole, some feet perhaps,
Over the strip of sand which could confine
Its fellows so long time: thenceforth the rest,
Even to the meanest, hurry in at once,
And so much is clear gained. I shall be glad
If all my labours, failing of aught else,
Suffice to make such inroad and procure
A wider range for thought: nay, they do this;
For, whatsoe'er my notions of true knowledge
And a legitimate success, may be,
I am not blind to my undoubted rank
When classed with others: I precede my age:
And whoso wills is very free to mount
These labours as a platform whence his own
May have a prosperous outset. But, alas!
My followersthey are noisy as you heard;
But, for intelligence, the best of them
So clumsily wield the weapons I supply
And they extol, that I begin to doubt
Whether their own rude clubs and pebble-stones
Would not do better service than my arms
Thus vilely swayedif error will not fall
Sooner before the old awkward batterings
Than my more subtle warfare, not half learned.
Festus.
I would supply that art, then, or withhold
New arms until you teach their mystery.
Paracelsus.
Content you, 't is my wish; I have recourse
To the simplest training. Day by day I seek
To wake the mood, the spirit which alone
Can make those arms of any use to men.
Of course they are for swaggering forth at once
Graced with Ulysses' bow, Achilles' shield
Flash on us, all in armour, thou Achilles!
Make our hearts dance to thy resounding step!
A proper sight to scare the crows away!
Festus.
Pity you choose not then some other method
Of coming at your point. The marvellous art
At length established in the world bids fair
To remedy all hindrances like these:
Trust to Frobenius' press the precious lore
Obscured by uncouth manner, or unfit
For raw beginners; let his types secure
A deathless monument to after-time;
Meanwhile wait confidently and enjoy
The ultimate effect: sooner or later
You shall be all-revealed.
Paracelsus.
The old dull question
In a new form; no more. Thus: I possess
Two sorts of knowledge; one,vast, shadowy,
Hints of the unbounded aim I once pursued:
The other consists of many secrets, caught
While bent on nobler prize,perhaps a few
Prime principles which may conduct to much:
These last I offer to my followers here.
Now, bid me chronicle the first of these,
My ancient study, and in effect you bid
Revert to the wild courses just abjured:
I must go find them scattered through the world.
Then, for the principles, they are so simple
(Being chiefly of the overturning sort),
That one time is as proper to propound them
As any otherto-morrow at my class,
Or half a century hence embalmed in print.
For if mankind intend to learn at all,
They must begin by giving faith to them
And acting on them: and I do not see
But that my lectures serve indifferent well:
No doubt these dogmas fall not to the earth,
For all their novelty and rugged setting.
I think my class will not forget the day
I let them know the gods of Israel,
Atius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis,
Serapion, Avicenna, Averres,
Were blocks!
Festus.
And that reminds me, I heard something
About your waywardness: you burned their books,
It seems, instead of answering those sages.
Paracelsus.
And who said that?
Festus.
Some I met yesternight
With OEcolampadius. As you know, the purpose
Of this short stay at Basil was to learn
His pleasure touching certain missives sent
For our Zuinglius and himself. 'T was he
Apprised me that the famous teacher here
Was my old friend.
Paracelsus.
Ah, I forgot: you went . . .
Festus.
From Zurich with advices for the ear
Of Luther, now at Wittenberg(you know,
I make no doubt, the differences of late
With Carolostadius)and returning sought
Basil and . . .
Paracelsus.
I remember. Here's a case, now,
Will teach you why I answer not, but burn
The books you mention. Pray, does Luther dream
His arguments convince by their own force
The crowds that own his doctrine? No, indeed!
His plain denial of established points
Ages had sanctified and men supposed
Could never be oppugned while earth was under
And heaven above thempoints which chance or time
Affected notdid more than the array
Of argument which followed. Boldly deny!
There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening
Awhile; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting
The thunderbolt which does not come: and next,
Reproachful wonder and inquiry: those
Who else had never stirred, are able now
To find the rest out for themselves, perhaps
To outstrip him who set the whole at work,
As never will my wise class its instructor.
And you saw Luther?
Festus.
'T is a wondrous soul!
Paracelsus.
True: the so-heavy chain which galled mankind
Is shattered, and the noblest of us all
Must bow to the deliverernay, the worker
Of our own projectwe who long before
Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd,
We should have taught, still groaned beneath the load:
This he has done and nobly. Speed that may!
Whatever be my chance or my mischance,
What benefits mankind must glad me too;
And men seem made, though not as I believed,
For something better than the times produce.
Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights
From Suabia have possessed, whom Mnzer leads,
And whom the duke, the landgrave and the elector
Will calm in blood! Well, well; 't is not my world!
Festus.
Hark!
Paracelsus.
'T is the melancholy wind astir
Within the trees; the embers too are grey:
Morn must be near.
Festus.
Best ope the casement: see,
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops altogether! Like an asp,
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
Paracelsus.
Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree
By the hour, nor count time lost.
Festus.
So you shall gaze:
Those happy times will come again.
Paracelsus.
Gone, gone,
Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind
Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains
And bartered sleep for them?
Festus.
It is our trust
That there is yet another world to mend
All error and mischance.
Paracelsus.
Another world!
And why this world, this common world, to be
A make-shift, a mere foil, how fair soever,
To some fine life to come? Man must be fed
With angels' food, forsooth; and some few traces
Of a diviner nature which look out
Through his corporeal baseness, warrant him
In a supreme contempt of all provision
For his inferior tastessome straggling marks
Which constitute his essence, just as truly
As here and there a gem would constitute
The rock, their barren bed, one diamond.
But were it sowere man all mindhe gains
A station little enviable. From God
Down to the lowest spirit ministrant,
Intelligence exists which casts our mind
Into immeasurable shade. No, no:
Love, hope, fear, faiththese make humanity;
These are its sign and note and character,
And these I have lost!gone, shut from me for ever,
Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more!
See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted, grey and clear without the stars;
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as if
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go
His hold; and from the East, fuller and fuller
Day, like a mighty river, flowing in;
But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold.
Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant,
Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves
All thick and glistering with diamond dew.
And you depart for Einsiedeln this day,
And we have spent all night in talk like this!
If you would have me better for your love,
Revert no more to these sad themes.
Festus.
One favour,
And I have done. I leave you, deeply moved;
Unwilling to have fared so well, the while
My friend has changed so sorely. If this mood
Shall pass away, if light once more arise
Where all is darkness now, if you see fit
To hope and trust again, and strive again,
You will remembernot our love alone
But that my faith in God's desire that man
Should trust on his support, (as I must think
You trusted) is obscured and dim through you:
For you are thus, and this is no reward.
Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole?
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part III - Paracelsus
,#NFDB
23 Psychology
17 Occultism
5 Poetry
2 Integral Yoga
1 Fiction
1 Alchemy
25 Carl Jung
5 Robert Browning
2 Sri Aurobindo
15 Mysterium Coniunctionis
5 The Practice of Psycho therapy
5 Browning - Poems
3 The Secret Doctrine
3 Aion
2 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And the secret soul of this Classical culture was not inherited by those who professed to be its champions and adorers the torch-bearers of the New Enlightenment; no, its direct descendants were to be found among the builders of the Christian civilization. Plato and Pythagoras and Heraclitus and the initiates to the Orphic and the Eleusinian mysteries continued to live in and through Plotinus and Anselm and Paracelsus and the long line of Christian savants and sages. The Middle Age had its own spiritual discoveries and achievements founded on the Cult of the Christ; to these it added what it could draw and assimilate from the mystic and spiritual traditions of the Grco-Latin world. The esoteric discipline of the Jewish Kabala also was not without influence in shaping the more secret undercurrents of Europe's creative and formative genius. The composite culture which they grew and developed had undisputed empire over Europe for some ten or twelve centuries; and it was nothing, if not at heart a spiritual and religious and other-worldly culture.
Herein lay Europe's soul; and to it turned often and anon the gaze of those who, among a profane humanity, are still the guardians of the Spiritpoets and artistswho, even in the very midst of the maelstrom of Modernism, sought to hark back, back to the rock of the ages. The mediaevalism and archaicism of which a Rossetti or a Morris, for example, is often accused embodies only a defensive reaction on the part of Europe's soul; it is an attempt to return to her more fundamental life-intuition.
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
28 Cf. Paracelsus, De vita longa (1562), and my commentary in " Paracelsus as a
Spiritual Phenomenon" [concerning Melusina, pars. 179!:., 2152.].
1.01 - Principles of Practical Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
complications. I readily admit that Hippocrates, Galen, and Paracelsus were
excellent doctors, but I do not believe that modern medicine should on that
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
alchemist. According to Paracelsus, he who woud enter the Kingdom of God must first enter with his
body into his mother and there die. The mother is the prima materia, the massa confusa, the
--
Nature) of the neo-alchemist of the Renaissance, minds as different as those of Paracelsus, John Dee,
Comenius, J. V. Andreae, Fludd, and Newton saw in alchemy the model for a no less ambitious
--
The autonomy and everlastingness of the prima materia in Paracelsus [for example] suggest a principle
equal to the Deity, corresponding to a dea mater.... The following texts, for example, are applied to the
1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Having done so, he prepares a thesis setting forth his knowledge of the universe. It is said that such works as those of Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, Newton, Berkeley,
Swedenborg, and Levi's Clef des Grand Mysteres are excellent examples of the required type of thesis. He should be a complete master of every aspect of Yoga, having experienced and thoroughly investigated the nature of
1.08 - Psycho therapy Today, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
view. Paracelsus, who was above all a physician of genius, emphasized
that nobody could be a doctor who did not understand the art of
--
motto of Paracelsus, the four-hundredth anniversary of whose birth we
celebrated in the autumn of 1941: Alterius non sit, qui suus esse potest
--
Roger Bacon, and Paracelsus were among the fathers of modern science,
and their spirit did much to shake the authority of the total Church. Our
--
mystique either of nature or of the lumen naturae, as Paracelsus named it,
but by the total incorporation of the individual in a political collective
1.09 - A System of Vedic Psychology, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The successes of European science have cast the shadow of their authority & prestige over the speculations of European scholarship; for European thought is, in appearance, a serried army marching to world-conquest and we who undergo the yoke of its tyranny, we, who paralysed by that fascination and overborne by that domination, have almost lost the faculty of thinking for ourselves, receive without distinction all its camp followers or irregular volunteers as authorities to whom we must needs submit.We reflect in our secondh and opinions the weak parts of European thought equally with the strong; we do not distinguish between those of its ideas which eternal Truth has ratified and those which have merely by their ingenuity and probability captivated for a short season the human imagination. The greater part of the discoveries of European Science (its discoveries, not its intellectual generalisations) belong to the first category; the greater part of the conclusions of European scholarship to the second. The best European thought has itself no illusions on this score. One of the greatest of European scholars & foremost of European thinkers, Ernest Renan, after commencing his researches in Comparative Philology with the most golden & extravagant hopes, was compelled at the close of a life of earnest & serious labour, to sum up the chief preoccupation of his days in a formula of measured disparagement,petty conjectural sciences. In other words, no sciences at all; for a science built upon conjectures is as much an impossibility & a contradiction in terms as a house built upon water. Renans own writings bear eloquent testimony to the truth of his final verdict; those which sum up his scholastic research, read now like a mass of learned crudity, even the best of them no longer authoritative or valid; those which express the substance or shades of his lifes thinking are of an imperishable beauty & value. The general sentiment of European Science agrees with the experience of Renan and even shoots beyond it; in the vocabulary of German scientists the word Philologe, philologist, bears a sadly disparaging and contemptuous significance & so great is the sense among serious thinkers of the bankruptcy of Comparative Philology that many deny even the possibility of an etymological Science. There is no doubt an element of exaggeration in some of these views; but it is true that Comparative Philology, Comparative Mythology, ethnology, anthropology and their kindred sciences are largely a mass of conjectures,shifting intellectual quagmires in which we can find no sure treading. Only the airy wings of an ingenious imagination can bear us up on that shimmering surface and delude us with the idea that it is the soil which supports our movement & not the wings. There is a meagre but sound substratum of truth which will disengage itself some day from the conjectural rubbish; but the present stage of these conjectural sciences is no better but rather worse than the state of European chemistry in the days of Paracelsus.But we in India are under the spell of European philology; we are taken by its ingenuity, audacity & self-confidence, an ingenuity which is capable of giving a plausibility to the absurd and an appearance of body to the unsubstantial, an audacity which does not hesitate to erect the most imposing theories on a few tags of disconnected facts, a confidence which even the constant change of its own opinions cannot disconcert. Moreover, our natural disposition is to the intellectuality of the scholar; verbal ingenuities, recondite explanations, far-fetched glosses have long had a weight with us which the discontinuity of our old scientific activities and disciplined experimental methods of reaching subjective truth has exaggerated and our excessive addiction to mere verbal metaphysics strongly confirmed. It is not surprising that educated India should have tacitly or expressly accepted even in subjects of such supreme importance to us as the real significance of the Vedas and Upanishads, the half patronising, half contemptuous views of the European scholar.
What are those views? They represent the Veda to us as a mass of naturalistic, ritualistic & astrological conceits, allegories & metaphors, crude & savage in the substance of its thought but more artificial & ingenious in its particular ideas & fancies than the most artificial, allegorical or Alexandrian poetry to be found in the worlds literaturea strange incoherent & gaudy jumble unparalleled by the early literature of any other nation,the result of a queer psychological mixture of an early savage with a modern astronomer & comparative mythologist.
1.09 - Fundamental Questions of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
indebted for more or less intelligible reports is Paracelsus. His uncanny
knowledge, which is at times not lacking in prophetic vision, was,
--
century, cast out the pearls of Paracelsus medical wisdom along with the
other lumber. Not until two centuries later did a new and altogether
1.1.05 - The Siddhis, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
present day is magic precisely in the same sense as the scientific experiments of Roger Bacon or Paracelsus. There is a good deal of fraud and error and self-deception mixed up with it, but so there was with the earliest efforts of the European scientists. The defects of Western practitioners or Eastern quacks do not get rid of our true & ancient Yoga.
1.13 - Gnostic Symbols of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
113 Published 1562 by Adam von Bodenstein. In Paracelsus Samtliche Werke, ed.
Sudhoff, III, p. 249. [Cf. " Paracelsus the Physician," par. 21.]
--
Naassenes. Of the Ideus or Ides Paracelsus says that in it "there is
but One Man . . . and he is the Protoplast." 118
--
it is often a question of cabalistic influences in Paracelsus, it
may not be superfluous in this connection to recall the figure of
1.14 - Bibliography, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
. Paracelsus the Physician." In: The Spirit in Man, Art, and
Literature, q.v.
--
von Hohenheim genannt Paracelsus Samtliche Werke. Edited by
Karl Sudhoff. Munich and Berlin, 1922-35. 15 vols. (Vol. Ill con-
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
in Paracelsus and his followers is called the increatum and is
regarded as coeternal with God- a correct interpretation of the
1f.lovecraft - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Integral Yoga
including Paracelsus, Agricola, Van Helmont, Sylvius, Glauber, Boyle,
Boerhaave, Becher, and Stahl, led Curwen to suggest a visit to the
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part III - Paracelsus, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
object:1.rb - Paracelsus - Part III - Paracelsus
author class:Robert Browning
--
Scene. Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526.
Paracelsus, Festus.
--
The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser,
Fate's commissary, idol of the schools
--
Even Paracelsus, shall put off before them
His trappings with a grace but seldom judged
--
Instructing Paracelsus! yet't is so.
Come, I will show you where my merit lies.
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part II - Paracelsus Attains, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
object:1.rb - Paracelsus - Part II - Paracelsus Attains
author class:Robert Browning
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part I - Paracelsus Aspires, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
object:1.rb - Paracelsus - Part I - Paracelsus Aspires
author class:Robert Browning
--
Festus, Paracelsus, Michal.
Paracelsus.
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part IV - Paracelsus Aspires, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
object:1.rb - Paracelsus - Part IV - Paracelsus Aspires
author class:Robert Browning
--
'T is true! poor Paracelsus is exposed
At last; a most egregious quack he proves:
--
Who holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus
Has his peculiar merits: I suck in
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part V - Paracelsus Attains, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
object:1.rb - Paracelsus - Part V - Paracelsus Attains
author class:Robert Browning
--
Festus, Paracelsus.
Festus.
--
That Paracelsus use his skill for me.
The schools of Paris and of Padua send
--
I, Paracelsus: it was mine by right.
Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul
--
And this was Paracelsus!
2.01 - THE ARCANE SUBSTANCE AND THE POINT, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[41] John Dee (15271607) speculates as follows: It is not unreasonable to suppose, that by the four straight lines which run in opposite directions from a single, individual point, the mystery of the four elements is indicated. According to him, the quaternity consists of four straight lines meeting in a right angle. Things and beings have their first origin in the point and the monad.30 The centre of nature is the point originated by God,31 the sun-point in the egg.32 This, a commentary on the Turba says, is the germ of the egg in the yolk.33 Out of this little point, says Dorn in his Physica Genesis, the wisdom of God made with the creative Word the huge machine of the world.34 The Consilium coniugii remarks that the point is the chick (pullus).35 Mylius adds that this is the bird of Hermes,36 or the spirit Mercurius. The same author places the soul in the midpoint of the heart together with the spirit, which he compares with the angel who was infused with the soul at this point (i.e., in the womb).37 Paracelsus says that the anima iliastri dwells in the fire in the heart. It is incapable of suffering, whereas the anima cagastris is capable of suffering and is located in the water of the pericardium.38 Just as earth corresponds to the triangle and water to the line, so fire corresponds to the point.39 Democritus stresses that fire consists of fiery globules.40 Light, too, has this round form, hence the designation sun-point. This point is on the one hand the worlds centre, the salt-point in the midst of the great fabric of the whole world, as Khunrath calls it (salt = Sapientia). Yet it is not only the bond but also the destroyer of all destructible things. Hence this world-egg is the ancient Saturn, the . . . most secret lead of the sages, and the ambisexual Philosophic Man of the Philosophers, the Catholick Androgyne of the Sophists, the Rebis, etc.41 The most perfect form is round, because it is modelled on the point. The sun is round and so is fire, since it is composed of the fiery globules of Democritus. God fashioned the sphere of light round himself. God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.42 The point symbolizes light and fire, also the Godhead in so far as light is an image of God or an exemplar of the Deity. This spherical light modelled on the point is also the shining or illuminating body that dwells in the heart of man. The light of nature is the radical moisture (humidum radicale) which, as balsam, works from the heart, like the sun in the macrocosm and, we must conclude, like God in the supracelestial world. Thus does Steeb describe the
, the second God in man.43 The same author derives the gold from the dew or supracelestial balsam sinking into the earth. Here he is probably referring to the older formulations of Maier,44 where the sun generates the gold in the earth. Hence the gold, as Maier says, obtains a simplicity approaching that of the circle (symbol of eternity) and the indivisible point. The gold has a circular form.45 This is the line which runs back upon itself, like the snake that with its head bites its own tail, wherein that supreme and eternal painter and potter, God, may rightly be discerned.46 The gold is a twice-bisected circle, i.e., one divided into four quadrants and therefore a quaternity, a division made by nature that contraries may be bound together by contraries.47 It can therefore, he says, be compared to the sacred city, Jerusalem48 (cf. Revelation 21 : 10ff.). It is a golden castle engirt with a triple wall,49 a visible image of eternity.50 Though gold be mute so far as sound or voice is concerned, yet by virtue of its essence it proclaims and everywhere bears witness to God. And just as God is one in essence, so the gold is one homogeneous substance.51 For Dorn the unity of God,52 the unarius, is the centre of the ternarius, the latter corresponding to the circle drawn round the centre.53 The point as the centre of the quaternio of the elements is the place where Mercurius digests and perfects.54
2.02 - THE SCINTILLA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[43] Alchemy, too, has its doctrine of the scintilla. In the first place it is the fiery centre of the earth, where the four elements project their seed in ceaseless movement. For all things have their origin in this source, and nothing in the whole world is born save from this source. In the centre dwells the Archaeus, the servant of nature, whom Paracelsus also calls Vulcan, identifying him with the Adech, the great man.65 The Archaeus, the creative centre of the earth, is hermaphroditic like the Protanthropos, as is clear from the epilogue to the Novum lumen of Sendivogius: When a man is illuminated by the light of nature, the mist vanishes from his eyes, and without difficulty he may behold the point of our magnet, which corresponds to both centres of the rays, that is, those of the sun and the earth. This cryptic sentence is elucidated by the following example: When you place a twelve-year-old boy side by side with a girl of the same age, and dressed the same, you cannot distinguish between them. But take their clothes off66 and the difference will become apparent.67 According to this, the centre consists in a conjunction of male and female. This is confirmed in a text by Abraham Eleazar,68 where the arcane substance laments being in the state of nigredo:
Through Cham,69 the Egyptian, I must pass. . . . Noah must wash me . . . in the deepest sea, that my blackness may depart. . . . I must be fixed to this black cross, and must be cleansed therefrom with wretchedness and vinegar, and made white, that . . . my heart may shine like a carbuncle, and the old Adam come forth from me again. O! Adam Kadmon, how beautiful art thou! . . . Like Kedar I am black henceforth, ah! how long! O come, my Mesech,70 and disrobe me, that mine inner beauty may be revealed. . . . O Shulamite, afflicted within and without, the watchmen of the great city will find thee and wound thee, and rob thee of thy garments . . . and take away thy veil. Who then will lead me out from Edom, from thy stout wall? . . . Yet shall I be blissful again when I am delivered from the poison wherewith I am accursed, and my inmost seed and first birth comes forth. . . . For its father is the sun, and its mother the moon.71
3.00.2 - Introduction, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
for such experiences if, like Paracelsus, they worried about the
psychological well-being of their patients or inquired into their dreams (for
3.02 - SOL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[116] After all this, we can say that the alchemical Sol, as a certain luminosity (quaedam luminositas), is in many respects equal to the lumen naturae. This was the real source of illumination in alchemy, and from alchemy Paracelsus borrowed this same source in order to illuminate the art of medicine. Thus the concept of Sol has not a little to do with the growth of modern consciousness, which in the last two centuries has relied more and more on the observation and experience of natural objects. Sol therefore seems to denote an important psychological fact. Consequently, it is well worth while delineating its peculiarities in greater detail on the basis of the very extensive literature.
[117] Generally Sol is regarded as the masculine and active half of Mercurius, a supraordinate concept whose psychology I have discussed in a separate study.34 Since, in his alchemical form, Mercurius does not exist in reality, he must be an unconscious projection, and because he is an absolutely fundamental concept in alchemy he must signify the unconscious itself. He is by his very nature the unconscious, where nothing can be differentiated; but, as a spiritus vegetativus (living spirit), he is an active principle and so must always appear in reality in differentiated form. He is therefore fittingly called duplex, both active and passive. The ascending, active part of him is called Sol, and it is only through this that the passive part can be perceived. The passive part therefore bears the name of Luna, because she borrows her light from the sun.35 Mercurius demonstrably corresponds to the cosmic Nous of the classical philosophers. The human mind is a derivative of this and so, likewise, is the diurnal life of the psyche, which we call consciousness.36 Consciousness requires as its necessary counterpart a dark, latent, non-manifest side, the unconscious, whose presence can be known only by the light of consciousness.37 Just as the day-star rises out of the nocturnal sea, so, ontogenetically and phylogenetically, consciousness is born of unconsciousness and sinks back every night to this primal condition. This duality of our psychic life is the prototype and archetype of the Sol-Luna symbolism. So much did the alchemist sense the duality of his unconscious assumptions that, in the face of all astronomical evidence, he equipped the sun with a shadow: The sun and its shadow bring the work to perfection.38 Michael Maier, from whom this saying is taken, avoids the onus of explanation by substituting the shadow of the earth for the shadow of the sun in the forty-fifth discourse of his Scrutinium. Evidently he could not wholly shut his eyes to astronomical reality. But then he cites the classical saying of Hermes: Son, extract from the ray its shadow,39 thus giving us clearly to understand that the shadow is contained in the suns rays and hence could be extracted from them (whatever that might mean). Closely related to this saying is the alchemical idea of a black sun, often mentioned in the literature.40 This notion is supported by the self-evident fact that without light there is no shadow, so that, in a sense, the shadow too is emitted by the sun. For this physics requires a dark object interposed between the sun and the observer, a condition that does not apply to the alchemical Sol, since occasionally it appears as black itself. It contains both light and darkness. For what, in the end, asks Maier, is this sun without a shadow? The same as a bell without a clapper. While Sol is the most precious thing, its shadow is res vilissima or quid vilius alga (more worthless than seaweed). The antinomian thinking of alchemy counters every position with a negation and vice versa. Outwardly they are bodily things, but inwardly they are spiritual, says Senior.41 This view is true of all alchemical qualities, and each thing bears in itself its opposite.42
3.03 - SULPHUR, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[135] In keeping with its dual nature sulphur is on the one hand corporal and earthly,82 and on the other an occult, spiritual principle. As an earthly substance it comes from the fatness of the earth,83 by which was meant the radical moisture as prima materia. Occasionally it is called cinis extractus a cinere (ash extracted from ash).84 Ash is an inclusive term for the scoriae left over from burning, the substance that remains belowa strong reminder of the chthonic nature of sulphur. The red variety is thought of as masculine,85 and under this aspect it represents the gold or Sol.86 As a chthonic being it has close affinities with the dragon, which is called our secret sulphur.87 In that form it is also the aqua divina, symbolized by the uroboros.88 These analogies often make it difficult to distinguish between sulphur and Mercurius, since the same thing is said of both. This is our natural, most sure fire, our Mercurius, our sulphur, says the Tractatus aureus de lapide.89 In the Turba quicksilver is a fiery body that behaves in exactly the same way as sulphur.90 For Paracelsus sulphur, together with Sal (salt), is the begetter of Mercurius, who is born of the sun and moon.91 Or it is found in the depths of the nature of Mercurius,92 or it is of the nature of Mercurius,93 or sulphur and Mercurius are brother and sister.94 Sulphur is credited with Mercurius power to dissolve, kill, and bring metals to life.95
[136] This intimate connection with Mercurius makes it evident that sulphur is a spiritual or psychic substance of universal import, of which nearly everything may be said that is said of Mercurius. Thus sulphur is the soul not only of metals but of all living things; in the Tractatus aureus it is equated with nostra anima (our soul).96 The Turba says: The sulphurs are souls that were hidden in the four bodies.97 Paracelsus likewise calls sulphur the soul.98 In Mylius sulphur produces the ferment or soul which gives life to the imperfect body.99 The Tractatus Micreris says: . . . until the green son appears, who is its100 soul, which the Philosophers have called the green bird and bronze and sulphur.101 The soul is also described as the hidden part [occultum] of the sulphur.102
[137] In the sphere of Christian psychology, green has a spermatic, procreative quality, and for this reason it is the colour attributed to the Holy Ghost as the creative principle.103 Accordingly Dorn says: The male and universal seed, the first and most potent, is the solar sulphur, the first part and most potent cause of all generation.104 It is the life-spirit itself. In his De tenebris contra naturam Dorn says: We have said before that the life of the world is the light of nature and the celestial sulphur, whose substrate [subiectum] is the aetheric moisture and the heat of the firmament, namely Sol and Luna.105 Sulphur has here attained cosmic significance and is equated with the light of nature, the supreme source of knowledge for the natural philosophers. But this light does not shine unhindered, says Dorn. It is obscured by the darkness of the elements in the human body. For him, therefore, sulphur is a shining, heavenly being. Though this sulphur is a son who comes from imperfect bodies, he is ready to put on the white and purple garments.106 In Ripley he is a spirit of generative power, who works in the moisture.107 In the treatise De sulphure he is the virtue of all things and the source of illumination and of all knowledge.108 He knows, in fact, everything.109
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[143] From all this it is apparent that for the alchemists sulphur was one of the many synonyms for the mysterious transformative substance.143 This is expressed most plainly in the Turba:144 Therefore roast it for seven days, until it becomes shining like marble, because, when it does, it is a very great secret [arcanum], since sulphur has been mixed with sulphur; and thereby is the greatest work accomplished, by mutual affinity, because natures meeting their nature mutually rejoice.145 It is a characteristic of the arcane substance to have everything it needs; it is a fully autonomous being, like the dragon that begets, reproduces, slays, and devours itself. It is questionable whether the alchemists, who were anything but consistent thinkers, ever became fully conscious of what they were saying when they used such images. If we take their words literally, they would refer to an Increatum, a being without beginning or end, and in need of no second. Such a thing can by definition only be God himself, but a God, we must add, seen in the mirror of physical nature and distorted past recognition. The One for which the alchemists strove corresponds to the res simplex, which the Liber quartorum defines as God.146 This reference, however, is unique, and in view of the corrupt state of the text I would not like to labour its significance, although Dorns speculations about the One and the unarius are closely analogous. The Turba continues: And yet they are not different natures, nor several, but a single one, which unites their powers in itself, through which it prevails over the other things. See you not that the Master has begun with the One and ended with the One? For he has named those unities the water of the sulphur, which conquers the whole of nature.147 The peculiarity of sulphur is also expressed in the paradox that it is incremabile (incombustible), ash extracted from ash.148 Its effects as aqua sulfurea are infinite.149 The Consilium coniugii says: Our sulphur is not the common sulphur,150 which is usually said of the philosophical gold. Paracelsus, in his Liber Azoth, describes sulphur as lignum (wood), the linea vitae (line of life), and fourfold (to correspond with the four elements); the spirit of life is renewed from it.151 Of the philosophical sulphur Mylius says that such a thing is not to be found on earth except in Sol and Luna, and it is known to no man unless revealed to him by God.152 Dorn calls it the son begotten of the imperfect bodies, who, when sublimated, changes into the highly esteemed salt of four colours. In the Tractatus Micreris it is even called the treasure of God.153
[144] These references to sulphur as the arcane and transformative substance must suffice. I would only like to stress Paracelsus remark about its fourfold nature, and that of his pupil Dorn about the four colours as symbols of totality. The psychic factor which appears in projection in all similarly characterized arcane substances is the unconscious self. It is on this account that the well-known Christ-lapis154 parallel reappears again and again, as for instance in the above-mentioned parable of the adepts adventure in the grove of Venus. As we saw, he fell asleep after having a long and instructive conversation with the voice of Saturn. In his dream he beholds the figures of two men by the fountain in the grove, one of them Sulphur, the other Sal. A quarrel arises, and Sal gives Sulphur an incurable wound. Blood pours from it in the form of whitest milk. As the adept sinks deeper into sleep, it changes into a river. Diana emerges from the grove and bathes in the miraculous water. A prince (Sol), passing by, espies her, they are inflamed for love of one another, and she falls down in a swoon and sinks beneath the surface. The princes retinue refuse to rescue her for fear of the perilous water,155 whereupon the prince plunges in and is dragged down by her to the depths. Immediately their souls appear above the water and explain to the adept that they will not go back into bodies so polluted, and are glad to be quit of them. They would remain afloat until the fogs and clouds have disappeared. At this point the adept returns to his former dream, and with many other alchemists he finds the corpse of Sulphur by the fountain. Each of them takes a piece and operates with it, but without success.156 We learn, further, that Sulphur is not only the medicina but also the medicus the wounded physician.157 Sulphur suffers the same fate as the body that is pierced by the lance of Mercurius. In Reusners Pandora158 the body is symbolized as Christ, the second Adam, pierced by the lance of a mermaid, or a Lilith or Edem.159
[145] This analogy shows that sulphur as the arcane substance was set on a par with Christ, so that for the alchemists it must have meant something very similar. We would turn away in disgust from such an absurdity were it not obvious that this analogy, sometimes in clear and sometimes in veiled form, was thrust upon them by the unconscious. Certainly there could be no greater disparity than that between the holiest conception known to mans consciousness and sulphur with its evil-smelling compounds. The analogy therefore is in no sense evidential but can only have arisen through intense and passionate preoccupation with the chemical substance, which gradually formed a tertium comparationis in the alchemists mind and forced it upon him with the utmost insistence. The common denominator of these two utterly incommensurable conceptions is the self, the image of the whole man, which reached its finest and most significant development in the Ecce Homo, and on the other hand appears as the meanest, most contemptible, and most insignificant thing, and manifests itself to consciousness precisely in that guise. As it is a concept of human totality, the self is by definition greater than the ego-conscious personality, embracing besides this the personal shadow and the collective unconscious. Conversely, the entire phenomenon of the unconscious appears so unimportant to ego-consciousness that we would rather explain it as a privatio lucis160 than allow it an autonomous existence. In addition, the conscious mind is critical and mistrustful of everything hailing from the unconscious, convinced that it is suspect and somehow dirty. Hence the psychic phenomenology of the self is as full of paradoxes as the Hindu conception of the atman, which on the one hand embraces the universe and on the other dwells no bigger than a thumb in the heart. The Eastern idea of atman-purusha corresponds psychologically to the Western figure of Christ, who is the second Person of the Trinity and God himself, but, so far as his human existence is concerned, conforms exactly to the suffering servant of God in Isaiah161from his birth in a stable among the animals to his shameful death on the cross between two thieves.
3.04 - LUNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[215] The passage on the moon in Paracelsus De pestilitate (III, 95) catches very aptly the atmosphere which hangs round the pale moonlight:
Now mark this: Wherever there is a disheartened and timid man in whom imagination has created the great fear and impressed it on him, the moon in heaven aided by her stars is the corpus to bring this about. When such a disheartened timid man looks at the moon under the full sway of his imagination, he looks into the speculum venenosum magnum naturae [great poisonous mirror of nature], and the sidereal spirit and magnes hominis [magnet of man] will thus be poisoned by the stars and the moon. But we shall expound this more clearly to you as follows. Through his imagination the timid man has made his eyes basilisk-like, and he infects the mirror, the moon, and the stars, through himself at the start, and later on so that the moon is infected by the imagining man; this will happen soon and easily, by dint of the magnetic power which the sidereal body and spirit exerts upon the celestial bodies [viz.] the moon and the stars in great Nature [viz., the Macrocosm]. Thus man in turn will be poisoned by this mirror of the moon and the stars which he has looked at; and this because (for, as you can see, it happens quite naturally) a pregnant woman at the time of menstruation similarly stains and damages the mirror by looking into it. For at such a time she is poisonous and has basilisks eyes ex causa menstrui et venenosi sanguinis [because of the menstrual and poisonous blood] which lies hidden in her body and nowhere more strongly than in her eyes. For there the sidereal spirit of the stained body lies open and naked to the sidereal magnet. Quia ex menstruo et venenoso sanguine mulieris causatur et nascitur basiliscus, ita luna in coelo est oculus basilisci coeli [Because as the basilisk is caused and born from the menstrual and poisonous blood of a woman, thus the moon in the sky is the eye of the basilisk of heaven]. And as the mirror is defiled by the woman, thus conversely the eyes, the sidereal spirit, and the body of man are being defiled by the moon, for the reason that at such time the eyes of the timid imagining man are weak and dull, and the sidereal spirit and body draw poison out of the mirror of the moon into which you have looked. But not so that only one human being has the power thus to poison the moon with his sight, no; hence I say that, mostly, menstruating women do poison the moon and the stars much more readily and also more intensely than any man, easily so. Because as you see that they poison and stain the mirror made of metallic material and what is even more, the glass mirrormuch more and sooner they defile the moon and the stars at such a time. And even if at such time the moon only shines on water and the woman looks at the water, the moon will be poisoned, and by still many more means, but it would not do to reveal all this clearly. And such poisoning of the moon happens for this reason: it is the naked eye of the spirit and of the sidereal body and it often grows new and young as you can see. Just as a young child who looks into a mirror which was looked at by a menstruating woman will become long-sighted and cross-eyed and his eyes will be poisoned, stained, and ruined, as the mirror was stained by the menstruating woman; and so also the moon, and also the human being, is poisoned. And as the moon, when it grows new and young, is of a poisonous kind, this you shall notice in two ways, namely in the element of water and also in wood, loam, etc.: as this, when it is gathered at the wrong time will not burn well, but be worm-eaten, poisonous, bad, and putrid, so is also the moon, and that is why it can be poisoned so easily by merely looking at it and the moon with its light is the humidum ignis [moisture of fire], of a cold nature, for which reason it is capable of receiving the poison easily.356
3.05 - SAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[235] Owing to the theory of correspondentia, regarded as axiomatic in the Middle Ages, the principles of each of the four worlds the intelligible or divine, the heavenly, the earthly, and the infernal379corresponded to each other. Usually, however, there was a division into three worlds to correspond with the Trinity: heaven, earth, hell.380 Triads were also known in alchemy. From the time of Paracelsus the most important triad was Sulphur-Mercurius-Sal, which was held to correspond with the Trinity. Georg von Welling, the plagiarist of Johann Rudolf Glauber, still thought in 1735 that his triad of fire, sun, and salt381 was in its root entirely one thing.382 The use of the Trinity formula in alchemy is so common that further documentation is unnecessary. A subtle feature of the Sulphur-Mercurius-Sal formula is that the central figure, Mercurius, is by nature androgynous and thus partakes both of the masculine red sulphur and of the lunar salt.383 His equivalent in the celestial realm is the planetary pair Sol and Luna, and in the intelligible realm Christ in his mystical androgyny, the man encompassed by the woman,384 i.e., sponsus and sponsa (Ecclesia). Like the Trinity, the alchemical triunity is a quaternity in disguise owing to the duplicity of the central figure: Mercurius is not only split into a masculine and a feminine half, but is the poisonous dragon and at the same time the heavenly lapis. This makes it clear that the dragon is analogous to the devil and the lapis to Christ, in accordance with the ecclesiastical view of the devil as an autonomous counterpart of Christ. Furthermore, not only the dragon but the negative aspect of sulphur, namely sulphur comburens, is identical with the devil, as Glauber says: Verily, sulphur is the true black devil of hell, who can be conquered by no element save by salt alone.385 Salt by contrast is a light substance, similar to the lapis, as we shall see.
[236] From all this we get the following schema:
3.10 - The New Birth, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
man, corresponding to the firmament or Olympus of Paracelsus: that
unknown quantity in man which is as universal and wide as the world
5.01 - ADAM AS THE ARCANE SUBSTANCE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[547] It was a bold stroke, even for a Baroque imagination, to bring together Adam and Venus. In the poem Venus is the fountain that flows from the stone and submerges her father, absorbing his body and life into herself. She is thus a parallel figure to Beya, who dissolved Gabricus into atoms in her body. In the same section in which Ruland mentions Adam as a synonym for water he states that he was also called the tall man.9 Ruland was a Paracelsist, so this expression may well coincide with the great man of Paracelsus, the Adech,10 whom Ruland defines as our inner and invisible man.11
[548] Accordingly the arcane substance would appear to be the inner man or Primordial Man, known as Adam Kadmon in the Cabala. In the poem of Valentinus, this inner man is swamped by the goddess of lovean unmistakable psychologem for a definite and typical psychic state, which is also symbolized very aptly by the Gnostic love-affair between Nous and Physis. In both cases the higher spiritual man is the more comprehensive, supra-ordinate totality which we know as the self. The bath, submersion, baptism, and drowning are synonymous, and all are alchemical symbols for the unconscious state of the self, its embodiments, as it wereor, more precisely, for the unconscious process by which the self is reborn and enters into a state in which it can be experienced. This state is then described as the filius regius. The old dragon who prepared the bath, a primeval creature dwelling in the caverns of the earth, is, psychologically, a personification of the instinctual psyche, generally symbolized by reptiles. It is as though the alchemists were trying to express the fact that the unconscious itself initiates the process of renewal.
5.02 - THE STATUE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[560] The statue has a somewhat different significance in the treatise of Senior,50 who speaks of the water that is extracted from the hearts of statues. Senior is identical with the Arabian alchemist Ibn Umail al-Tamimi. He is reported to have opened tombs and sarcophagi in Egypt and to have removed the mummies.51 Mummies were supposed to possess medicinal virtues, and for this reason bits of corpses had long been mentioned in European pharmacy under the name of mumia.52 It is possible that mumia was also used for alchemical purposes. It is mentioned in Khunrath as synonymous with the prima materia.53 In Paracelsus, who may have been Khunraths source for this, Mumia balsamita has something to do with the elixir, and is even called the physical life-principle itself.54 Seniors statues may well have been Egyptian sarcophagi, which as we know were portrait-statues. In the same treatise there is a description of a statue (of Hermes Trismegistus) in an underground chapel. Senior says: I shall now make known to you what that wise man who made the statue has hidden in that house; in it he has described that whole science, as it were, in the figure, and taught his wisdom in the stone, and revealed it to the discerning. Michael Maier comments: That is the statue from whose heart the water is extracted. He also mentions that a stone statue which pronounced oracles was dedicated to Hermes in Achaia Pharis.
[561] In Raymond Lully (Ramon Llull) there is an oil that is extracted from the heart of statues, and moreover by the washing of water and the drying of fire.55 This is an extremely paradoxical operation in which the oil evidently serves as a mediating and uniting agent.
5.08 - ADAM AS TOTALITY, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[641] I have found no evidence in the alchemical literature that the sapphire was an arcanum before the time of Paracelsus. It seems as though this author introduced it into alchemy from the Cabala as a synonym for the arcane substance:
For the virtue which lies in the sapphire is given from heaven by way of solution, coagulation, and fixation. Now, since heaven is created so as to work through these three things until it has achieved this [viz., the production of the sapphire and its virtues], so must the breaking up of the sapphire correspond to the same three procedures. This breaking up is such that the bodies vanish, and the arcanum remains. For before the sapphire existed, there was no arcanum. But subsequently, just as life was given to man, the arcanum was given to this material by heaven.333
We can recognize here relationships with Cabalistic ideas. Paracelsuss pupil, Adam von Bodenstein, says in his Onomasticon: The sapphire material: that liquid in which there is no harmful matter.334 Dorn335 relates the sapphirine flower to the Arcanum Cheyri of Paracelsus.336 The Epistola ad Hermannum cites a certain G. Ph. Rodochaeus de Geleinen Husio:337Then arises the sapphirine flower of the hermaphrodite, the wondrous mystery of the Macrocosm, of which one part, if it be poured into a thousand parts of the melted Ophirizum, converts it all into its own nature.338 This passage is influenced by Paracelsus.
[642] The Lapis Sapphireus or Sapphirinus is derived from Ezekiel 1 : 22 and 26, where the firmament above the living creature was like a terrible crystal and a sapphire stone (also 10 : 1), and from Exodus 24 : 10: And they saw the God of Israel: and under his feet as it were a work of sapphire stone, and as the heaven, when clear (DV). In alchemy our gold is crystalline;339 the treasure of the Philosophers is a certain glassy heaven, like crystal, and ductile like gold;340 the tincture of gold is transparent as crystal, fragile as glass.341 The Book of the Cave of Treasures says that Adams body shone like the light of a crystal.342 The crystal, which appears equally pure within and without, refers in ecclesiastical language to the unimpaired purity of the Virgin.343 The throne in Ezekiels vision, says Gregory the Great, is rightly likened to the sapphire, for this stone has the colour of air.344 He compares Christ to the crystal in a way that served as a model for the language and ideas of the alchemists.345
6.01 - THE ALCHEMICAL VIEW OF THE UNION OF OPPOSITES, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[663] Mercurius usually stands for the arcane substance, whose synonyms are the panacea and the spagyric medicine. Dorn identifies the latter with the balsam46 of Paracelsus, which is a close analogy of the
of the Basilidians. In the De vita longa of Paracelsus, balsam as an elixir vitae is associated with the term gamonymus, which might be rendered having the name of matrimony.47 Dorn thinks that the balsam, which stands higher than nature, is to be found in the human body and is a kind of aetheric substance.48 He says it is the best medicament not only for the body but also for the mind (mens). Though it is a corporeal substance, as a combination of the spirit and soul of the spagyric medicine it is essentially spiritual.49
We conclude that meditative philosophy consists in the overcoming of the body by mental union [unio mentalis]. This first union does not as yet make the wise man, but only the mental disciple of wisdom. The second union of the mind with the body shows forth the wise man, hoping for and expecting that blessed third union with the first unity [i.e., the unus mundus, the latent unity of the world]. May Almighty God grant that all men be made such, and may He be one in All.50
6.02 - STAGES OF THE CONJUNCTION, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[678] Like all alchemists, Dorn naturally did not reveal what the spagyric medicine was. One can only suppose that it was thought of as physical, more or less. At the same time he says that a certain asceticism is desirable, and this may be a reference to the moral nature of the mysterious panacea. At any rate he hastens to add that the assiduous reader will thenceforth advance from the meditative philosophy to the spagyric and thence to the true and perfect wisdom. It sounds as if the assiduous reader had been engaged at the outset in reading and meditating, and as if the medicine and the preparation of the body consisted precisely in that.69 Just as for Paracelsus the right theoria was part of the panacea, so for the alchemists was the symbol, which expresses the unconscious projections. Indeed, it is these that make the substance magically effective, and for this reason they cannot be separated from the alchemical procedure whose integral components they are.
[679] The second stage of conjunction, the re-uniting of the unio mentalis with the body, is particularly important, as only from here can the complete conjunction be attainedunion with the unus mundus. The reuniting of the spiritual position with the body obviously means that the insights gained should be made real. An insight might just as well remain in abeyance if it is simply not used. The second stage of conjunction therefore consists in making a reality of the man who has acquired some knowledge of his paradoxical wholeness.
6.04 - THE MEANING OF THE ALCHEMICAL PROCEDURE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[687] The free-ranging psyche of the adept used chemical substances and processes as a painter uses colours to shape out the images of his fancy. If Dorn, in order to describe the union of the unio mentalis with the body, reaches out for his chemical substances and implements, this only means that he was illustrating his fantasies by chemical procedures. For this purpose he chose the most suitable substances, just as the painter chooses the right colours. Honey, for instance, had to go into the mixture because of its purifying quality. As a Paracelsist, Dorn knew from the writings of the Master what high praises he had heaped upon it, calling it the sweetness of the earths, the resin of the earth which permeates all growing things, the Indian spirit which is turned by the influence of summer into a corporeal spirit.94 Thereby the mixture acquired the property not only of eliminating impurities but of changing spirit into body, and in view of the proposed conjunction of the spirit and the body this seemed a particularly promising sign. To be sure, the sweetness of the earths was not without its dangers, for as we have seen (n. 81) the honey could change into a deadly poison. According to Paracelsus it contains Tartarum, which as its name implies has to do with Hades. Further, Tartarum is a calcined Saturn and consequently has affinities with this malefic planet. For another ingredient Dorn takes Chelidonia (Chelidonium maius, celandine), which cures eye diseases and is particularly good for night-blindness, and even heals the spiritual benightedness (affliction of the soul, melancholy-madness) so much feared by the adepts. It protects against thunderstorms, i.e., outbursts of affect. It is a precious ingredient, because its yellow flowers symbolize the philosophical gold, the highest treasure. What is more important here, it draws the humidity, the soul,95 out of Mercurius. It therefore assists the spiritualization of the body and makes visible the essence of Mercurius, the supreme chthonic spirit. But Mercurius is also the devil.96 Perhaps that is why the section in which Lagneus defines the nature of Mercurius is entitled Dominus vobiscum.97
[688] In addition, the plant Mercurialis (dogs mercury) is indicated. Like the Homeric magic herb Moly, it was found by Hermes himself and must therefore have magical effects. It is particularly favourable to the coniunctio because it occurs in male and female form and thus can determine the sex of a child about to be conceived. Mercurius himself was said to be generated from an extract of it that spirit which acts as a mediator (because he is utriusque capax, capable of either) and saviour of the Macrocosm, and is therefore best able to unite the above with the below. In his ithyphallic form as Hermes Kyllenios, he contri butes the attractive power of sexuality, which plays a great role in the coniunctio symbolism.98 Like honey, he is dangerous because of his possibly poisonous effect, for which reason it naturally seemed advisable to our author to add rosemary to the mixture as an alexipharmic (antidote) and a synonym for Mercurius (aqua permanens), perhaps on the principle that like cures like. Dorn could hardly resist the temptation to exploit the alchemical allusion to ros marinus, sea-dew. In agreement with ecclesiastical symbolism there was in alchemy, too, a dew of grace, the aqua vitae, the perpetual, permanent, and two-meaninged
6.05 - THE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE PROCEDURE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[698] The list of ingredients to be mixed with the caelum gives us a glimpse into the nature of the psychic contents that were projected. In the honey, the sweetness of the earths,107 we can easily recognize the balsam of life that permeates all living, budding, and growing things. It expresses, psychologically, the joy of life and the life urge which overcome and eliminate everything dark and inhibiting. Where spring-like joy and expectation reign, spirit can embrace nature and nature spirit. The Chelidonia, a synonym for the philosophical gold, corresponds to Paracelsuss magic herb Cheyri (Cheiranthus cheiri). Like this, it has four-petalled yellow flowers. Cheyri, too, was related to the gold, since it was called aurum potabile. It therefore comes into the category of the Paracelsan Aniada, perfectors from below upwardmagical plants which are collected in the spring and grant long life.108 Dorn himself, in his Congeries Paracelsicae chemicae de transmutatione metallorum, commented on Paracelsuss De vita longa, where this information can be found. Celandine was one of the most popular curative and magical herbs in the Middle Ages, chiefly on account of its yellow, milky juicea remedy for non-lactation. It was also called enchanters nightshade.109 Like the Cheyri, it owes its singular significance to the quaternity of its gold-coloured flowers, as Paracelsus points out.110 The analogy with gold always signifies an accentuation of value: the addition of Chelidonia projects the highest value, which is identical with the quaternity of the self, into the mixture. If it draws out the soul of Mercurius, this means psychologically that the image of the self (the golden quaternity) draws a quintessence out of the chthonic spirit.
[699] I must agree with Dorn, and no doubt with the reader too, that this statement is vix intelligibilis. I can explain this only as a result of the extraordinary intellectual difficulties we get into when we have to wrestle seriously with a mind that could make no proper distinction between psyche and matter. The underlying idea here is that of Mercurius, a dual being who was as much spiritual as material. In my special study of that subject I have pointed out that outwardly Mercurius corresponds to quicksilver but inwardly he is a deus terrenus and an anima mundi in other words, that part of God which, when he imagined the world, was as it were left behind in his Creation111 or, like the Sophia of the Gnostics, got lost in Physis. Mercurius has the character which Dorn ascribes to the soul. He is good with the good, evil with the evil, and thus occupies a middle position morally. Just as the soul inclines to earthly bodies, so Mercurius frequently appears as the spirit in matter, in chthonic or even
6.08 - THE CONTENT AND MEANING OF THE FIRST TWO STAGES, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[757] As a rule this state is represented pictorially by a mandala. Often such drawings contain clear allusions to the sky and the stars and therefore refer to something like the inner heaven, the firmament or Olympus of Paracelsus, the Microcosm. This, too, is that circular product, the caelum,224 which Dorn wanted to produce by assiduous rotary movements. Because it is not very likely that he ever manufactured this quintessence as a chemical body, and he himself nowhere asserts that he did, one must ask whether he really meant this chemical operation or rather, perhaps, the opus alchymicum in general, that is, the transmutation of Mercurius duplex under the synonym of the red and white wine,225 thus alluding at the same time to the opus ad rubeum et ad album. This seems to me more probable. At any rate some kind of laboratory work was meant. In this way Dorn shaped out his intuition of a mysterious centre preexistent in man, which at the same time represented a cosmos, i.e., a totality, while he himself remained conscious that he was portraying the self in matter. He completed the image of wholeness by the admixture of honey, magic herbs, and human blood, or their meaningful equivalents, just as a modern man does when he associates numerous symbolic attributes with his drawing of a mandala. Also, following the old Sabaean and Alexandrian models, Dorn drew the influence of the planets (stellae inferiores)or Tartarus and the mythological aspect of the underworldinto his quintessence, just as the patient does today.226
[758] In this wise Dorn solved the problem of realizing the unio mentalis, of effecting its union with the body, thereby completing the second stage of the coniunctio. We would say that with this production of a physical equivalent the idea of the self had taken shape. But the alchemist associated his work with something more potent and more original than our pale abstraction. He felt it as a magically effective action which, like the substance itself, imparted magical qualities. The projection of magical qualities indicates the existence of corresponding effects on consciousness, that is to say the adept felt a numinous effect emanating from the lapis, or whatever he called the arcane substance. We, with our rationalistic minds, would scarcely attri bute any such thing to the pictures which the modern man makes of his intuitive vision of unconscious contents. But it depends on whether we are dealing with the conscious or with the unconscious. The unconscious does in fact seem to be influenced by these images. One comes to this conclusion when one examines more closely the psychic reactions of the patients to their own drawings: they do have in the end a quietening influence and create something like an inner foundation. While the adept had always looked for the effects of his stone outside, for instance as the panacea or golden tincture or life-prolonging elixir, and only during the sixteenth century pointed with unmistakable clarity to an inner effect, psychological experience emphasizes above all the subjective reaction to the formation of images, andwith a free and open mindstill reserves judgment in regard to possible objective effects.227
6.09 - THE THIRD STAGE - THE UNUS MUNDUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[766] With this conjecture of the identity of the psychic and the physical we approach the alchemical view of the unus mundus, the potential world of the first day of creation, when there was as yet no second. Before the time of Paracelsus the alchemists believed in creatio ex nihilo. For them, therefore, God himself was the principle of matter. But Paracelsus and his school assumed that matter was an increatum, and hence coexistent and coeternal with God. Whether they considered this view monistic or dualistic I am unable to discover. The only certain thing is that for all the alchemists matter had a divine aspect, whether on the ground that God was imprisoned in it in the form of the anima mundi or anima media natura, or that matter represented Gods reality. In no case was matter de-deified, and certainly not the potential matter of the first day of creation. It seems that only the Paracelsists were influenced by the dualistic words of Genesis.232
[767] If Dorn, then, saw the consummation of the mysterium coniunctionis in the union of the alchemically produced caelum with the unus mundus, he expressly meant not a fusion of the individual with his environment, or even his adaptation to it, but a unio mystica with the potential world. Such a view indeed seems to us mystical, if we misuse this word in its pejorative modern sense. It is not, however, a question of thoughtlessly used words but of a view which can be translated from medieval language into modern concepts. Undoubtedly the idea of the unus mundus is founded on the assumption that the multiplicity of the empirical world rests on an underlying unity, and that not two or more fundamentally different worlds exist side by side or are mingled with one another. Rather, everything divided and different belongs to one and the same world, which is not the world of sense but a postulate whose probability is vouched for by the fact that until now no one has been able to discover a world in which the known laws of nature are invalid. That even the psychic world, which is so extraordinarily different from the physical world, does not have its roots outside the one cosmos is evident from the undeniable fact that causal connections exist between the psyche and the body which point to their underlying unitary nature.
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Sudhoff (ed.). Theophrast von Hohenheim genannt Paracelsus
sdmtliche Werke. Munich and Berlin, 1922-35. 15 vols. (Vol. Ill,
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
between the teachings of Paracelsus, the "Father of Modern Chemistry," and those of Haeckel, the
Father of the mythical Sozura. We demand no more.
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Unveiled" and the rest as a plagiarism from Eliphas Levi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and, mirabile
[[Vol. 1, Page]] xlvi INTRODUCTORY.
--
Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahma, the malefemale, its aspect and anthropomorphic reflection, is conceivable to the perceptions of blind faith,
though rejected by human intellect when it attains its majority. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance
--
* Paracelsus calls them the Flagae; the Christians, the "Guardian Angels;" the Occultist, the
"Ancestors, the Pitris;" they are the sixfold Dhyan Chohans, having the six spiritual Elements in the
--
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 263 Paracelsus DIED TOO EARLY.
experimenters as Pasteur are the best friends and helpers of the Destroyers and the worst enemies of
--
Hermes down to Paracelsus and his successors.
Thus Hermes, the thrice great Trismegistus, says: "Oh, my son, matter becomes; formerly it was; for
--
in his "Life of Paracelsus."
All the Christian Kabalists understood well the Eastern root idea: The active Power, the "Perpetual
--
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 283 Paracelsus ANTICIPATED TYNDALL.
described in Book II., with the Commentaries thereupon, there is no need to say more of it here.
According to the Hermetico-Kabalistic philosophy of Paracelsus, it is Yliaster -- the ancestor of the
just-born Protyle, introduced by Mr. Crookes in chemistry -- or primordial Protomateria that evolved
--
Dr. F. Hartmann, justly observe that "it seems that Paracelsus anticipated the modern discovery of the
'potency of matter' three hundred years ago" (P. 42).
This Magnus Limbus, then, or Yliaster of Paracelsus, is simply our old friend "Father-Mother," within,
before it appeared in Space, of the second and other Stanzas. It is the universal matrix of Kosmos,
--
Aditi-Prakriti, the Spiritual and the physical nature. For we find it explained in Paracelsus that "the
Magnus Limbus is the nursery out of which all creatures have grown, in the same sense as a tree
--
* This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann from the original texts of Paracelsus before him, as follows.
According to this great Rosicrucian: "Mysterium is everything out of which something may be
--
the mirrors of man," says Paracelsus (De Fundamento Sapientiae). Paracelsus was cautious, and
wanted the Bible to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all.
--
Nitrogen has added considerably to chemical knowledge, but its discoverer, Paracelsus, is to this day
called a "quack."
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
like Paracelsus, made a great difference between phenomenon and its cause, or the Noumenon; and
Grove, who, though he sees "no reason to divest universally diffused matter of the functions common
--
these only the fictions of the alchemists, or dreams of the Mystics, such men as Paracelsus,
Philale thes, Van Helmont, and so many others, would have to be regarded as worse than visionaries:
--
votaries. For Paracelsus wrote the same thing more than three hundred years ago, namely, in the
sixteenth century, as follows: -"The whole of the Microcosm is potentially contained in the Liquor Vitae, a nerve fluid . . . in which
--
Viribus Membrorum. See "Life of Paracelsus" by Franz Hartmann, M.D., F.T.S.)
Had Dr. Richardson studied all the secret works of Paracelsus, he would not have been obliged to
confess so often -- "we do not know" . . . . "it is not known to us" . . . . etc., etc. Nor would he have
--
* Paracelsus for one, who called it liquor vitae, and Archaeus.
** Rather alchemical -- "composition."
*** "This vital force . . . radiates around man like a luminous sphere" . . . says Paracelsus in
Paragranum.
--
mistake. But this "physical something," that we call life-fluid -- the Liquor Vitae of Paracelsus -- has
not deserted the body, as Dr. Richardson thinks. It has only changed its state from activity to
--
see what Paracelsus said of 'Nervous Ether'": -"The Archaeus is of a magnetic nature, and attracts or repels other sympathetic or antipa thetic forces
belonging to the same plane. The less power of resistance for astral influences a person possesses, the
--
it has been made impure, and restore the health" (Paragranum; "Life of Paracelsus," by Dr. F.
Hartmann.)
--
obtaining a real element, or a particle of homogeneous matter, the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus.
But then it was before Lord Bacon's day.*
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
sixteenth century, Etymologists attri bute it to the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus in whose writings it appears for the first
time.
--
Gnosis, in Greek, means knowledge; and Paracelsus may
have called them Gnomes because they know the exact
--
divided all matter, a particular spirit was later made to correspond. Paracelsus, the sixteenth-century Swiss alchemist
and physician, gave them their names: the Gnomes of earth,
--
to the Celtic languages, but it seems quite unlikely that Paracelsus, who gave us the name, knew anything about those
tongues.
Liber 111 - The Book of Wisdom - LIBER ALEPH VEL CXI, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Discipline of Theophrastus Paracelsus, how,
opposing Wine to bodily Exercise, he obtained a certain Purification
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
presence of Paracelsus and of Henry Khunrath, if these great men had
been his contemporaries.
--
Paracelsus. An acute and judicious critic, Mr. Ch. Fauvety, in an
article published by the "Revue philosophique et religieuse,"
appreciates in a remarkable manner the advanced works of Paracelsus, of
Pomponacius, of Goglienus, or Crollis, and of Robert Fludd on
--
a philosophical curiosity, Paracelsus and his followers practised
without being very anxious that the world should understand it; for it
--
Now here is what Paracelsus reserved for initiates alone, {213} and
what we have understood through deciphering the qabalistic characters,
--
complete manner in death; but then (and it is thus that Paracelsus
explains the mysteries of the other life) the wicked, that is to say,
--
Here it will be understood we leave Paracelsus, in order that we may
investigate the consequences and applications of his ideas, which are
--
Paracelsus, death is nothing but a slumber, ever growing deeper and
more definite, a slumber which it would not be impossible to stop in
--
the celibacy of Adam. Paracelsus says that the vapours of the blood of
hysterical women people the air with phantoms; and these ideas are so
--
They have possessed themselves of our ascendant, as Paracelsus says,
and where they wish to lead us we shall go.
--
what Paracelsus calls his "ascendant," and he gives the name of
"flagum" to the particular reflection of the habitual ideas of each one
--
said Paracelsus, "brea the out their luminous soul, and attract each
others radiation. The soul of the earth, prisoner of the fatal laws of
--
that exceptional philosophy, which Paracelsus called the philosophy of
sagacity, "philosophia sagax."
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
Aquinas, mystics like Jacob Boehme, physicians like Paracelsus,
astronomers like Kepler, writers and poets as far apart as Dante,
--
to gain immortaHty; Paracelsus's rival, Agrippa, was allied to the devil
in the shape of an enormous black poodle; the Anatomists were allied
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Zacharius, and Paracelsus are, in the 16th century, the only known heirs to the Egyptian
esotericism, which the Renaissance rejected after corrupting it. Let us, in passing, pay a
supreme tri bute to the passionate defender of antique truths Paracelsus; the great tribune
deserves from us eternal gratitude for his ultimate and courageous intervention. Although it
--
(2) The term alkahest, attri buted sometimes to Van Helmont, sometimes to Paracelsus, would be the equivalent of the Latin
alcali est and would provide the reason why so many artists have worked to obtain it by starting to work with alkalies. For us,
--
Theophrastus Paracelsus:
"Isaac Hollandus says in his Vegetable Work: Know, my son, that the stone of the
--
Theophrastus Paracelsus in the 5 th Canon of Saturn says:
"Saturn speaks thus of its nature: the six (metals) were joined to me and infused their spirit
--- Overview of noun paracelsus
The noun paracelsus has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim ::: (Swiss physician who introduced treatments of particular illnesses based on his observation and experience; he saw illness as having an external cause (rather than an imbalance of humors) and replaced traditional remedies with chemical remedies (1493-1541))
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun paracelsus
1 sense of paracelsus
Sense 1
Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim
INSTANCE OF=> doctor, doc, physician, MD, Dr., medico
=> medical practitioner, medical man
=> health professional, primary care provider, PCP, health care provider, caregiver
=> professional, professional person
=> adult, grownup
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun paracelsus
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun paracelsus
1 sense of paracelsus
Sense 1
Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim
INSTANCE OF=> doctor, doc, physician, MD, Dr., medico
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun paracelsus
1 sense of paracelsus
Sense 1
Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim
-> doctor, doc, physician, MD, Dr., medico
=> abortionist
=> allergist
=> angiologist
=> extern, medical extern
=> gastroenterologist
=> general practitioner, GP
=> hakim, hakeem
=> house physician, resident, resident physician
=> intern, interne, houseman, medical intern
=> primary care physician
=> quack
=> specialist, medical specialist
=> surgeon, operating surgeon, sawbones
=> veterinarian, veterinary, veterinary surgeon, vet
HAS INSTANCE=> Averroes, ibn-Roshd, Abul-Walid Mohammed ibn-Ahmad Ibn-Mohammed ibn-Roshd
HAS INSTANCE=> Avicenna, ibn-Sina, Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina
HAS INSTANCE=> Barany, Robert Barany
HAS INSTANCE=> Bartholin, Caspar Bartholin
HAS INSTANCE=> Bruce, David Bruce, Sir David Bruce
HAS INSTANCE=> Crohn, Burrill Bernard Crohn
HAS INSTANCE=> Down, John L. H. Down
HAS INSTANCE=> Eijkman, Christiaan Eijkman
HAS INSTANCE=> Fallot, Etienne-Louis Arthur Fallot
HAS INSTANCE=> Gilbert, William Gilbert
HAS INSTANCE=> Harvey, William Harvey
HAS INSTANCE=> Hodgkin, Thomas Hodgkin
HAS INSTANCE=> Huntington, George Huntington
HAS INSTANCE=> Jacobs, Aletta Jacobs
HAS INSTANCE=> Jenner, Edward Jenner
HAS INSTANCE=> Klinefelter, Harry F. Klinefelter, Harry Fitch Kleinfelter
HAS INSTANCE=> Lozier, Clemence Sophia Harned Lozier
HAS INSTANCE=> Manson, Sir Patrick Manson
HAS INSTANCE=> Mesmer, Franz Anton Mesmer, Friedrich Anton Mesmer
HAS INSTANCE=> Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim
HAS INSTANCE=> Roget, Peter Mark Roget
HAS INSTANCE=> Ross, Sir Ronald Ross
HAS INSTANCE=> Rush, Benjamin Rush
HAS INSTANCE=> Schweitzer, Albert Schweitzer
HAS INSTANCE=> Shaw, Anna Howard Shaw
HAS INSTANCE=> Simpson, Sir James Young Simpson
HAS INSTANCE=> Sydenham, Thomas Sydenham, English Hippocrates
HAS INSTANCE=> Willebrand, von Willebrand, E. A. von Willebrand, Erik von Willebrand, Erik Adolf von Willebrand
--- Grep of noun paracelsus
paracelsus
philippus aureolus paracelsus
Wikipedia - Hey Jealousy -- 1989 song by Gin Blossoms
Wikipedia - Jealousy (1916 film) -- 1916 silent drama film by Will S. Davis
Wikipedia - Jealousy (1922 film) -- 1922 film
Wikipedia - Jealousy (1925 film) -- 1925 film
Wikipedia - Jealousy (1929 film) -- 1929 film
Wikipedia - Jealousy (1931 film) -- 1931 film
Wikipedia - Jealousy (1934 film) -- 1934 American drama film directed by Roy William Neill
Wikipedia - Jealousy (2013 film) -- 2013 film
Wikipedia - Jealousy in art
Wikipedia - Jealousy sociology
Wikipedia - Jealousy -- Emotion referring to the thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and envy over relative lack of possessions, status or something of great personal value
Wikipedia - Morbid jealousy
Wikipedia - Neuroticism -- Personality trait involving anxiety, anger, jealousy, guilt or depression
Wikipedia - Pathological jealousy -- Psychological disorder
Wikipedia - Scars of Jealousy -- 1923 film by Lambert Hillyer
Wikipedia - Sexual jealousy
Wikipedia - The Grip of Jealousy -- 1916 film
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Psychology Wiki - Jealousy
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/DivineJealousyAndTheVoiceOfReason
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Malibu Shores (1996 - 1996) - Malibu teens clash with their counterparts from L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. The opener centers on the star-crossed romance between Chloe and Zack (Keri Russell, Tony Lucca)---which fans flames of anger and jealousy on both sides of the hill. Starring Keri Russel
American Samurai(1992) - this lively actioner, a samurai warrior adopts an American boy and later gives him the treasured family sword. Unfortunately, this rouses the jealousy of his wicked stepbrother who is involved with yakuzas and illegal sword-fighting contests, and who vows that he will get revenge upon the Yankee br...
Murder: By Reason Of Insanity(1985) - The Berwids, Ewa (Candice Bergen) and Adam (Jurgen Prochnow), are immigrants from Poland. When they come to America, their careers diverge. His is a failure, her's is a success, and jealousy rears its' very ugly head.
Blondie On A Budget(1940) - Dagwood wants to join the trout club and Blondie wants a fur coat. Jealousy reigns when Dag's old girlfriend Joan shows up, but nothing else matters when a drawing at the movie theatre provides money for the coat.
My Wife Is an Actress (2001) ::: 6.4/10 -- Ma femme est une actrice (original title) -- My Wife Is an Actress Poster -- A "normal" guy who is married to a hot actress gets worried that she is involved with her costar. This worry turns into jealousy and causes problems in their relationship. This is a story about trust and a comedy about the actions between men and women. Director: Yvan Attal
Nappily Ever After (2018) ::: 6.4/10 -- TV-MA | 1h 38min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 21 September 2018 (USA) -- Violet Jones tired of waiting for her longtime boyfriend to propose, breaks up with him. But old feelings, and heaps of jealousy, no doubt, arise when he promptly begins dating another woman. Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour Writers:
Real Husbands of Hollywood ::: 21min | Comedy | TV Series (2013 ) Kevin Hart and other celebrities play a comic fictionalized version of themselves in this parody of similarly named reality shows. Episodes often feature Kevin Hart's attempts to gain celebrity and his jealousy of his friends. Creators: Chris Spencer, Ralph Farquhar, Kevin Hart
The Beguiled (2017) ::: 6.3/10 -- R | 1h 33min | Drama, Thriller, War | 30 June 2017 (USA) -- The unexpected arrival of a wounded Union soldier at a girls school in Virginia during the American Civil War leads to jealousy and betrayal. Director: Sofia Coppola Writers: Sofia Coppola (screenplay by), Thomas Cullinan (based on the novel by)
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https://petshopboys.fandom.com/wiki/Jealousy_(single)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Jealousy
Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka III OVA -- -- J.C.Staff -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Romance Ecchi Fantasy -- Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka III OVA Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka III OVA -- (No synopsis yet.) -- OVA - Apr 28, 2021 -- 31,040 N/A -- -- Nil Admirari no Tenbin -- -- Zero-G -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Harem Historical Romance Fantasy Josei -- Nil Admirari no Tenbin Nil Admirari no Tenbin -- The Taishou era didn't end in 15 years, but went on for another 25. In order to protect her waning family, a girl resolves to marry a man she doesn't even know the name of. However, just before the marriage was to take place, the girl's younger brother mysteriously committed suicide by self-immolation and was found holding an old book in his hands. Appearing before the bewildered young girl was the "Imperial Library Intelligence Asset Management Bureau," more commonly referred to as "Fukurou." According to these men, there exists "Maremono," which are books that greatly affect their readers. On top of that, ever since the incident involving the girl's younger brother, she unwittingly gains the ability to see "Auras" (the sentiments of the Maremono which manifest as bright lights and are usually invisible to humans). It was as though fate were trying to drag the young girl in its flames. And then, even though apprehensive, the girl chooses to venture outside her bird cage. Jealousy, hatred, scorn, compassion, and love. What awaited the girl was the darkness of betrayal that had already begun to bewitchingly inlay the imperial capital. Toyed by and swayed within that darkness, will the young girl finally reach the truth after her struggles, or...? -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- 30,986 6.61
ef: A Tale of Memories. -- -- Shaft -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Mystery Drama Romance -- ef: A Tale of Memories. ef: A Tale of Memories. -- On Christmas Eve, Hiro Hirono runs into Miyako Miyamura, a frivolous girl who "borrows" his bicycle in order to chase down a purse thief. After Hiro finds his bicycle wrecked and Miyako unconscious, the two unexpectedly spend their Christmas Eve together, and when they discover they go to the same high school, their accidental relationship develops even further. This sparks the jealousy of Hiro's childhood friend Kei Shindou, whose pure approach to life catches the eye of Kyosuke Tsutsumi, a womanizing photographer searching for the perfect shot. -- -- Elsewhere, Renji Asou, a boy who dreams of being a girl's knight in shining armor, has a chance encounter with Kei's twin sister—the overly shy Chihiro Shindou, who spends her time reading alone—at an abandoned train station. The two quickly become friends and eventually decide to write a novel together. However, when Renji discovers Chihiro's secret, a disability that causes her to have an eternally ephemeral memory, his childish ideals will be put to the test. -- -- Guided by two mysterious adults, these youths' relationships intertwine in a heart-rending tale of love, rejection, acceptance, and memories. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 223,388 7.94
Howl no Ugoku Shiro -- -- Studio Ghibli -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Adventure Drama Fantasy Romance -- Howl no Ugoku Shiro Howl no Ugoku Shiro -- That jumbled piece of architecture, that cacophony of hissing steam and creaking joints, with smoke billowing from it as it moves on its own... That castle is home to the magnificent wizard Howl, infamous for both his magical prowess and for being a womanizer—or so the rumor goes in Sophie Hatter's small town. Sophie, as the plain daughter of a hatmaker, does not expect much from her future and is content with working hard in the shop. -- -- However, Sophie's simple life takes a turn for the exciting when she is ensnared in a disturbing situation, and the mysterious wizard appears to rescue her. Unfortunately, this encounter, brief as it may be, spurs the vain and vengeful Witch of the Waste—in a fit of jealousy caused by a past discord with Howl—to put a curse on the maiden, turning her into an old woman. -- -- In an endeavor to return to normal, Sophie must accompany Howl and a myriad of eccentric companions—ranging from a powerful fire demon to a hopping scarecrow—in his living castle, on a dangerous adventure as a raging war tears their kingdom apart. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Walt Disney Studios -- Movie - Nov 20, 2004 -- 901,461 8.66
Maburaho -- -- J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Drama Ecchi Harem Magic Romance School -- Maburaho Maburaho -- In the world of Maburaho, everyone is born with the ability to use magic and are thus labeled magicians. However, the magical ability of each person is not equal. The number of times you can use magic determines the amount of respect you receive, and since one’s magical power is determined at birth by traits and genetics, those who have a bloodline stemming from famous magicians are highly sought after. -- -- Having the lowest magic count in Aoi Academy, Kazuki Shikimori is looked down upon by his classmates and seen as a nearly worthless magician. However, his bloodline consists of many great magicians throughout the ages, meaning that while he may not be a great magician, his offspring could be. This leads to him being sought after by three different young women: Yuna Miyama, a transfer student who declares herself his wife upon arrival, Rin Kamishiro, a prideful swordswoman of a traditional family who wants to kill him so she will be free to pursue her own desires, and Kuriko Kazetsubaki, a member of an influential family who bluntly tries to seduce him for his genes. -- -- Now he has to deal with not only the jealousy of all the guys in his school, but also various women chasing after him! -- 86,894 6.79
Made in Abyss 2 -- -- - -- ? eps -- Web manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Mystery Drama Fantasy -- Made in Abyss 2 Made in Abyss 2 -- Directly after the events of Made in Abyss Movie 3: Dawn of the Deep Soul, the third installment of Made in Abyss covers the adventure of Reg, Riko, and Nanachi in the Sixth Layer, The Capital of the Unreturned. -- - - ??? ??, ???? -- 87,566 N/AMaburaho -- -- J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Drama Ecchi Harem Magic Romance School -- Maburaho Maburaho -- In the world of Maburaho, everyone is born with the ability to use magic and are thus labeled magicians. However, the magical ability of each person is not equal. The number of times you can use magic determines the amount of respect you receive, and since one’s magical power is determined at birth by traits and genetics, those who have a bloodline stemming from famous magicians are highly sought after. -- -- Having the lowest magic count in Aoi Academy, Kazuki Shikimori is looked down upon by his classmates and seen as a nearly worthless magician. However, his bloodline consists of many great magicians throughout the ages, meaning that while he may not be a great magician, his offspring could be. This leads to him being sought after by three different young women: Yuna Miyama, a transfer student who declares herself his wife upon arrival, Rin Kamishiro, a prideful swordswoman of a traditional family who wants to kill him so she will be free to pursue her own desires, and Kuriko Kazetsubaki, a member of an influential family who bluntly tries to seduce him for his genes. -- -- Now he has to deal with not only the jealousy of all the guys in his school, but also various women chasing after him! -- 86,894 6.79
Oniisama e... -- -- Tezuka Productions -- 39 eps -- Manga -- Psychological Drama School Shoujo Shoujo Ai -- Oniisama e... Oniisama e... -- When 16-year-old Nanako Misonoo enters the prestigious all-girls Seiran Academy, she believes a bright future awaits her. Instead, the unlucky girl finds herself dragged into a web of deceit, misery, and jealousy. On top of that, she is chosen as the newest inductee of the Sorority, an elite group whose members are the envy of the entire school. Having none of the grace, wealth, or talent of the other members, Nanako quickly draws the ire of her jealous classmates—especially the fierce Aya Misaki. -- -- To cope with her increasingly difficult school life, Nanako recalls her days through letters to her former teacher, Takehiko Henmi, whom she affectionately calls "onii-sama" (big brother). She also finds comfort with her four closest friends: her childhood friend Tomoko Arikura, the sociable but erratic Mariko Shinobu, the troubled musician Rei Asaka, and the athletic tomboy Kaoru Orihara. -- -- An impassioned drama about the hardships of bullying, Oniisama e... chronicles a young girl's harsh life at her new school, as she endures cruel rumours, heartless classmates, and countless social trials. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- TV - Jul 14, 1991 -- 30,596 7.79
Oniisama e... -- -- Tezuka Productions -- 39 eps -- Manga -- Psychological Drama School Shoujo Shoujo Ai -- Oniisama e... Oniisama e... -- When 16-year-old Nanako Misonoo enters the prestigious all-girls Seiran Academy, she believes a bright future awaits her. Instead, the unlucky girl finds herself dragged into a web of deceit, misery, and jealousy. On top of that, she is chosen as the newest inductee of the Sorority, an elite group whose members are the envy of the entire school. Having none of the grace, wealth, or talent of the other members, Nanako quickly draws the ire of her jealous classmates—especially the fierce Aya Misaki. -- -- To cope with her increasingly difficult school life, Nanako recalls her days through letters to her former teacher, Takehiko Henmi, whom she affectionately calls "onii-sama" (big brother). She also finds comfort with her four closest friends: her childhood friend Tomoko Arikura, the sociable but erratic Mariko Shinobu, the troubled musician Rei Asaka, and the athletic tomboy Kaoru Orihara. -- -- An impassioned drama about the hardships of bullying, Oniisama e... chronicles a young girl's harsh life at her new school, as she endures cruel rumours, heartless classmates, and countless social trials. -- -- TV - Jul 14, 1991 -- 30,596 7.79
Rec: Yurusarezarumono -- -- Shaft -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Romance Seinen -- Rec: Yurusarezarumono Rec: Yurusarezarumono -- While going out to eat with his roommate Aka Onda, Fumihiko Matsumaru encounters Tanaka, a woman from his company's accounting department who had previously stood him up on a date. Dumped by her boyfriend just minutes before, Tanaka forces Fumihiko to drink with her, spurring Aka's jealousy. -- -- After Fumihiko escorts a drunk Tanaka home, he ends up tending to her the entire night, leading Aka to become suspicious. How will Fumihiko clear up the misunderstanding? -- -- Special - Jun 30, 2006 -- 22,081 7.16
Sakamoto Desu ga? -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy School Seinen -- Sakamoto Desu ga? Sakamoto Desu ga? -- Sophisticated, suave, sublime; all words which describe the exceedingly handsome and patently perfect Sakamoto. Though it is only his first day in high school, his attractiveness, intelligence, and charm already has the girls swooning and the guys fuming with jealousy. No one seems able to derail him, as all attempts at tripping him up are quickly foiled. His sangfroid is indomitable, his wits peerless. Will any of Sakamoto's classmates, or even teachers, be able to reach his level of excellence? Probably not, but they just might learn a thing or two trying... -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 571,751 7.58
Sakura Trick -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Romance School Seinen Shoujo Ai -- Sakura Trick Sakura Trick -- Having been best friends since middle school, Haruka Takayama and Yuu Sonoda plan to attend Misato West High School together. However, despite being assigned to the same class, a cruel twist of fate has them seated on the opposite ends of their classroom! To make matters worse, their school will shut down in three years, making them the final intake of first-year students. Undeterred by this chain of unfortunate events, Haruka is set on sticking with Yuu, striving to create many wonderful memories with her. -- -- Much to Haruka's jealousy however, Yuu's easygoing demeanor quickly attracts the attention of their female classmates. Sympathizing with her friend's growing insecurity, Yuu ends up sharing a deep, affectionate kiss with her in an empty classroom. The act intensifies their bond as "special friends," gradually revealing a different aspect to their unique friendship while also inviting new conflicts. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Jan 10, 2014 -- 215,977 7.00
Sakura Trick -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Romance School Seinen Shoujo Ai -- Sakura Trick Sakura Trick -- Having been best friends since middle school, Haruka Takayama and Yuu Sonoda plan to attend Misato West High School together. However, despite being assigned to the same class, a cruel twist of fate has them seated on the opposite ends of their classroom! To make matters worse, their school will shut down in three years, making them the final intake of first-year students. Undeterred by this chain of unfortunate events, Haruka is set on sticking with Yuu, striving to create many wonderful memories with her. -- -- Much to Haruka's jealousy however, Yuu's easygoing demeanor quickly attracts the attention of their female classmates. Sympathizing with her friend's growing insecurity, Yuu ends up sharing a deep, affectionate kiss with her in an empty classroom. The act intensifies their bond as "special friends," gradually revealing a different aspect to their unique friendship while also inviting new conflicts. -- -- TV - Jan 10, 2014 -- 215,977 7.00
Sekaiichi Hatsukoi -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Romance Shounen Ai -- Sekaiichi Hatsukoi Sekaiichi Hatsukoi -- After having to deal with jealousy from his co-workers for working under his father's name, prideful literary editor Ritsu Onodera is determined to establish himself in the industry. To accomplish this, he quits his job at his father's publishing company and transfers to Marukawa Publishing. But instead of being placed in their literary division, Ritsu finds himself working as the rookie manga editor for the Emerald editing department, a team that operates under extremely tight schedules in order to meet deadlines. There, Ritsu is introduced to the infamous editor-in-chief Masamune Takano, a persistent man who strives for results. -- -- As it turns out, Takano is actually Ritsu's high school love, and it is the aftermath of that heartbreak has caused Ritsu's reluctance to fall in love again. Now with the two reunited after several years of separation, the reestablishment of their relationship is marked by Takano's vow to make Ritsu say that he loves him again. -- -- Sekaiichi Hatsukoi follows three couples that are interconnected within the manga industry, with each being subject to the budding of first love. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Apr 9, 2011 -- 179,884 7.76
Sekaiichi Hatsukoi -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Romance Shounen Ai -- Sekaiichi Hatsukoi Sekaiichi Hatsukoi -- After having to deal with jealousy from his co-workers for working under his father's name, prideful literary editor Ritsu Onodera is determined to establish himself in the industry. To accomplish this, he quits his job at his father's publishing company and transfers to Marukawa Publishing. But instead of being placed in their literary division, Ritsu finds himself working as the rookie manga editor for the Emerald editing department, a team that operates under extremely tight schedules in order to meet deadlines. There, Ritsu is introduced to the infamous editor-in-chief Masamune Takano, a persistent man who strives for results. -- -- As it turns out, Takano is actually Ritsu's high school love, and it is the aftermath of that heartbreak has caused Ritsu's reluctance to fall in love again. Now with the two reunited after several years of separation, the reestablishment of their relationship is marked by Takano's vow to make Ritsu say that he loves him again. -- -- Sekaiichi Hatsukoi follows three couples that are interconnected within the manga industry, with each being subject to the budding of first love. -- -- TV - Apr 9, 2011 -- 179,884 7.76
True Tears -- -- P.A. Works -- 13 eps -- Original -- Drama Romance School -- True Tears True Tears -- Shinichirou Nakagami was living the life other boys from his grade could only dream of—staying under the same roof as prodigal student Hiromi Yuasa. However, the bright and cheerful Hiromi has been depressed and cold at home ever since her mother passed away. While he is the subject of the ignorant jealousy of his peers, rumors begin to spread when Shinichirou meets Noe Isurugi—a girl known for cursing classmates, curses which always end up becoming reality. -- -- Noe curses Shinichirou as well, but two pits are created when you curse someone, and her curse on Shinichirou comes back to bite her in the form of a raccoon to her beloved chicken, Raigomaru. Despite this, she does not shed a single tear; Noe had had her tears stolen. For Noe to be able to cry again, she would need the tears of another, and Shinichirou knows a person whose tears he wants to take away. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Bandai Visual USA, Discotek Media -- 187,883 7.35
Brand New Morning / Jealousy Jealousy
Bread, Love and Jealousy
Hey Jealousy
Immacolata and Concetta: The Other Jealousy
Jealousy
Jealousy (1922 film)
Jealousy (1925 film)
Jealousy (1931 film)
Jealousy (1953 Finnish film)
Jealousy (1953 Italian film)
Jealousy (2013 film)
Jealousy (Dirt Band album)
Jealousy (disambiguation)
Jealousy (EP)
Jealousy Is My Middle Name
Jealousy (painting)
Jealousy (Queen song)
Jealousy, U.S. Virgin Islands
Jealousy (X Japan album)
Miss Jealousy
Mr. Jealousy
Pathological jealousy
Sexual jealousy
Social aspects of jealousy
Talk:Hey Jealousy
The Grip of Jealousy
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