From the Arbatel of Magick, Third Septenary, Seventeenth Aphorism:
Mediocribus Magis, mittunt de suis Spiritibus, qui in determinatis tantûm quibusdam negotiis illis obtemperent.
"To the Mediocre Magicians, they send their spirits to obey them in carrying out specific tasks." (My translation.)
Mediocribus can mean ordinary, normal, or average. I like "Mediocre," because it demonstrates something about magic that I tend to forget. For all the fun I have conjuring spirits and having them get me stuff and influence my world, that's just normal. For Magicians. It's to be expected.
Head for the Red: The ongoing adventures and insights of a magician's attempts to accomplish the Great Work.
Er... um, double check your cases. The magicians are the predicate of "They" - They (the Governors of the world from the previous sentence) send spirits to the {mediocre} magicians, but the spirits carry out specific tasks only.
ReplyDeletePretty good, though...
The next sentence is useful as well: "At Pseudomagos non audiunt, sed eos Dæmonibus illudendos obiiciunt, & in varia pericula coniiciuntur Deo mandante, sicut de Iudæis Ieremias capite 8. testatur."
The text in question, which I feel makes a good point:
1. At that time, says the Lord, they will take out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of his princes and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, from their graves.
2. And spread them before the sun and before the moon and before the entire host of the heavens, which they loved and which they worshipped and which they followed, and which they sought and to which they prostrated themselves; they shall neither be gathered nor be buried; they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth.
3. And death shall be preferable to life for all the residue that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have cast them out, says the Lord of Hosts.
4. And you shall say to them; so says the Lord: Shall they fall and not rise, if he repents, will He not return?
5. Why has this people, Jerusalem, slid back a perpetual backsliding? They have held on to deceit, they refuse to repent.
6. I hearkened and heard, they do not speak properly; no man regrets his wickedness, saying, "What have I done?" Each one turns away in his course, as a frightening horse into battle.
7. Even the stork in the heaven knows her seasons, and the turtledoves and the crane and the swallow await the time of their coming, but My people do not know the ordinance of the Lord.
8. How do you say, "We are wise, and the Law of the Lord is with us"? Verily, behold it is in vain, he made a false scribes' pen.
9. Wise men were ashamed, they were broken and caught; behold they rejected the word of the Lord, now what wisdom have they?
10. Therefore, I will give their wives to others, their fields to those who possess them for from the smallest to the greatest, they all commit robbery, from prophet to priest, they all deal falsely.
11. And they healed the breach of My people easily, saying, "Peace, peace," but there is no peace.
12. They shall be put to shame since they have committed abomination. Neither are they ashamed nor do they know to feel disgrace. They will, therefore, fall among the slain; at the time I have visited upon them, they will stumble, says the Lord.
13. I will utterly consume them, says the Lord. There shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves will be withered, for what I gave them they transgressed.
14. Why do we sit still? Gather together, and let us go to the fortified cities, and there let us sit in silence, for the Lord our God has silenced us, and has given us poisoned water to drink because we have sinned against the Lord.
15. We hoped for peace, but no good came; for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
16. From Dan is heard the snorting of their horses, at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes; they come and devour the land and its produce, the city and those that dwell therein.
17. For behold, I am sending you serpents, adders which cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the Lord.
18. Were I to suppress my grief, my heart is sick within me.
19. Hark the voice from a distant land, the cry of the daughter of My people; is the Lord not in Zion? Is not her King therein? Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with their strange vanities?
20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended; and we are not saved.
21. For the wound of the daughter of my people, I am wounded (with grief); I mourn, (and) dismay has taken hold of me.
22. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then, has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
23. O that my head were (full of) waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.
I've got the Mediocre magicians as the predicate. It's just abnormal syntax. Drink more coffee.
ReplyDeletePretty good though.
That Bible chapter seems rather timely considering the current political climate.
ReplyDelete