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STUDIIS ADOLESCENTIA, RECREANTUR ALITUR.
RECREATUM SENECTUS ADVERSA PERFUGIUM & SOLATIUM. 1
Nulla poetarum laudabat gratia libros,
mendosa quaevis pagina labe fuit. 2
----
In Praise of the Pyrognomy and Higher Spagyricism of Love-alchemy; *
THE LIBER ENDUMIASKIA OF HERMAEDION.
Or,
BEING A MYSTICAL EXEGESIS ON,
THE THREE VEILS OF PARADISE:
THE BOOK OF PLEASURE AND NEGROMANTIC SEPHANDROMAD,
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CONCERNING THE PHILOSOSPHY AND HEROICISM OF EKSTASIE. 3
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----LUX PAROKET----LUCIFA QUESET----SKIA KHOSHEK----SKOTOPION---- †
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---- ΑΝ-Α-ΔΑΕΜΟΝΙΟΣ ΝΕΓΡΟΜΑΝΤΕΙΑ ΣΕΠΗΑΝΔΡΟΜΑΔ. ----
-- Cor tuum parturientis fantasias partitur, somnia & mens, humana et vigilat anadaemone. -- 4
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**** NVTV DEI. **** ††
Genesis 1:28
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LUX GLORIA LUCE
TENEBRAS GAUDEAMUS LUX ACCESSA.
Mortalitatis opere reum tenebras accessa lux, lux gloria luce gaudeamus;
-- Alcuinus, in: Confessio Fidei.
in plenitudinem affectus vult princeps laborat, imagine Deus optat unitas. **
Invenia vera priorem in plenas miseros magis, optatum ante unitas in vera pietate. ***
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DEUM NUTRI IN IGNIS.
ET QUODAM TEMPORE IN AQUA SUPRA VIRTUTEM IGNIS,
EXARDESCEBAT UNIQUE UT INIQUAE TERRAE.
PARATUM PANEM DE COELO
TERRIS SINE LABORE.
אסהיר וסהיר
... PONDERE TIMORIS LIBIDINEM AESTUAT INCLINATEM ... 5
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1. Poetry is the study of youth, and the recreation of old age; a foreign land oft dreamed of for the scholar, though never glimpsed, and a distant memory for the man of action, for which hope he draws his heart aloft. Joannes Coelius, in: Oratorum Princeps. Poeseos studiis adolescentia alitur, senectus recreatur, ornantur secundae res, adversa perfugium & solatium praebent, homines domi resciunt eadem studia cum hominibus pernoctant, peregrinatur, rusticantur nunquam homines deserunt, omnibus prosunt.
2. Iodocii Castenerius, in Poemata Funebria: "The poets do not mend the tomes they praise, and by slow steps the young must count the page." Nulla poetarum laudabat gratia libros, mendosa quaevis pagina labe fuit. Aut obscura ferens perplexo taedia sensu tardabat gressus, lecta iuventa, tuos. Perplexae Sophiae praelongis omnia libris dogmata sunt coeptas saepe morata vias.
The first two quotations, in the greater context of the front-piece, namely the vanity of route knowledge, as obstended by the higher injunction of God (NVTV) and the transcendental endeavour of Gnostic consciousness, are meant to be taken together as a cento, hence:
Poetry is the study of youth, and the recreation of old age;
for the poets do not mend the tomes they praise,
and by slow steps the young must count the page.
3. These words recall the Greek epithet for Aphrodite in her un-ornamented, nude form, as a representation of Sophia or Wisdom: Anadyomene. This epithet accompanies the other two evocatory terms serving as both Aphroditean epithets and cental philosophic conceptualizations in the work of Parodotus, ie. Ouranos and Pandemos, and so we have the figurative poetry accompanying them: The mind ebbs (Pandemos) and gains, (Ouranos) but the heart is shared by our dreams and waking life. (Anadyomene.) The other word recalls the Zoroastrean and Babylonian version of the same, that is, the Sephandomad, though SEPH or wisdom has been playfully combined with the similar sounding Greek, ie. andromad, which would alter the original term, thereby rendered: "the struggle of Sophia with mankind." This "wisdom-struggle" again recalls the role of the daemon and the Brunonian heroism of ecstasy, the victorious mens-heroica and the soprasanno of the philosopher's over-knowing love, as well as the depiction of mortality as a kind of metaphysical test or proving-grounds for transcendence posed to us by the Demiurgus in conjunction with Sophia, mirroring the relationship of Zeus and Phanes in the Greco-Orphic cosmogon.
4. Cor tuum parturientis fantasias partitur, somnia ne cures nam mens humana vigilat, anadaemone in angelum lucis transfigurat. [The mind ebbs and gains, but the heart is shared by our dreams and waking life. Hieronymi Vidae Cremonensis, in Christiados; Poemata Liber Primus, Hippolito de Rubeis Ticinensii, et interprete Bartholomaeo Botta. Anno 1537. Et sicut parturientis, cor tuum fantasias patitur somnia ne cures, nam mens humana quod optat dum vigilat, sperat, per somnum cernit id ipsum anadaemone (qui se plerique; in angelum lucis transfigurat) visium sit insomnium.]
5. Gregorius Magnus, Moralia in Iob, Sup. Libre Sapientae: "Alius namque elatione erigitur, alius pondere timoris inclinatur, alius libidine aestuat, alius avaritia anhelat, alius remissione se deiicit, alius ira fervescit."
* Tycho Brache offers "love's remedy of the pyrognomic art and spagyric alchemy", that is, alchemy as applied strictly to the nobler goal of restoring the soul to unity and its native genius, in place of those material fascinations and the carnal bent for whose contumation of the higher principles of our philosophy the baser science, which Brache refused to practice, was oft employed. Such a remedy brings to mind also, the transformative aeon of Bruno's daemon and philosophic-love, as well as the memory of Eleusis and her erotikon, survived by the schools of mystery-love poets in the Renaissance, ie. Dante, the troubadours, etc.
Tyrannus in Crucifixum anima, nil aequale ille rependem: [Divina dispensatione adjutus fuisset, illo ipse instanti, quo caepit vivere, mortuus fuisset prae doloris magnitudine. O anima mea, quantum, ab quantum obligata es huic amabillisimo cordi, quid aequale illi rependes? ... Antonius Gintherius, in: Speculum Amoris & Doloris, P. 36-37. Audit hoc tyrannus martyrem sine mora occidi, & cor ejus cultro dissecari jubet, imago reperta est, qui conspecta & Tyrannus in Crucifixum. See: Henricus Frimarius, in: Nicolaii Lyranaii Praeceptorium sive Expositio Tripharia Putilis, Instar Semonum in Decalogum Legis Divine.] the heart remains, ever unamenable to argument and our ratiocinative prodigy,- victus amor coactus honestis, [Love teacheth nothing of grace in failure. Casparis Hodoeporici Malschianius, in: Epigramma ac Civitas Augustanae: Victus amor coactus honesti, opem spondet praestatque.] borne heavily in artificia sapientia magnitudinis labore, [The good of art is easily judged, namely by the work produced by the artist, but for the good of a man's wisdom, we have only his whole life to judge. Discedo cii Salomone da mihi artificie sapientia, mitte ille da sede magnitudinis tue et mecu sit et mecu laboret. Sifridus Sinnamanius, in: Expositiones de Juris.] while Justice too, hath no art,- ingenue temperat, una iustissima et fortissimum; [iustissimus una et fortissimus, & temperat ingenue. Ioannae Othoniae Gandensiis, in: Poematia sive Lusus Extemporanei.] while the way of Virtue is straight,- in viam ad virtutem adducentem; ‡ virtutem sit clypeus, fiduciam Dei sit gladius, tibi pia tela cordis vitae concilatricem; fiduciam sit gladius, virtutem sit cylpeus, tibi pela cordis morte solutionem; [... viam ad virtutem adducentem; vitae concilatricem, mortis solutionem, corruptionis ab alienationem, ignis extinctionem, in Deum fiduciam, clavem regni Caelorem. [Franciscus Cortius Augustiano-Brugensii, in: Syntagma de Annulis Historico-symbolicum; sive Tractatus Annularis de Annulorum; Origine, Virtute et Dignitate Selects Historiis: Theo-politicis. A comment upon that verse: Orientius Ausciensis, in: Illiberitani Commonitorium Poemata Christiana Minores: "Accipe tela, quibus cordis pia moenia serves, Crux tibi sit clypeus, Crux tibi sit gladius."] and, lest we temper the honey of oshir with the sickness of ashir, or rouse from the exhausted labor of ashir, the scorned oshir of the heart's wistful song and humbled pride, [Simeon ben Zoma, in the Mishnah-Avoth, sect. 4.] perhaps it must be admitted, that neither does health,- our knowledge were but sapientia in labore materia corporea imperfectoribus incipiat, non continuo mens jungi perfectoribus ponat,- (mens solum ad sublimia unde habuit ortum, ferretur corpus infera semper peteret materiae enim informi & corporeae non continuo mens jungi & copulari poterat, quod nimio inter se intervallo distarent) [Flaminius Nobili-Lucensis, in: Philosophiae in Pisano, De Hominis Felicitate et Amore; De Vera & Falsa Voluptate; De Honore. Materiae enim informi & corporeae non continuo mens jungi & copulari poterat, quod nimio inter se intervallo distarent; sed mediis quibusdam naturis opus fuit, quae instar pacificaroris essent; ut dum mens solum ad sublimia, unde habuit ortum, ferretur, corpus infera semper peteret, inter se tamen per aliquod spaciu temporis possent conveneire. Atque hunc sane ordinem in rebus gignendis servat natura, ut ab imperfectoribus incipiat; eaqu; tanqua solum & fundamentum perfectioribus ponat.] in arcto vinculo conjunctos affinitatis videmus, tum etiam perpetua sit haec voluptas ac laetitia nostra perfectoribus imperfectas; [Gioldius Ioa. Ronchegallus, in: Tractatus de Duobus Reis Constituendis in quo pro Ennarationes Singularum Legum eiusdem Perdifficilis Tituli Pandectarum; Epistola. * Speaking on the basis of the sensus communis and the philosophy of civil organization more generally: the bonds of suffering can indeed forge strong fellowships, but those forged in joy outlast them, surviving our unremembered years, though perhaps never matching their strength: Quod si etiam eo tempore quo per mediam Hetruriam sonitus hostilium armorum exaudiebatur, ac furentes volitabunt, qui tue paulo anste in videbant gloriae, nunquam destiti eas fove at tueri, non sine maxima bonorum omnium admiratione, & tus lande: quid nunc sperandum est in tanto ocio, & tranquillitate? Deus modo optiumus maximus, diute talem socerum tali genero, talem uxorem tali viro, talem patrem tali filio ac filiae tales Princpes ac Duces nobis incolumes diu servet, effciat, pro sua bonitate ac clementia ut quam lubentes ac leti vos, cum fines imperii vinctos haberetis, etiam arcto vinculo conjunctos affinitatis videmus, tum etiam perpetua sit haec voluptas ac laetitia nostra.] or, in keeping with that Isocratean dictum: virtute diutius vivitur, quam malitia. [Illness is an immutable condition of our existence, and health is perhaps but the power of life, to outlast the disease.]
‡ Felix anima, quae rite hujus sigilli figuram recipt, & perfecte Crucifixi imaginem repraesentat! Electa dei victima, si prbe hoc sigillio munita! Quod divina fontis indeficiens scatebra, nunquam luculentiori flumine sacra amoris, sui charismata in ea adeo prodige & prodigiose effuderit, quam cum Redemptator noster albo candidus amiculo, grandem trabem Crucis post se trahens, inter radiorum fulgorem conspicuus, eam in hunc fere modium affabatur.
** Related to ths higher medico-spiritual alchemy, we have the assertion that "unity, not multiplicity, is the true wealth and brilliant excessus"; in plenitudinem affectus vult princeps laborat imagine; additur societas & afficienta conve satio, ut omnibus eius potentiis excellentia proponat obiecta: [Christophoro Schorrerius, in: Theologia Ascetica.]
Cum amico plenitudinem affectus demonstrare vult princeps, laborat, ut omnibus eius potentiis excellentia proponat obiecta, quae simul percepta, cum felicitent. Oculis parantur pulchra, horti picturae, peripetasmata, personae ornarae, vasa aurea, &c. Auribus consonantia, naribis fragrantibus,gustui sapida,tactui molia, etc., bene afficienta; additur societas & conve satio, aliaque quae exhilarare, & delectare queunt. Atque ita putat se sibi satisfecisse. Deus optat una sui exhibitione, infinitas, perfectiones offert simul plenissime percipiendis, quis non deficiat?
Likewise,
*** Eobanii Carmine-Heroico, Xenodochion maximum intra Urbem: ... capax hominum magis, ut crescentibus annis crescit ... munificum magis, aut vera pietate priorem in miseros.
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† The word Choshek, etymologically signifying, in the Hebrew tongue, not simply the night opposed to dawn and the breaking of the day, but the spiritual darkness of the undifferentiated creation, (prior to God's primordial separation o the Ohr from Choshek, that is, light from darkness) which in the scheme of the Mist of Illusion performs its own essential function within the unfolding ontogenesis, as the first of the three veils, in maintaining the physical world in a state of permanent isolation from the radiant source within the Godhead animating, from behind the impenetrable ayn-soph, the living network of sephirot or Ohr-HaElohim, taken for the moment purely as word, plays on two Greek derivations: cho/kho--Khaos/Chaos, and Shekh--Skia/Sko, the later, which designates darkness, shadow or concealment, being employed in the construction of the titular en-dumia-skia.
Concerning the insignia: lux lucifa, or "light begets light", and σκια σκοτοπιον, [skia skotopoion] or "darkness begets dark", signifies the a-thetic, multivocal relationship (rendering the Ontic irreducible to the ontological) at the basis of the epistemic model of philosophic Truth, which rejects the reconciliation of opposites, instead maintaining the unique voices or identities of both entities, as given in Mone and Monon's Retrospective: "Here, however, Being and Non-Being contain within themselves an element of their corollary, not an internal instability: the inherent Being of Non-Being and the inherent Non-Being of Being are expanded into four voices instead of one, and these voices form the circular tetrapole ... "
†† Of the inscribed, 'NVTV':
This item requires no small bit of kabbalistic exegesis.
The two Vs in the linguistic sigil form the elemental cross, ie. the alchemical quaternity, through whose mastery the working of the Stone is conducted. However, the V also denotes the 22nd and final path on the Sephirotic tree, with N representing the 14th path connecting Binah and Chokmah and T representing the 20th path connecting Chesed and Tipheret, which corresponds to the Hermit in the Arcana or Mercury in the planetary systems of magic, or more generally, the establishment of Beauty like that of the Garden itself, from which the sigil NVTV is derived and which humanity is tasked with creatively imitating, for the 20th path is concerned with harmonizing the solar and lunar forces through the mercurial element, which corresponds to the psychogenetic process of differentiation, while the 14th, connecting Binah and Chokmah and representing Venus in planetary magic, represents the beautification of Malkuth achieved through the permeation of the Veil of Paroket (in alchemy, this refers to the peacock or rainbow) with the radiant Beauty of Tiferet channeled mercifully and with compassion (mercy and compassion are the Hasidic, emotional attributions of Chesed) into a fallen and tribulation filled material reality, which in alchemical terms would correspond to the fire of the phoenix consolidating the multiplicity of the Tiferetic rainbow in preparation for the birth of New-Man.
The summative gematria value of the entire sigil, the letters NVTV, is 78. This means "the power of man". Again, NVTV DEI is God's commandment to multiply, given to man, and secondarily, when applied to God himself, denotes his supernal creative genius, therefor symbolically directing (for Ficino and Mirandola) man to perfect his own creative endeavor, further symbolized by the Stone.
The gematria of the number 78, is to be found in the 14th century Maimonidean Kabbalist, Albutaini, here summarized for sake of simplicity from "The Philosophic-Mystical and Hasidic Tradition", Vol 2.
" Albutaini begins with the word ha-hoxmah, meaning "the wisdom." Then he "separates" ha-hoxmah into XH HMH (read as: koah ha-mah "the power of the what"). The reference is probably to the Zoharic sefira Hokmah, also called mah ("what-ness). [I would add a further referenced to the Edenic ellipsis, as well as the Holderlinian ellipsis of Nature.] ... Albutaini now converts XH HMH into its gematria: 20+8+5+40+5=78. He substitutes 'DM (read as: Adam) = 45 for MH (read: mah, "what") and arrives at XH H DM (read as: koah ha-adam, "the power of man"). The process is now complete: HHXMH ("the wisdom") by separating yields XH HMH ("the power of what-ness," [Being] the sefira Hokmah); this term, by gematric summing and substitution, yields XH H DM ("the power of Adam" or "of man"). This technique is eloquent and the sequence of ideas suggestive. (This third ((MKH H D)) term is derived from the second by permutation. Its suggestive meaning is "from the power of the vapor of Creation" ((Genesis 2:6.)) Note how, in one line, Albutaini has "leaped" from technique to technique. This ((VHYH)) is one term with three words. They mean: "He will be; He is; He was." Together, they have the gematria of 78 and hence, continue the gematria set in the preceding line. This term, too, ((MGLH)) has a gematria of 78. It means "he who reveals."
Thus we have extracted the following path through the Sephirot: Binah-Chokmah-Chesed-Tifereth. (Another noteworthy synchromystic correspondence can be found in the Sekhel Nitzchi, or 16th path, hidden in the middle of this sequence in the extension of Chokmah to Chesed. This path, in the Sefer Yetzirah, symbolizes the Garden of Eden (from which the NVTV-injunction is derived) as the enduring-consciousness of the saint's delight (Eden) in the Glory of Heaven. Furthermore, the letters of the three distinct paths utilized in this derivation (Binah to Chokmah, Chockmah to Chesed, Chesed to Tifereth: daleth, gimel, yod.) spell the Hebrew word דגי or dagah, which means: to multiply in progeny, grow, become numerous. This again gives us a powerful corresponded drawing back on the original formulation of the NVTV as an injunction to go forth and multiply, taken from Genesis. Of the word dagah in particular, we have the passage Genesis 48:16: "The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; let my name be named upon them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."
To further elaborate on the significansce of the NVTV-injunction:
Paroketh is a protective veil set up between the supernal triad rooted on Keter and the lower two triads in the Tree of Life, serving as both a veil of illusions and the d’ahtay, that is, an isolated womb in which we are prepared as ennoeaic beings for our next incarnation, which takes place at a higher level of abstraction in ontogenesis, ie. samsara and the karmic aeon. Queseth, or the rainbow, (chemically correspondent with the peacock-phoenix symbols) is a veil that separates the middle triad from the lower, and it receives a soul once it is passed back down the hierarchy of Being from the successfully permeated Paroketh to be reincarnated in Malkut, now with the channeled blessing of Tiferet or Beauty conveyed as well (in the sekhel nitzchi of enduring-consciousness) through the sephirot in the establishment of the holy Sanctum (the literal meaning of Paroketh; temple) on the earthly Kingdom, (The literal meaning of Malkut.) with the re-emergence of the individual in a higher configuration of the partzufim, of the macroposcopus reflected in the organization of the microposcopos and the two triads accordingly synchronized in their respective operations. The profane veil encloses the lower triad entirely, so that the divine radiance, generated by moral good on the part of human beings, can move upward toward God in the process of Restitution and the Repairing of the Vessels, as understood in Lurianic kabbalah, through which the sin of Adam is atoned for in divine reconciliation, but the divine radiance, generated by God, cannot move directly downward into Malkut, which occurs only through the improper configuration of the sephirot and "sin", as a hoarding and burial of God's light within matter. This is why Malkut is universally depicted as the one sefira whose light does not flow from God directly, but is instead generated within itself. Of course the pure immanence of the Sephirotic model is not held to here, and these three veils must be understood as functioning at a lower level of abstraction that the samsara from which the soul either escapes rebirth or heroically descends back into matter like the burning Gnostic angel, as a mens-heroic and embodiment of soprasannso, or the higher-love of the enlightened.
Bereshit is kabbalistically analyzed to yield an association with reshit and therefor, (c)Hokmah, the sefira of Wisdom, while bara is taken as signifying the concealed mystery of emanation, that is, the creative power and (mytho)poietic energeia for which man is named a dei imago, or an image of God, inasmuch as he, too, is animated by the same emanating creative power. This is the essence of the NVTV-injunction: man is an image of God, (not due to the kind of anthropomorphism that the medieval faithful feared as marked heresy, but whose postulation any learned student of the religion understood was certainly not intended) due to the fact that the mysterious creative force or 'Zohar' underlying his own creation by God with the Adamic seed is the same force by which he enacts his own creativity on Earth as an impassioned and morally awakened agent in service of the divine's will, in a Judaic conformation of the Pseudo-Dionysian relationship between the pagan Eros and Christian Agape in the "bara" or generation, (through their intra-penetration constitutive of the mysterious receptivity of the lepsis and the opening of Creation to the activity of the divine methexis) of the endless polysemonymics of the infinite Names of God as the infinite names of human Love, reverberated in the distant theoacousmate (echo of God's word in the word of man) of the divine Word, and all of this in the abyssal reflection of God's abyssal ground in dei imago, that man, awaiting the tears of Diana in groundless subjectivity, should keep a monstrous knowledge, shown thereupon the quivering spring Amphitrean,- the spring of man's longing and bewildered agony, in corpora pondere timoris spiritu libidinem, corpora in libidine vescendum corporis.
The plan of the infinite recursive tzimtzum (generalized into the four recursive worlds of the ABiYA or combined form of Atziluth, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Assiah.) of the spiritual self-contractions of the immanent Kabbalistic God, dissipatively reverberated into the imprint-echo of the precosmic void left behind in preparation for the creation of the material universe, ie. what is called Malkut in the immanent Kabbalistic model of the Sephirot, is further paired in Lurianic Kabbalah to the scheme of dynamic potentialities in the internal unfolding of Adam-Kadmon as a pure light, that is, without contraction and integration within the vessels, for which the older kabbalah, ie. the Zoharic tradition of the AbiYA, posits a purely transcendental "fifth" World as representative of Adam-Kadmon. Thus, the internal transformations of Akudim, Nekudim, and Berudim, model the Toku and Tohun of the sephirotic vessels in the contraction, stabilization, and radiance of the divine light through the infinite veil of tzzimzum unfolded through the four levels of existential development: Atziluth, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Assiah. To go back to the construction of Binah-Chokmah-Chesed-Tifereth, extracted kabbalistically from the divine injunction of NVTV: this construction is one of the known Partzufim, namely: Tabur. Tabur, the "navel", serves as the border that separates the desires of Azilut, the highest emanation, from the material world or Malkut, communicating its radiance to Parsa through the separation that differentiates the Vessels of Bestowal and Reception for Tiferet. The new Partzuf constructed in this fashion, composed of Rosh and Guf, is divided further into Keter, Hokmah, and Bina: both the father and mother, again associating NVTV to hermetic alchemy and the conciliation of sexual energies, the Garden and the Fall, etc.
Of related note, we have the INRI-transformation. The total gematria of INRI is 50, corresponding to Nun or the 24th path on the 32 numerations of the Tree of Life, which is associated with elemental fire. INRI is determined in Dee's work to be associated with purification through fire, alternatively representing the mother-Goddess or ISIS-PAN-TERRA of Nature. Expanded sequentially, INR, gives us path 9, 4, and 18, or the Foundation, the Chariot, and the Empress. This further asserts the conquest of Nature in her feminine aspect, the daemoniac fire necessary for the pan-terra or the nigredo state of the alchemist. The letter Nun evolved from a pictogram representing a serpent, the nuchash, which calls to mind more scenes from the Garden, the Fall, and the Sin of Knowledge, though more alchemically, the uroboros. Nun is the first letter of the Hebrew word for emptiness, the abstraction correspondent with the hidden Sephira Daat or Knowledge. (The summative gematria of 50, the value of Binah or Undestanding, mitigates the destructive influence of the pure Daat or emptiness of dead Knowledge.) More importantly, Nun is embedded within the NVTV injunction, ie. as NVN, which warns that Death surrounds the endeavor of Gnostic illumination just as Death surrounds the borders of the Garden.
Combining the two, we derive a sequence for which each letter signifies one of the four classical elements:
NVTVINRI, NVTINRI, NVTIR;
Finally, by permutation, the word: NVTRI.
Both sigils are encoded and intra-related in the greater subtext of the work within the citation given in the Front-Piece: ET QUODAM TEMPORE IN AQUA SUPRA VIRTUTEM IGNIS, EXARDESCEBAT UNIQUE UT INIQUAE TERRAE. [Cornelli Lapide, Comentarii in Librum Sapientiae, caput xvi. :Ignis ardens in grandine, et fluvia coruscans ... (repete cum Dionysi.) omnium nutrici gratiuam tuae.]
In full:
ET QUODAM TEMPORE IN AQUA SUPRA VIRTUTEM IGNIS, EXARDESCEBAT UNIQUE UT INIQUAE TERRAE ....
PRO QUIBUS ANGELORUM ESCA NUTRI VISTI POPULUM TUUM ET PARATUM PANEM DE COELO PRASESTITISTI TERRIS SINE LABORE, [the bread prepared without earthly labor]
OMNE DELECTAMENTUM IN SE HABENTEM ET OMNIS SAPORIS SUAVITATEM.
The "bread" here has obvious connections to Isis-Pan-Terra by way of association to the Greek equivalent, ie. Ceres, the mirror-magician and high priestess of Nature.
As to the two Hebrew words affixed to the second partition of the front-piece:
The interpretation here rests on a play on the words ashir and oshir, meaning riches and happiness: "He that rejoices in his own portion is rich, (ashir) and he is happy (oshir) who eats from the labor of his own hands, lest one is sickened with too great a share of honey." The sense of the Talmudical aphorism is that it is very difficult to enjoy to excess, at least to the extent of making ourselves "sick", (ie. moral corruption) when we are enjoying the labor of our own hands, for ben Zoma provides further insight in his reflection on the fact that Adam had to grow, tend, process his own wheat, etc. in order to finally have a piece of bread, whereas he need only walk a few paces and purchase bread that has already been made for him. Of consonant expression, we have the Ecclesiast:
By our portended years, colorless the almond tree blossoms with the first hairs of wisdom; and with age, the caper-berry, too, withers; and the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, while heavily the evening-birds are yet borne; vainly, the heart of men stirreth not, and the threads of silver are broken, and even with gilded bowls, none but the ground are contented in their share.
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