Nostradamus's letter to François Bérard of 27 August 1562
Peter Lemesurier
before. I'll leave you to adjust for any mechanical transciption
errors.
NOSTRADAMUS'S LETTER TO FRANCOIS BERARD
Letter 41 of Nostradamus's private correspondence is the one that
contains most of what we know about his nocturnal esoteric practices
and the sort of raw material that they produced. The copy appears to
be in Chavigny's hand.
The original letter seems to have been delivered personally by
the seer to Francois Berard, lawyer and Procurator Fiscal to the Papal
Legation at Avignon, a keen alchemist and would-be disciple and
assistant of the mage of Salon, on or about 10th September 1562. It
concerns (among other things) a golden magic ring that the latter had
recently acquired. As a magician in his own right, Nostradamus
naturally had such a ring of his own (in his case, one inset with
cornelian, subsequently bequeathed to his son Cesar), and its purpose,
like Berard's, was to help bestow on him power to summon up the
spirits and to assist the general alchemical magnum opus. Such, at all
events, was the known function of such rings, and the precise methods
of making them were likewise well-known and in print.8
Not surprisingly, therefore, Nostradamus devotes most his
letter to his 'reading' of Berard's ring. Its Latin syntax is notably
vague and inconsistent, but with Nostradamus this does not necessarily
argue any kind of drugged or trance-like state:
To the most learned Francois Berard, Doctor of Law, from Michel
Nostradamus, greetings.
Most learned Berard
Since leaving you, I have often reflected in my mind both on your
letter and on what passed between us, but was unable to satisfy all
your requirements in this great heat. Accept therefore that for nine
nights in succession I have sat from midnight until about four o'clock
both with my brow crowned with laurel and wearing the [ring with its]
sky-blue stone and, as it were on the [prophetic] tripod, have wrung
out of that good spirit [everything I can] about your ring. Therefore,
having plucked a swan's quill (for he thrice refused a goose one), and
with the spirit dictating to me, as though carried away by a poetic
frenzy I launched myself into the following verses:
For thee the suspect potions Leontine
Refused are by the voice. Thy field is free.
And PARPALUS, 'spite slain burnt offering
No ring shall grant. Yet, bare-head, now rejoice.
Crushed all your enemies. Stern spearman, he
In fluid air who lives, shall be that seer.
Shall come that ring when, splitting rocks, the ram
Colchis's fig trees shakes with furious horns,
Or cypresses on tombs far from the sun.
Bathed be the hideous limbs with blood of frog.
Enmired the nightly ghoul in Thracian gore.
Render the cedar charcoal in the censer
And seek the half-gnawed bones of fasting dog.
Ring-saved thou from every whirling cyclone.
Dearer the gods be blood November-sprinkled.
On folk though fall Carina, now rejoice!
[Note the evidently planned and deliberate acrostic on FRANCISCO
BERARDO. This, plus the fact that the original poem is written in the
approved Virgilian hexameters, seems suspiciously non-inspirational.
The classical allusions seem even more so, so possibly putting the
final seal on some readers' suspicions that the poem is not inspired
at all, but a carefully-constructed artifice. On the other hand, it is
not at all impossible that Nostradamus actually started by writing the
letters of Berard's name down the margin, precisely in order to give
his intuition a jump-start and provide a kind of scaffolding for the
subsequent inspiration to coalesce around. Moreover, neither the
Virgilian Latin nor the classical mythology is any real surprise,
since he had been steeped in both from his youth up, to the point
where they possibly resurfaced regularly even in his dreams.]
Turning now to our own good spirit in person, and excellent in
every point, I prayed that for the sake of his most faithful Achates
[i.e. friend and follower] Francisco Berardo, an alchemist who
succeeds admirably in the transmutation of metals and is a supreme
investigator of them, he might teach me how and in what manner he
might bring forth ELICIUM and gold and purify pyrites, which we call
emery.
Thus I, laurel boughs having been laid upon the pillow, and my
head girt with a crown of laurel and daphnoid which we call
periwinkle:
"Angel who art my guardian and who guideth me in piety, grant that on
matters touching the transformation of natural substances I may
prophesy as on the brazen tripod, according to the courses of the
stars. Grant these things, I beseech thee, through the friendly
silences of the moon, and through these shades as Mars shines at his
rising. Grant them, I say, for the sake of the most good Christ and
his Holy Virgin Mother, and of Michael the Archangel my invincible
patron. Above all, grant that by your guidance I may increase both the
resources and the favour of nature, transform with mercury the basest
metals, even the slightest traces, into the veritable solar image that
is gold, and make this gold itself potable for the prolongation of the
lives of emperors, Kings and the greatest princes: [grant also] that
these metals, along with the gold, may flow easily through the tubes
of the still, without any of these liquids evaporating and [without]
the gold, separated both from the watery and from the earthy, sinking
to the bottom, but that all may be distilled at once by subtle
artifice."
And he, in my dreams, seemed to me to reply:
Not Amaltheus' horn raise at the door:
Olenus' goats let thou not prance within.
So let the twin-born blow the fires alight.
Turbid the wind hydraulic that thee gives
Rare gold; the dewy moonstuff pour in t' cup.
Aesgynum press, lest ought of it escape.
Do thou add cadmia, some pompholix
All fresh; of summer myrtle add the oils.
Mix in, with sulphur, scraped molybdenum,
Upon this, burn cucii and ciphii stalks.
So shall thy fleece catch Tagus' precious lees.
Furthermore, on the subject of your destiny, of your life and
its length, of your death and the manner of it, of your foes, of the
spirit hidden in the ring receive, among other jewels of your
recompense, the following:
Make me some statues in a rustic place,
In gold a magic image and a wand
Carved round with mice that in these vast abodes
Have dwelling: this shall be our offering.
And mix with styrax, myrrh and purest blood
Incense, and add to sacred thymiama,
Laurel-entwined, within a bough of green.
Night shall it be when He Who Thee Rewards
Opens the age of gold, swan-quill in hand,
Stroking thy beard, though strangely hairless thou.
Then shall descend on thee, sprinkling its dew,
Rose-fingered dawn, granting the ring-empowered
Aglaia's grace by him whose spirit wild
Dwells in pyropes. Free from demons foul
And pure that solar ring! And as dread Saturn
'Midst Libra walks, soon shall the sprites attain
Unto thy blissful brow; then pullets' entrails,
Spring's fair burnt-offering, roast o'er steady flame.
[True, this further acrostic -- this time on MICHAIL NOSTRADAMUS --
reads more like John Keats than some mere babbler in tongues, more
like the ancient Sibyl of Cumae's educated literary interpreters than
her original, incoherent utterances themselves. And yet the thought is
incoherent, the ambiance distinctly dreamlike. Possibly, then, we are
as close to the source of Nostradamus's original inspiration as we are
ever likely to get . . .]
These, then, learned Berard, are the things that I have been
able to glean from that good spirit, as from the [oracular] cave,
according to the most profound judgement of the stars. And for it, in
truth, I had to await the rising of Mars, which appeared in the first
hour after midnight, when the moon was in conjunction with the Tail of
the Dragon and the sun in fortunate conjunction with the Tail of the
Lion, while Mercury was in quadrature with the right shoulder of
Orion. This is why you did well, who are nevertheless outstanding in
wisdom, unequalled in erudition, virtue, eloquence and knowledge of
the occult, to think of addressing yourself as it were to the oracle
of Apollo in respect of these questions that are exacting, difficult
and remote from the common [understanding]. For in every deliberation
that touches on things great and exacting it is [only] pious to
implore the aid of the Gods, since without it the human [variety] can
achieve little. It is meet to imitate Xenophon who called Socrates in
counsel as to whether he should follow Cyrus after his departure from
Athens. For the rest, all those things that you desired to know you
can easily obtain by detailed examination: for the stars promise you
the greatest things. But in matters of occult philosophy, you shall
not yet obtain your desires, for Saturn in Cancer stands most greatly
in your way, and even opposes it all diametrically. But truly that
recompense promises you (apart from the baldness from the ring, and
apart from the good [indwelling] spirit) safety from all terrors, and
shall confer on you a life of good fortune for as long as it shall
last. I have recently sent you some thymiama, which some call
Vulpinacea occidentalis Arabica, at the same time as our astrolabe
which I received from the Prefect of Provence, Baron [...]: if this
bears on your concerns, use it as you wish, I have nothing against it;
otherwise see to it that everything is returned to me as soon as
possible. As far as the thymiama is concerned, various people think
different things -- some call it amber, others something else -- but
be persuaded that what I have sent you is the true thymiama thanks to
which Medea, once she had [gathered it], forced old men to grow young
again. I hope soon to complete your birth-chart and to send it to you.
And in following through your [astrological] revolutions, I have
discovered that in this year of 1562, from mid-July to the beginning
of August, there were serious events in your life and dangers for your
honour and repute. Be therefore of good courage, since hereafter the
stars promise you prosperity. Farewell and live happily. From
Salon-de-Crau, 27th August 1562.
Done by M. Nostradamus 1562
Translation copyright (c) Peter Lemesurier 1999
--
Peter Lemesurier
pldu...@my-deja.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
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