AMBROSII MAGI HORTUS ROSARUM 217
the Serpent should be his at last. ‘* None for the fool,” they laughed
back—nay, even his maiden queen. For she would not any should know
thereof. Yet were all right, both he and they. But truth ran quickly
about ; for that was the House of Truth; and Mercury stood far from the Hammer of
Sun. Yet the Suggler was ever in the Sign of Sorrow, and the Fig Tree bor.
was not far. So went our Father to the Fool’s Paradise of Air. But it is
not lawful that I should write to you, brethren, of what there came to him
at that place and time; nor indeed is it true, if it were written. For alway
doth this Arcanum differ from itself on this wise, that the Not and the Arcanum.
Amen,! passing, are void either on the one side or the other, and Who shall
tell their ways?
So our Father, having won the Serpent Crown, the Uraeus of Antient
Khem, did bind it upon his head, and rejoiced in that Kingdom for the
space of two hundred and thirty and one days * and nights, and turned him
toward the Flaming Sword.? Now the Sword governeth ten mighty King-
doms, and evil, and above them is the ninefold lotus, and a virgin came
forth unto him in the hour of his rejoicing and propounded her riddle.
The first riddle : + Griphus I.
The maiden is blind.
Our Father: She shall be what she doth not.
And a second virgin came forth to him and said :
The second riddle: Detegitur Yod. Griphus IT.
Quoth our Father: The moon is full.
So also a third virgin the third riddle: Griphus II].
Man and woman: O fountain of the balance!
To whom our Father answered with a swift flash of his sword, so swift
‘she saw it not.
Came out a fourth virgin, having a fourth riddle: Griphus IV.
What egg hath no shell?
And our Father pondered a while and then said:
On a wave of the sea: on a shell of the wave: blessed be her name !
The fifth virgin issued suddenly and said : Griphus V.
I have four arms and six sides: red am I, and gold. To whom our Father :
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani !
(For wit ye well, there be two Arcana therein.)
Then said the sixth virgin openly: Gripbus VI.
Power lieth in the river of fire.
And our Father laughed aloud and answered: I am come from the
waterfall.
So at that the seventh virgin came forth: and her countenance was Griphus VII.
troubled.
The seventh riddle:
The oldest said to the most beautiful: What doest thou here?
1 This is obscure. 2o+it2+ ... +21=231. 3 ‘The Seplinoth.
+ The maiden (Malkuth) is blind (unredeemed). Answer: She shall be
what she doth not, z.e. see. She shall be the sea, z.e. ‘‘ exalted to the throne
of Binah” (the great sea), the Qabalistic phrase to express her redemption.
We leave it to the reader’s ingenuity to solve the rest. . Each refers to the -
Sephira indicated by the number, but going upward.