The Vision and the Voice

THE EQUINOX And I answer him: Sorrow is not, save in the darkness of the womb of Her by whom came evil. I pierce the Mystery of his breast, and therein is a jewel. It is a sapphire as great as an ostrich egg, and thereon is graven this sigil: But there is also much writing on the stone, very minute characters carved. I cannot read them. He points with his flail to the sapphire, which is now outside him and bigger than himself; and he cries: Hail! warden of the Gates of Eternity who knowest not thy right hand from thy left; for in the aeon of my Father is a god with clasped hands wherein he holdeth the universe, crushing it into the dust that ye call stars. Hail unto thee who knowest not thy right eye from thy left; for in the aeon of my Father there is but one light. Hail unto thee who knowest not thy right nostril from thy left; for in the aeon of my Father there is neither life nor death. Hail unto thee who knowest not thy right ear from thy left; for in the aeon of my Father there is neither sound nor silence. Whoso hath power to break open this sapphire stone shall find therein four elephants having tusks of mother-of-pearl, and upon whose backs are castles, those castles which ye call the watch-towers of the Universe. Let me dwell in peace within the breast of the Angel that is warden of the aethyr. Let not the shame of my Mother be 12