Translation of Stephanus of Alexandria on Gold-making - New books about alchemy - Bibliography


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Paul Ferguson
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Olivier Dufault is a research student at the University of California at Santa Barbara who is researching Ancient Greek alchemy. He has started translating Stephanus of Alexandria into English:

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/people/person.php?account_id=149&first_name=Olivier&last_name=Dufault

http://ucsb.academia.edu/OlivierDufault/Papers/153461/Translation-of-Lessons-one-and-two-on-Gold-Making-attributed-to-Stephanus-of-Alexandria

adammclean
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How interesting to have found this. There is little available of Stephanos in translation. My main source has been Sherwood Taylor's articles and translations in the early issues of Ambix.

I found this section from Olivier Dufault's translation rather interesting as it articulates the familiar sequence of colour changes in alchemy.

I will tell the hidden mystery as it was foretold to you from above:
After the de-iôs-ing, the exischnôsis, the blackening and the subsequent whitening of copper, then is the durable yellowing.
When you see the whitening happening inside her, you will recognize the yellowing which has been concealed, then know the whitening [as] being yellow, and being white, it yellows because of the yellowing hidden in her and because she penetrates into the depths of the hearth and because she possesses in her body the whitening of the Moon and ineffably reaches in her for the yellowing. Then the yellowing is durable.
What? She which is becoming white, she is herself the yellow. For she herself appears white in terms of colour, but a yellow nature subsists.

The idea of the "Raising of the water" seems interesting and I hope we eventually see more of this translation.

It is brave of Olivier Dufault to put his working draft onto the Internet, where it will be open to criticism. Perhaps he hope such criticism will be positive and help him clear up some points and difficulties.

Paul Ferguson
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adammclean wrote:
How interesting to have found this. There is little available of Stephanos in translation. My main source has been Sherwood Taylor's articles and translations in the early issues of Ambix.

I found this section from Olivier Dufault's translation rather interesting as it articulates the familiar sequence of colour changes in alchemy.

I will tell the hidden mystery as it was foretold to you from above:
After the de-iôs-ing, the exischnôsis, the blackening and the subsequent whitening of copper, then is the durable yellowing.
When you see the whitening happening inside her, you will recognize the yellowing which has been concealed, then know the whitening [as] being yellow, and being white, it yellows because of the yellowing hidden in her and because she penetrates into the depths of the hearth and because she possesses in her body the whitening of the Moon and ineffably reaches in her for the yellowing. Then the yellowing is durable.
What? She which is becoming white, she is herself the yellow. For she herself appears white in terms of colour, but a yellow nature subsists.

The idea of the "Raising of the water" seems interesting and I hope we eventually see more of this translation.

It is brave of Olivier Dufault to put his working draft onto the Internet, where it will be open to criticism. Perhaps he hope such criticism will be positive and help him clear up some points and difficulties.

Such as 'exischnosis'. Ischnos is slender. Ischnotie in medical French means a thin or emaciated condition of an object or of its walls. So exischnosis = thinning of the exterior part of something??????

Paul Ferguson
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Last edited on Thu Dec 2nd, 2010 04:58 pm by Paul Ferguson

Alan Pritchard
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Both items are clearly still in copyright, so no question about bootleg.
Unless an item has clearly come from the author, or is out of copyright, treat scribd with caution.
They are quite good about removing material.

Brill got them to take down 2 copies of Hanegraaff's Dictionary of Gnosis & Western esotericism

Alan Pritchard
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Paul Ferguson
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Thanks Alan, I thought as much. I have deleted the links.

Paul Ferguson
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Here is his dissertation abstract and a link to the full text:

http://gradworks.umi.com/34/95/3495669.html

Last edited on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 01:15 am by Paul Ferguson