Talk:Emerald Tablet

Differences in translations

Mediation vs Meditation

Newton's translation speaks of 'mediation' while the latin text reads 'meditatione' ('meditation'). Is there a typo somewhere? --94.209.127.141 (talk) 15:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

"mediation" makes sense in context, "meditation" doesn't. I'd say a priori the error is in the Latin, whether a typo in this article, or a copyist's error in the received source, I dunno. A Latin paleographer needed? --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 00:59, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Checked the cited source online, it definitely has "meditatione", so the article is correct & as a quote it must stand, unless someone can come up with an antecedent source. Would it be over-pedantic to add [sic] to the transcluded text?  Done

BTW, the 'imaginative 17th century depiction' in the picture in the lead also has "meditatione", but since it's 40 years later than the 1541 book that doesn't help us much; it may well have been copied from the 1541 text.--D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 01:42, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Couldn't find a verbatim or facsimile copy of Santalla online, which would appear to be the earliest Latin version, although there were tantalizing hints that others have studied it. It may turn out we need an Arabic scholar, not a Latin one. Some sources translate the vexatious word 'by contemplation', which would go to support meditatione. And that's my last word on this earth-shaking controversy, at least until someone else jumps in. --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 02:18, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

See also section Latin Text below. --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 01:42, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

@D A Patriarche: The reading "meditatione" is definitely the original one in the vulgate translation (see the article as updated, and Steele and Singer's edition). The word meditatio, in its secondary sense of "the act of planning or devising", is in fact one of the possible translations for the Arabic tadbīr (تدبير, meaning "arrangement, administration, government", from dabbara, "to arrange, to dispose, to plan, to prepare, to organize, to hatch, to contrive, to devise, to forecast, to set free, to direct, to manage, to regulate"). Compare Hugo of Santalla's consilii administratione ("by the administration of the plan"), and the Secretum secretorum's disposicione ("by the arrangement/management/direction"), both of which are also technically correct if somewhat unclear translations of the Arabic bi-tadbīr.

However, since only the vulgate was widely known or regarded as authoritative, it was never compared to the other Latin translations (let alone to the Arabic), and as a consequence the word meditatio was not well understood. It was widely interpreted according to its primary meaning, i.e., "contemplation" (see, e.g., Hortulanus' commentary "meditatione, id est cogitatione et creatione"; cf. Steele and Singer's translation as also given in the article, "by contemplation"). Since this meaning does not seem to fit the context, meditatione was sometimes taken to be an error for mediatione (apparently by Newton, and more recently also by Julius Ruska (1926. Tabula Smaragdina. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der hermetischen Literatur. Heidelberg: Winter, p. 117, who was unfortunately followed by Litwa, M. David 2018. Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introductions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 315 in his recent translation of the vulgate). However, the meaning "administration, arrangement, direction, regulation, planning" certainly does fit the context, and is very likely to be the originally intended meaning (i.e., all things came to be from one [thing] and by the administration of one [thing]). Apaugasma (talk) 11:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Thoth

Whilst Thoth can be identified as the Egyptian Hermes. I find the often repeated claim that Hermes Trismegistus is a syncretism of Thoth and Hermes to be without firm foundation. Syncretism of Greek and Egyptian deities is available in the archeological record, such as Zeus-Ammon. However no such deity as Thoth-Hermes can be found especially as a precursor to Hermes Trismegistus. I'm not sure what you authors want to with this information since all someone has to do is cite someone else that's made the claim even though there are more writers these days rejecting the idea, as a hangover from the occult and magical speculations of earlier times.

It's time the preposterous idea was laid to rest! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.197 (talk) 14:08, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

This is a very strange comment. Actually, the evidence is abundant, and documented by scholars of the highest standing. A survey of this evidence may be found in Bull, Christian H. 2018. The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom. Leiden: Brill, pp. 33-96. Admittedly, most of the evidence is literary in nature, but there also is some good archaeological evidence. Consider, e.g., Bull 2018, p. 34: "Ostraca found in the archive of Hor, in Saqqara around 168 BCE, by a stroke of good fortune yield both a Demotic and a Greek version of the epithet (Ḏḥwty pꜣ ꜥꜣ pꜣ ꜥꜣ pꜣ ꜥꜣ [i.e., "Thoth the great the great the great"], and μέγιστος καὶ μέγιστος θεός μεγάλος Ἑρμῆς [i.e., "the greatest and greatest great god Hermes"])". Apaugasma (talk) 16:04, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Problem With Translation?

The given translation seems to have been edited to sound more archaic. Eg. the persistent misuse of "ye" to mean "the" -- "ye" is a pronoun, and phrases such as "ye olde inn" are actually nonsense. A better version of the Newton translation can be found at http://www.alchemylab.com/isaac_newton.htm. Some sites, such as http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/emerald.htm, have a version identical to what was on this page, citing "Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus" by B.J. Dobbs as a source. I don't have access to this work, but if it's from 1988 as stated it's likely not in the public domain. I also find this version at other sites, all of which appear to have plagiarized a common source. For these reasons I am removing the version here and linking to the external pages. If I am in error, please note it here and feel free to revert. --[67.76.31.254] (Apprarently) 30 July 04

No. Late 17th/early 18th century English actually was *spelled* that way, although spoken with the 'th' sound. See here here: it's a matter of orthography, not pronunciation. The translation may have been quoted in a 1988 work, but the copyright on the text itself is surely expired after three centuries.

Now, there might be an argument for the whole text not being appropriate to an encyclopedia article, archaic spelling and copyright are not, I believe, grounds for removal here. --Bacchiad 19:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'd oppose any such edit- it is so short it adds an incredible amount to the article. A similar example is the 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us' article, where the reproduced 'All your base' text is actually longer than the Tablet here- but remove the transcript, and the article is considerably more difficult to understand, and arguably less valuable. --maru 23:08, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

A Contemporary Translation/Interpretation of The Emerald Tablet

The origin of the Hermes' Emerald Tablet has posed just as much of a mystery as does its interpretation. The Emerald Tablet is the cornerstone of western alchemical thought. Alchemy is the practical application of the Hermetic Philosophy which is contained, in total, in its 13 succinct portions. Hermes Trismegistus (thrice great), a supreme magus, is the author of the transcendent masterpiece called "The Emerald Tablet" which is the most revered magical / transcendental writing in all of Western mysticism. The date of its origin is unknown, however, some translations of the tablet go back to the 12th century and much earlier. The Emerald Tablet has challenged many of the greatest minds the world has ever produced, and numerous commentaries have been offered.

1) The following is true and, of all truths, it is the truest 2) Everything, all of the pairs of opposites, is an expression of The One Thing...the "One Thing" being what Man calls "God". 3) The "One Thing" is the mediator and for Man to have a second birth he must adapt himself to the mediations of The One. 4) The Sun is its' father because the Sun is a symbol of the soul or creative power (The Light), the moon was its' mother because the moon is a symbol of the body which, like the moon, has no light of its own...the wind carries it in its' belly because it is a spirit...its' nurse is the Earth, the nurturing garden in which Man was created. 5) Its desire for perfection brings it forth from the womb (egg, crypt, tomb) of matter, 6) In its' original "Adamic" condition it has dominion over all created things, 7) To ascend from "the below" to "the above" the fire/light/soul/spirit/consciousness is distilled from the relatively gross physical body, gently and exercising great ingenuity it weans itself from undue material desires, 8) It ascends from the physical to the spiritual and, formulating an enlightened desire, it incarnates once again, possessing the powers of both heaven and earth, blessed with the glory of the whole world and free of all obscurity, 9) It is eternal and is the matrix upon which everything, both subtle and solid, is manifest. 10) This is how the world was created....spirit into form. 11) All wonderful adaptations are produced in this way...desire...patient surrender...and manifestation, 12) Therefore, I am called Hermes Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world, being: a) spirit b) consciousness and c) form - 13) What I have to tell concerning the operation of the Soul (Sol/Sun) is complete.

Notes: - Alchemy is ostensibly the art of extracting gold from lead. Alchemy, in "reality", is the art of extracting the spirit (gold) from the body (lead or "stone"). The work of alchemy is conducted by the indwelling consciousness co-operating with God or Nature. - The "art" of alchemy is also symbolized by an "emerald". An emerald is something of great worth extracted from the earth and mirrors the true work of the Hermetic practice of alchemy, i.e., extracting something of great worth (the spirit) from the physical body. - The physical body is "the stone" which must, first, be divided in two (splitting the ADAM) and without the awareness of the spirit, enlightenment, the body remains "intact" and incapable of practicing the Hermetic Arts. - The two parts that the body is split into are: spirit and form. Consciousness (awareness) mediates between spirit and form. - The color of an emerald is green, which is composed of two chromatic opposites: yellow and blue. The emerald is a symbol of "En-LIGHT-ened" Man. Man, according to the Hermetic Philosophy (interpreted), is a physical form (symbolized by the moon because the body, like the moon, is a baron wasteland without the spirit or "light" of the Sun / spirit) composed of two seeming opposing forces: spirit and body. Spirit is symbolized by "yellow gold" and consciousness is symbolized by air and the color (sky) blue and the "stone" is symbolized by the emerald. Green is the color of the Earth. All three combined in perfect proportion produce a living (awakened) soul; see, Awake, Other Meanings. Copyright© John Charles Webb, Jr., July 2000 - Reproduced on Wikipedia.org with the author's permission, otherwise, All Rights Reserved. External Link http://www.templeofsolomon.org/Etablet.htg/emerald_tablet.htm John Charles Webb Entry July 20 2005

Nonsense

The oldest documentable source for the text is the Kitab Sirr al-Asrar, a pseudo-Aristotelian compendium of advice for rulers authored by Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani in around 800 AD.

Either the date or the attribution (or both!) is incorrect. Al-Jilani lived during the 1100s. Shimmin 14:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur; something is wrong here. al-Jilani was likely born around 1075; the evidence is that the Kitab Sirr al-Asrar was composed in the tenth century, and it seems certain that it was extant long before al-Jilani's time.

MHrynick 03:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems this was based on some outdated info. Should be fixed now. Correct book listed. Car Henkel (talk) 15:19, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Broken Link

The "Historical overview of the tablet" link doesn't seem to work. I cannot find the page through Google. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.21.164.74 (talk • contribs) 20:43, April 3, 2006 (UTC)

It works now. Perhaps the server was temporarily down. --Blainster 20:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Where is proof or an image of the actual tablets? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.179.204 (talk) 04:37, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

New Translation

Concerning the discussion of the translations sounding archaic and being generally obscure, I am going to edit the article to include the translation from The Book of Aquarius. The author appears to understand the principles of the Emerald Tablet and provides a more up-to-date translation, but still keeping the original feel of it. If anyone has a problem with this please reply. There is a full commentary on the Emerald Tablet in The Book of Aquarius. I don't know whether the other contributors feel that a commentary would be useful to this article, or whether it might lean towards making the article bias. That is assuming that the commentary is bias. Let's discuss. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk) 07:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Removed. Book of Aquarius = online, nonacademic webpage - falls under WP:NOTRS as previously discussed. Car Henkel (talk) 03:13, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Ha! It amuses me that every time I mention BoAquarius you dispute it. But OK, I see your point. I'm getting into more academic reading on the topic anyway (which I always did, but I appear to be becoming more conservative), hope to contribute more from this side. I remember recently reading something about the first recorded version of Emerald Tablet, I'll try to find where that was and cite it here. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 07:49, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

External Links

Most of these seem to be to blogs, personal interpretations, etc. Anyone object to getting rid of most of these? Anyone have better suggestions? Car Henkel (talk) 03:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Good idea, remove them. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 08:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Arabic translation

The translation is from the Kitāb sirr al-ḫalīqa and not the Kitāb ul-īḍāḥ li-Arisţūţālis fi'l-khayri'l-maḥd (Liber de Causis) as previously mentioned. I changed the reference in the paragraph. Jyar (talk) 07:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

what about the THIRTEEN tablets of thoth??

check this out http://www.crystalinks.com/emerald.html

why is the 13 tablets of thoth not mentioned in this article? 88.235.33.198 (talk) 20:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

This work is by most reputable accounts a modern work fabricated by Michael Doreal. If you believe Doreal's assertion that it's a 36,000 year old Atlantean work that he translated (from the Atlantean?), information regarding it would belong in a separate article. It is mentioned in the article on Thoth. Car Henkel (talk) 21:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

You find no purpose in mentioning that there is a topic scripture, fabricated or not, that is called '13 emerald tablets of thoth', in an article called 'emerald tablet' that is also claimed to be someone calling themself 'hermes trismegistus' and by your own article is also called 'thoth' ?? As a service for people seeking information, you find no value in letting them know that there is something called '13 emerald tablets of thoth' ?

YOU HAVE STILL NOT ANSWERED THE QUESTION, IS it not in the interest of people seeking information on 'emerald tablets' to find out that there is a work called '13 emerald tablets of thoth' ?

Can you provide 'the most reputable accounds' as sources that it is fabricated by doreal ?

88.235.33.198 (talk) 19:31, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, i have created a page called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_Emerald_Tablets can you please add a link there — Preceding unsigned comment added by Odarcan (talk • contribs) 19:50, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Too many translations?

Does any one know where the Contemporary translation comes from? Also, I'm not sure the one listed as the Arabic translation is from a good source. Do we want to have more than a couple translations in here (there are tonnes out there)? Will do my best to work on this, but wondered if any one else had ideas. The French page has some good info. Car Henkel (talk) 22:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I put WP:SPS and WP:INCITE tags at the top and in the Arabic transl. section. The policy on self-published sources states, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Since I don't read Arabic, I wouldn't question the quality of Nineveh Shadrach's translation. He's published books on occult magic and is listed as an expert on occult magic on sever special interest websites. But I can't find any publication reprinting his translation or previous translations, so unless someone has such a citation, it's in violation. That would solve the problem of too many translations, though! But I'd consider whether a WP article is the place for a full translation anyway, as that might be a copyright violation and not up to WP quality standards.

MisterGoodTime (talk) 07:29, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay... got rid of the two problematic translations. The ones left in should be safely in the public domain. There's three in there as of now 1) the Newton translation as double checked on the Indiana U page 2) the Theatrum Chemicum translation 3) the Latin text. I don't see a reason why we need more than this anyway. Going to get rid of the templates at the top of the article since they were inserted in relation to this.Car Henkel (talk) 04:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

The article is in much better shape thanks to your efforts. Much appreciated!

MisterGoodTime (talk) 05:39, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Latin Text

The latin text cited from the source "Alchemiae Gebri Arabis ..." is not faithful to the original. At least one phrase switches the position of two words. I have consulted the source and found the cited work in page 294. My own rendition of the original follows. I have preserved the original typography to the maximum of my ability.

Verum ſine mendacio, certum & ueriſſimum. Quod eſt inferius, eſt ſicut quod eſt ſuperius. Et quod eſt ſuperius, eſt ſicut quod eſt inferius, ad perpetranda miracula rei unius. Et ſicut omnes res fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius. Sic omnes res natæ fuerunt ab hac una re, adaptione. Pater eius eſt Sol, mater eius Luna. Portauit illud uentus in uentre ſuo. Nutrix eius terra eſt. Pater omnis teleſmi totius mundi eſt hic. Vis eius integra eſt, ſi uerſa fuerit in terram. Separabis terram ab igne, ſubtile à ſpiſſo, ſuauiter cum magno ingenio. Aſcendit à terra in cœlum, iterumque deſcendit in terram, & recipit uim ſuperiorum & inferiorum. Sic habebis gloriam totius mundi. Ideo fugiet à te omnis obſcuritas. Hic eſt totius fortitudinis fortitudo fortis, quia uincet omnem rem ſubtilē, omnemque ſolidam penetrabit. Sic mundus creatus eſt. Hinc erunt adaptationes mirabiles, quarum modus hic eſt. Itaque uocatus ſum Hermes Triſmegiſtus, habens tres partes philoſophiæ totius mundi. Completum eſt quod dixi de operatione Solis.

--PedroLamarao (talk) 01:38, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

See also "Mediation vs Meditation" above. Your rendition still has meditatione which just doesn't make sense to me—but maybe I am construing badly? I tried a

couple of online translators for "mediation", got garbage from some, meditatione from one, from another meditkatione(!), but the following seemed clear (from [1]):

– Disputes are best determined by mediation.
– Praeterea contentiones sint maxime constituta per mediationem adhibitis.

until I tried reverse-translating the English text from the article, when I got:

– as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one
– omnia et ab uno, meditatione[!] unius fuerunt

Now meditatione is b-a-a-c-k! The Latin translation is suspiciously identical to the Geber source cited in the article; perhaps the translator's diction was directly influenced by Wikipedia? It happens rather often! So it's seemingly up in the air until the putative Latin paleographer steps in. --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 23:25, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Meditatione most definitely is the original reading, meaning "by the planning/devising/contriving/arranging"; see my comments above. Apaugasma (talk) 11:38, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

On the larger issue of the transcluded text vs the facsimile original, there are clearly a number of errors, including one sentence missing altogether in the Latin text (but included in the English translation above it). Word order does not usually affect the sense in Latin, but for a quote or transclusion, it should be as faithful as possible. As far as I can determine, PedroLamara's rendition is faithful & accurate, except that he has expanded a couple of "-que" suffixes, which I agree with. On the whole, I think it better to go with plain text in the article, even though PedroLamara's rendition preserves the original even closer; the font works on my browser, but not in my text editor.

I will make the necessary changes to the transcluded Latin text, working from the facsimile at the cited source, keeping the existing font; please review. --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 00:00, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

The Emeral Tablet of Hermes vs. The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean

Personally, I think new students learning about occultism & Hermeticism should be given greater clarification about these two things, as they're separate & totally different from each other. The Emeral Tablet of Hermes is just a few paragraphs of text that was first translated by an Arab during the 10th or 11th century, as part of the translation movement, whereas the "13 Emeral Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean" is a 13-chapter, fictional work of New Age philosophy written by Maurice Doreal in 1939. Its contents are extremely different from that of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, as it's written mostly to teach the doctrine of Doreal's "Brotherhood of the White Temple" (a self-described occult school structured in a similar manner to Freemasonry, except for its own philosophy). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.194.12.221 (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

For us to discuss Doreal's work, we would need non-primary professional academic sources that describe it. We don't engage in or use original research. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:15, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Naturally, I understand that we would need proper sources for this information (in keeping with the spirit of Wikipedia,) but how possible is it, if no actual 3rd party sources are known, or if those 3rd party sources are false or biased in some manner? Especially since this the works of Maurice Doreal aren't widely discussed or studied. This said, I'm more than willing to do my part; where would I begin such research? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.194.12.221 (talk) 03:34, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

It seems like, confusion about which is which continues to be widespread, so I've stuck the "Emerald Tablets of Thoth" in again. Wombat140 (talk) 11:44, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

If there are good wp:secondary sources explicitly discussing the relation of the Emerald Tablets Of Thoth The Atlantean to the Emerald Tablet, then a section about this might one day be added to the article body. Only if such a section exists would it be wp:due to add a sentence (and nothing more than a sentence!) to the lead. Since we have nothing like that for the moment, a hatnote linking to the Emerald Tablets Of Thoth The Atlantean is the best we can do, so I added that. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:33, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Oh, it seems like, I hadn't thought of using that, that's a better idea. Wombat140 (talk) 15:26, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

“The Alchemy Web Site”

I’d love to get some other perspectives on this, but “The Alchemy Web Site”, which seems to be maintained by a single person of questionable web-design sensibilities, just does not strike me as a reliable source. I have removed the following section sourced from it.

Theatrum Chemicum translation

Another translation can be found in Theatrum Chemicum, Volume IV (1613), in Georg Beatus' Aureliae Occultae Philosophorum:

This is true and remote from all cover of falsehood
Whatever is below is similar to that which is above. Through this the marvels of the work of one thing are procured and perfected.
Also, as all things are made from one, by the [consideration] of one, so all things were made from this one, by conjunction.
The father of it is the sun, the mother the moon. The wind bore it in the womb. Its nurse is the earth, the mother of all perfection.
Its power is perfected. If it is turned into earth.
Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle and thin from the crude and [coarse], prudently, with modesty and wisdom.
This ascends from the earth into the sky and again descends from the sky to the earth, and receives the power and efficacy of things above and of things below.
By this means you will acquire the glory of the whole world,
And so you will drive away all shadows and blindness.
For this by its fortitude snatches the palm from all other fortitude and power. For it is able to penetrate and subdue everything subtle and everything crude and hard.
By this means the world was founded
And hence the marvelous conjunctions of it and admirable effects, since this is the way by which these marvels may be brought about.
And because of this they have called me Hermes Tristmegistus since I have the three parts of the wisdom and philosophy of the whole universe.
My speech is finished which I have spoken concerning the solar work

—67.14.236.50 (talk) 23:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The design may belong to the mid 90s, but that site's owner is a recognized author in the field. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:35, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Also a major author of his own WP article [2]. But if you think it satisfies WP:SPS and benefits the article, I wouldn’t object to restoring it. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 23:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

His attempted edits are not currently in the article. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

If you wanted to keep it out for the sake of brevity ok, but as stated above McLean is a good source. Could likely use another source link for the translation, but the "The Alchemy Website" link contains valuable further information. Aside: I did a major edit on Adam McLean a while back and the autobiographical content has been removed. Car Henkel (talk) 23:44, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

-

Image

@Randy Kryn: Nice to see you keeping an eye on this page! Bit surprised you reverted the image edit though - this one seems much lower quality (though stronger contrast) than this one I switched in. Could you possibly give me some advice on how you made the call so I have a better idea of where to replace images with higher res ones and where not to in the future? Zeromonk (talk) 07:54, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Could be screen setting, but on my screen the image you used is faded compared to the easily seen crisp present image. It is also obviously from a book (notice the crease line up the middle), while the long-term image used on the page is also from a book but not obviously. Maybe other editors will comment, thanks for the ping. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:01, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Newton’s Translation, Reformatted

The existing translation was an unreadable jumble of words with no line breaks. This is not how it appears in the referenced source, so I made a best effort attempt to clean it up and make it understandable for interested readers. I did not alter any of the wording. If someone with more experience can improve on this it would be great, I just think it’s important to have a copy of the translation here that is actually readable.

Keypusher (talk) 05:47, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Ken Wheeler's translation I deleted as a copyright violation

That was pretty obvious, but I thought I'd add a bit I found. I'm still not sure who he is, but it's not a translation. He thinks it's a sort of shorthand, eg that Boy Store Bread" should be written out as "The boy went to the store and bought some bread". [3] Doug Weller talk 09:27, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Selwood 2023

The feature at Medievalists.net by Selwood 2023 (direct link) contains several rather serious inaccuracies.

For example, Selwood regards the critical edition of the Emerald Tablet in Steele & Singer 1928, which is based on eight different manuscripts (see Steele & Singer 1928 p. 46/490), as a "transcription" of only one manuscript, MS Arundel 164. This leads him to the conclusion that Steele & Singer's 'transcription' "contains material errors". But as a critical edition Steele & Singer's text contains readings from other manuscripts, which renders the resulting text different from MS Arundel 164: this is of course a feature, not a bug.

Also, for some reason Selwood doesn't perceive that Mandosio 2004b (pp. 691–692) is simply a (duly cited and explicitly attributed) copy of Steele & Singer's 1928 critical edition. Instead, Selwood regards it as yet another 'transcription' containing 'errors' (as compared to MS Arundel 164).

Finally, Selwood seems not to realize that the 'Vulgate' version of the Tablet in Steele & Singer's 1928 is part of an Arabic collection of alchemical commentaries variously called Liber dabessi, Liber Hermetis de alchimia or Liber rebis (see Mandosio 2004b, p. 683). Steele & Singer 1928 p. 41/485 mention that it is "a translation made, probably early in the twelfth century, from an Arabic collection of explanations and commentaries on [...] the Emerald Table". Mandosio 2004b pp. 683–684 confirms that it is Latin translation of an Arabic commentary on the Tablet, adding that this version ultimately goes back on an Arabic commentary tradition taking the Sirr al-khalīqa/De secretis nature as its basis (though the translation is independent from the Latin translation of the Sirr al-khalīqa made by Hugo of Santalla).

Now Selwood casually declares the Vulgate version edited by Steele & Singer as part of the Liber dabessi to be translated from the Sirr al-asrār/Secretum Secretorum (which he also misleadingly calls "a text thought to have been written by Plato’s student, Aristotle", apparently ignoring that this text is pseudo-Aristotelian), even though it is clearly very different from the actual version of the Tablet in the Secretum Secretorum. Selwood was likely confused by the fact that Albertus Magnus in his De mineralibus names the Vulgate version of the Tablet from the Liber dabessi as Secretum secretissimorum Hermetis, but as Caiazzo 2004 p. 702 notes, Albertus Magnus probably took this name from one ms. of the Liber dabessi which also uses it and in any case Albertus did not even know the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum at the time he wrote the De mineralibus (Steele & Singer, Mandosio, and Caiazzo all say that Albertus was using the version of the Liber dabessi; the name is simply a red herring that likely confused Selwood).

On top of all this it should be noted that Selwood 2023 is equivalent to a self-published source, and that he in no way is an expert on alchemy (see also his article here), which would render Selwood 2023 an unreliable source by Wikipedia's standards.

In other words, though it may perhaps be helpful to note in our article that Selwood published a transcription of Arundel MS 164 (not a 'corrected' one obviously), he should probably not be used for anything else. If there should be anything of interest in Selwood 2023, please look it up in more reliable sources and cite those instead. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:46, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Tad

The 2022 Spanish animated film Tad, the Lost Explorer and the Emerald Tablet (and its video game and its musical play) features an emerald tablet as the macguffin. However I have not found reliable sources about how the tablet is related to this tablet. -- Error (talk) 17:13, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Serrol Khaleeqe translation and such

As it stands this article de facto requires decent knowledge of the Arabic language to so much as appreciate the textual variants introduced here, moreover the cited translation in Rosenthal 1975 is not just based on Ruska 1926 with the issues elaborated on in the article it is also just not very useful for appreciating differences in these variants beginning with translation opening on a non-existent "hadha" and running all through the text. As I've seen in the history @Apaugasma once added a copyrighted translation and though obviously the copyright status of that is a problem the basic idea I think is very necessary to preserve utility for non-Arabic speakers in the article. So my proposal is putting something like this literal translation next to the Arabic text to make a non-Arabic speaker appreciate a little more what's going on:

"(a) truth; no doubt [it] is true,
indeed, the uppermost is from the lowermost and the lowermost is from the uppermost,
[it] worked the wonders from one, [just] as all things come from one by means of one plan/with one considered act,
[its] father is the sun, [its] mother is the moon,
the wind carried [it] in her womb, the earth fed [it],
father of talismans, keeper of wonders, perfect in power,
fire became earth, I separate the earth from the fire,
the soft/delicate/gentle is more noble than the crude/rough/unintelligent,
with gentle-being and wisdom [it] ascends from the earth to the heaven and descends to the earth from the heaven,
and in [it] is the power of the uppermost and the lowermost,
since with [it] is the light of lights therefore the darkness escapes (away) from [it],
power of powers
it prevails over everything soft/delicate/gentle, enters into everything crude/rough/unintelligent,
against the creation of the macrocosm the work was created,
this is my renown and therefore I am named Hermes the threefold with the wisdom.

• Arabic just has two genders and this grammatically male so [it] can also be [he]"

I've seen you put a lot of care in having this article well cited so I won't unilaterally put a translation like this in if you don't think it benefits the article more than it hurts it. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 03:19, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Wow Bari' bin Farangi, that's a great literal transliteration! The reason why I did not provide a translation myself is that I'm concerned that translating a primary source, and such an esoteric source which has baffled scholars at that, would fall afoul of WP:NOR. That policy does state that faithfully translating sourced material into English, or transcribing spoken words from audio or video sources, is not considered original research. However, it also states that any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation, and do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. It would be hard to argue that a translation of a text like the Emerald Tablet would not constitute an interpretation, but if it is an interpretation, we would of course have no secondary source to back that interpretation up.

Now you may argue that your translation tries to be as literal as possible, and being somewhat of an expert on the Emerald Tablet I can confirm that your translation is indeed both reasonably accurate and very literal. There are some things which from my own original research I know to be inaccurate and which I know should be translated differently, but I won't mention these precisely because I don't want to infuse this article with my own original research. Points that I can mention because they do not involve interpretation are the following:

• ٱعزِل should be translated as an imperative "separate". This can be easily deduced from the Latin translations, sc. Hugo of Santalla's "eam ex igne subtili [...] educite", the Secretum secretorum's "Separa terrenum ab igneo", and the Nuremberg 1541's "separabis terram ab igne", all of which have imperatives.
• لطيف and غليظ are generally translated by scholars with "subtle" and "gross" respectively (cf. Newton's translation of the vulgate; Holmyard 1927's translation of Jabir's version; Steele & Singer 1928's translation of the Liber dabessi's version), so it's probably better to just stick to that.

In the end, even though I have my concerns about OR, I won't oppose adding an editorial translation, assuming that you yourself have not been engaged in original research regarding the Emerald Tablet. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 04:24, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

For ٱعزِل I assumed to have been supposed to be أعزِل based on it not being preceded by a vowel, if (as you correctly checked again) it is ٱعزِل in the source (however phonetically doubtful that may seem) the kasre of the imperative i3zil being swallowed by the alef al wasl would make both internally for the text and based on the translations and other versions the most sense, thus I would probably go with something like "separate" or "separate (directed at a male reader)" for the translation. I tried not to look at other translations except of course the English Mamorstein translation of the German Rosenthal one, which read very differently from the original text and thus was what motivated me to start editing the article. I had no prior familiarity with the subject beyond a glance at this article prior, as I always put off reading about this subject. Thus when producing my translation in fear of introducing interpretive elements that go beyond what's there, I tried to give a broad range of meanings for latif and ghaliz as they are of course extremely broad terms and the context in the text doesn't clearly imply a person or a thing at first glance. In the end my goal wasn't to produce a particularly readable or insightful text, just one that illustrates to an English language reader roughly what grammatically exists/doesn't exist in this Arabic text. I too have my concerns regarding NOR but given the lack of linguistic complexity in the source (most of the ambiguity seems to be concerned with the telos of what is written there, not what is there if that makes sense) I purposely left open all the kinds of decisions that would make the text nicer to read and would advance a particular vocabulary choice as more likely etc. I too would prefer a well cited maybe a little more readable but yet faithful translation in the article but given that this seemingly doesn't exist the choice between confronting potentially monolingual reader with a wall of text that is either meaningless at first glance and thus ignored or meaningless at second glance after trying to put it into a machine translation program and thus ignored, I would prefer to have something there. Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 05:17, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Given the way you and I have collaborated on this, and given how we with our different backgrounds kind of provide a check & balance for each other, I think this is a case where we can ignore all rules and improve Wikipedia by having it feature this editorial translation. It will indeed be enormously helpful to readers. Thanks again, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:09, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Minor changes

• Compact vs short: The source cited states: "though merely one paragraph long". Compact does not relate to length but density. I have not found a source that calls it compact. Therefore compact should be replaced with short.

• So-called: There is no surviving tablet, if there ever was one, let alone one made of emerald. As the article states, emerald comes from its association with Hermes. However many publications show an actual emerald tablet on the cover, giving the impression such a tablet exists. Hence I'd argue using so-called is warranted.

• Smaragdine Tablet as altname: It was rather uncommon the past decades, and is on par with several other version that are not mentioned either. Ngram comparison:[4]

Hypnôs (talk) 17:49, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll address these points one by one:

• Principe (2013) pp. 31–32 does mention that the Tablet is one paragraph long, but he also mentions that this one paragraph covers various topics such as the relationship between the celestial world (the macrocosm, “that which is above”) and the terrestrial world (the microcosm, “that which is below”), monism, an unclear "it" which historically was believed to be the Philosophers' Stone, as well as perhaps secret information about how to prepare that precious substance, and other other topics which are less clear such as the Sun and Moon which may be references to Dry and wet principles. The Microcosm–macrocosm analogy, monism, the philosophers' stone, and elementary theory (dry and wet principles were regarded as building blocks of elements), all in one paragraph: I think that's pretty dense, and "compact" seems a fair description for that.
• Yes, the article should make it clear from the start that it's a text, not an actual tablet. I'm not sure whether this is not already the case in the current revision. If clarification is needed, however, using "so-called" is not the way to do it, because that term is ambiguous. Probably the best way would be to include a summary in the lead of the Secret of Creation's origin story about Apollonius of Tyana entering an underground vault below a statue of Hermes and finding the tablet in the hands of an old corpse on a golden throne, which should make it clear that it's a legend.
• "Smaragdine Tablet" on Google Scholar still produces 147 results. For people who read these sources and search Wikipedia for Smaragdine Tablet, having the altname in the lead confirms that they arrived on the right page. That to me seems enough to mention it in the lead as a mos:altname, but of course opinions may vary.

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:35, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough response.

I agree with your first two points, and that better additions could clarify the issues.

On the third point, Emerald Table (762)[5] and Smaragdine Table (175)[6] have both more hits on google scholar than Smaragdine Tablet. Hypnôs (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

That's good to know. Still, "Smaragdine" seems to see some significant use, and my guess is that people who look for "Emerald Table" or "Smaragdine Table" and land on an article called "Emerald Tablet" which also mentions "Smaragdine Tablet" in the lead will likely be assured that they landed on the right page. This is one of the primary functions of the lead sentence.

Perhaps even better though would be to change Smaragdine Tablet in the lead to Smaragdine Table: this way we both have a more widely attested form and confirm that "Table" is also in use. I went ahead and made that change. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:43, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Alright, good compromise. Hypnôs (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2024 (UTC)