The Magical World of the Heroes

Martianus Capella
St Augustine
HomerThe word Hero derives, as Martianus Capella affirms in the nuptials of Mercury, from Hera, which signifies the Earth; and the Earth is nothing other than matter. And because the said matter was by the Gentiles attributed to Juno, indeed she is understood also for the earth itself, or matter, just as to Jove they gave the form, hence it is that they said, as St Augustine reports in the tenth book of the City of God, that the name of Hero had its origin from the first son of Juno, called Hero: which mystery Homer understood when he said,

Hera, that is Juno, beheld from her golden seat

Jove, who sat upon the streaming Ida.

Whoever, then, knows her inwardly, and has knowledge of the ethereal and inestimable treasures hidden within her, as the true Magus has, may and ought deservedly and properly to be called a most happy Hero.

Homer
VirgilIt is commonly held that he ought to be placed in the catalogue of the Heroes who, working virtuously, renders himself by glorious and memorable deeds conspicuous and remarkable in the eyes of all. But it is a most evident thing that none shall ever be able to perform such signal works as may easily and naturally be performed by the Magus by virtue of natural Magic; wherefore to him alone is the name of Hero due. Such were mystically described, and as such celebrated, Ulysses by Homer and Aeneas by Virgil, both of them no less understanding in natural Magic than they were good Poets, giving to the one the Golden Bough and to the other the herb Moly, this and that signifying the force and the magical power. A glorious Hero was likewise Jason, by the winning of the Golden Fleece. Finally, whatever clear sighted Poet has wished to represent a true Hero has never left him without magical aid, giving to one a magical armour, to another a horse, to another a lance, to another a sword, to another a ring, and the like.

LucianBut since, as Lucian relates in the moral Dialogues, the Heroes, being neither men only nor Gods only, come to be both the one and the other together, and are therefore called Demigods, or Semonian Gods, there is for this cause given to them a proper Orb, or Heaven, which shall be that mystical and second Garden of delights of which we spoke above, and from whose centre is born our mystical vital wood. And just as the first was the earthly Paradise, and is now closed and hidden from all, so the second is set within the Earth, and does not appear to dim and impure minds, but stands likewise hidden in the high mists of the inaccessible light of the celestial Sun; and it shows itself only to the happy magical Hero, and by him is gloriously possessed, he enjoying and taking the fruit of the health giving wood of life set at the centre of this Orb.

OrpheusMagic is the science that is Queen of all the other human sciences, which teaches us to call into light, and out of the darkness, all the natural virtues scattered and sown by the great God through all the parts of the World. These shadows and these mists are the same thing as the famous Cave of Mercury. Orpheus relates in the Lapidary that sovereign Jove, moved to compassion for the human miseries of mortals, determined to send us by Mercury, son of Maia, a gift, which in sum was nothing other than a heap of all goods and a mass of all natural felicities; but that Mercury, having come down hither, laid it up in a certain cave, and having shut it therein, flew back to Heaven, carrying the key away with him. By such a gift is plainly to be understood the heroic wood of life, and by the cave the Orb related above. Whence Orpheus adds, saying,

He who with prudence betakes himself to the cave

Venerable of Hermes, where he laid up

Of all good things an infinite mass,

May, with both his hands filled therewith,

Depart from thence, and in his own dwelling after

Drive blessedly away every troublesome care.

Virgil
HomerThis Cave Virgil understood by Avernus, into which, wishing to bring Aeneas, he gives him the guidance of the Sibyl with the prophetic Golden Bough; just as Homer likewise makes Mercury give the herb Moly to Ulysses: and this to let us see how toilsome and difficult such an entrance is. Pray therefore to thrice greatest Jove, giver of all goods, without whom you will labour in vain to attain so great a felicity, that with a ray of the divine Sun he may illumine you, point out to you the arduous and narrow path, and aid you in the long, toilsome and perilous journey, to the end that, become a glorious Hero, you may, as a new Jason, bear away the palm of so signal an enterprise.

Meanwhile we, in such manner as is permitted us by the Divine Majesty, shall go on demonstrating the entrance to the said hidden heroic Orb, as we said above, in the high mists of the inaccessible light of the celestial Sun, that is, in the element of the Earth.

The Abbot TrithemiusTo the end, then, that you may not err, it behoves you first to know that the earth which we tread is not the true terrestrial element, but only an elemented element, and the impurity of the others; and consequently you cannot by it arrive at the celestial Gift. But in the East you will find the gate, the amplest and the greatest of all, that gives us entry to it. Yet here too it will be needful to attend to what the Abbot Trithemius recalls concerning the said East in the first book of the Steganographia: By the East, he says, I would have you understand here, not where the Sun rises on any given day, but that place in which he was created at the beginning. Another entrance, according to others, is found in the great mountains of Libya. Hermes likewise assigns one in a certain part of the red sea.

Finally, to make the enterprise easier for you, know that not only in the aforesaid places will you find the entrance to the Cave of Mercury and to the heroic Orb, but you will find it likewise in all those mineral places in which there are sometimes wont to be seen certain Monsters, of which some are called Pygmies, Gnomes, Vulcans, Salamanders and others. Forasmuch as Divine providence, having given to each natural thing, as some will have it, its own keeper, these are therefore set over the guardianship of the inexhaustible treasures of the Earth, that is, of the metals; just as those other Monsters, called sylvan, or Silvani, have charge of the gems and precious stones. The Nymphs likewise, otherwise called Undines, preside over the treasures that are hidden in the bosom of the vast and deep Sea.

Whensoever, therefore, and in whatsoever place the aforesaid shall appear, it will be a manifest sign that there are very great treasures there, as the expert and skilled Mineralists have observed by long experience. For if, on entering into the bowels of some mineral mountain, they descry one of the aforesaid Monsters, which, according to their custom, showing itself all smiling and festive, gives sign by its gestures as though it went to meet them, they hold it in such a case for a certain thing that the mine must be to them of the greatest profit and use; but if on the contrary that Monster shows itself troubled and full of scorn, and betakes itself in anger to flight, they lose altogether every hope of being able to make any gain there. Open in this place the eyes of your mind; consider all with prudence; and understand soundly; and you shall become a happy Hero.