Egyptian Oedipus, Volume 3

...sting. Others, with various species of things joined together into one truly ridiculous fiction, appear now as three-formed Sphinges, now—to summarize much in a few words—as Chimeras or wolf-fly-lions original: "λυκό-μυιο-λέοντες"; a hybrid monster combining a wolf, fly, and lion; others seem to represent Cerberuses the multi-headed hound of the underworld emerging, as it were, from Pluto’s workshop. Nor are the shapeless Canopic jars Egyptian vessels used for organs, often topped with animal or human heads of the Isiacs missing, protruding with such excessive swelling of the body that you might call them nothing but bellies. What more? You might see here that shameful long-tailed monkey gesturing in various ways, wearing a woven cap, and standing in the guise of the shepherds' Catamite another name for Ganymede, the cup-bearer to the gods; here Kircher is mocking the perceived absurdity of the symbols dressed in saffron and Phrygian robes. You would also see an ox of enormous thickness, the fertile deity of the omnipotent Goddess likely Isis or Hathor, conspicuous with a rhythmic gait and wings stuck on, as if attempting flight; both are so adorned with these symbols that you might call the former Bellerophon and the latter Pegasus, yet you would laugh at both. In a word, whatever Egypt—that fertile mother of portents—ever devised, or whatever the playful genius of poetry invented, we contemplate here in this all-shaping theater of nature, placed before our eyes under the allegorical veil of hidden meaning. Furthermore, who, gazing upon this bristling face of things, would not immediately lose heart? Who would safely commit himself to this monster-filled desert through inhospitable wastes, rough paths, and countless cliffs of precipices without a guide skilled in the ways? Who, having entered these theaters, would dare to encounter so many monsters and portents with impunity, and—unless equipped with only leaden and blunt daggers—rashly, so to speak, act as an amateur original: "ἰδιωτεύειν"; to play the layman or unskilled person? I see Pliny the Roman author of the 'Natural History', the expert on all of nature, fall in this battle; I also see Aelian, the clever investigator of nature, as well as Marcellinus and Hermapion—the "Cymbals of the World" Hermapion was an ancient translator of obelisks mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus; "Cymbals of the World" was a nickname for the empty noise of certain scholars—and other heroes who, desponding of victory at the first conflict, spun fables for themselves as an ingenious, or if you prefer, a cunning escape. Will I not, therefore, in this contest be deservedly called rash by everyone, as if attempting Icarus-like daring? But take heart!

Quintus of Smyrna, Book 12.

For the Gods placed troubles before the feet of men,
But blessings very far away, and in the middle they established toil.

In such darkness, something must be dared, and we must test

A quote from Horace’s 'Ars Poetica', advising authors to know their limits.
Where human strength fails, divine goodness will be present, which has spurred me toward this from my early years, and will grant me the grace to complete what I have asked to be possible through its help. But to explain my mind a little more clearly, by the divine auspice of the Godhead, we proceed to the ultimate and sole goal of our intention, toward which we have aimed thus far with such laborious preparation in these two volumes: that is, to the practical hieroglyphic Kircher believed hieroglyphs were purely symbolic and mystical rather than phonetic interpretation, to be completed with the best possible manner and method. A truly arduous work, entangled in countless difficulties, promised to the Republic of Letters twenty years ago, and now finally to be presented as a debt paid. That which you commanded, Most Sacred Caesar Emperor Ferdinand III, I have executed according to the modesty of my talent; so that henceforth, whatever is found excellent in this work should be called yours rather than mine, born from your will, from the sign of your favorable disposition toward the learned, and from your singular generosity of support. Let grateful posterity know that you were divinely chosen by God in this propagation of a harder time, so that what no one [could]...