P R E F A C E

Ornamental woodcut initial T with vine and leaf motifs.

THREE lustra of years have now revolved since I brought into the light that vast work, the Oedipus Aegyptiacus, under the auspices of the most wise Caesar FERDINAND III; in which work, over the course of twenty years, it can hardly be expressed with what labor it was achieved by me in unraveling this unknown doctrine of Hieroglyphs. For indeed, how many crags of difficulty had to be overcome? How many uncultivated, pathless, and divergent deserts had to be approached? With what Pantomorphic Monsters of Nature one had to struggle—this, I believe, is known only to those who, attempting similar things, were soon terrified by the insuperable labor of overcoming such difficulties and, driven sideways as if by desperation, immediately desisted from the path they had proposed for themselves. And it is no wonder: for they persuaded themselves that to attempt—let alone to achieve—what the oblivious antiquity of time had willed to lie hidden in darkness, leaving hardly any hope of reaching the goal, was a most presumptuous, not to say audacious, undertaking; for they knew, taught by experience, how difficult, arduous, and full of risk it is to enter the horrendous and confused recesses of such forests without prior light or guide; to commit oneself to such perplexing Labyrinths without the thread of Ariadne. Certainly, if any man does, I above all confess that I have learned this by experience: how anxious my spirit was at the beginning in all matters, how doubtful and intricate my mind, how great the contentions of soul and body, when I could hardly advance a foot without stumbling, hardly a step without encountering indomitable Monsters everywhere, and finally, could hardly move a cubit without the obstacles of crags and cliffs. Nevertheless, since it is so deeply ingrained in me by nature that I judge nothing to be more glorious or excellent than to test the powers of my wit—as much as possible—in dissolving the knots of such literature, and to attempt what my shoulders are worth and what they refuse to bear; so that if it were not granted to penetrate the hidden recesses of the shrines entirely, it might at least be granted to look inside, even if only through a crack; if not even this, I judged it at least honorable to place the very attempt to the credit of Divine praise. While, therefore, I was lingering in this agitation of mind, confused, I do not know whether it happened by Divine or human providence that many learned men, having become certain of my efforts published through the Prodromus Coptus, acted in such a way that they did not merely encourage, but compelled me to follow the thread of the work I had conceived, not only with excellent subsidies of books, but also with the letters of Great Men and Princes. Whence it finally seemed good to me to apply my mind seriously and constantly to promoting the project. Wherefore, while I was comparing individual things with individual things most solicitously from the monuments of ancient Authors written in almost every kind of language with indefatigable labor, and was exploring everything with everything and each thing individually with the rule of the Combinatorial Art; it finally happened that the playful Sphyn-