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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2023
Saturn said:
Listen, I have tasted the books of all the islands, the woven letters, unlocked the sciences of the Libyans and the Greeks, likewise also the history of the empire of the Indians. The commentators instructed me about stories in the great book *** by a bold sword, such as I never could find in the ancient writings truly gathered together. Then I still sought the thing that would be for the mind or virtue, or courage, or power, or nobility: the palm-twigged Pater Noster.
I will give you everything, son of David, prince of Israel, thirty pounds of pure gold, and my twelve sons, if you bring it about for me that I am overawed through utterance of the canticle, of Christ’s line, you satisfy me with truth, and I will depart safe and sound, turn myself willingly onto the water’s height over the river Chobar to seek out the Chaldeans.
Solomon said:
Unhappy he is on earth, useless in life, devoid of wisdom, meanders like a beast, like fieldgoing cattle without understanding, he who is not able to worship Christ through the canticle, he wanders full of air; the devil, the dragon, will knock him down on the Day of Judgment, terrifyingly, shamefully, with iron balls from a black sling – he will be completely washed away by the waves of disgrace from the heights. Then will it be dearer to him than all this radiant creation, cast from the foundation of gold and silver, the four corners full of ancient treasure, if he ever had known anything at all of the canticle. Hateful and alien will he then be to the Lord almighty, without fellowship with the angels, he will wander alone.
Saturn said:
But who of all creatures can most easily brightly open up the holy gates of the kingdom of heaven in numbered succession?
Solomon said:
The palm-twigged Pater Noster opens up heaven, blesses the holy, makes the Lord merciful, strikes down murder, extinguishes the devil’s fire, kindles the Lord’s.
So you may with bright prayer intensely heat the blood, the devil’s dross, so that in him the drops climb, forced with blood because of the mind’s faults, more awfully than the brass cauldron, when because of the twelve weaknesses of men it seethes most greedily over the grip of flames.
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