Book Four, chapter 7

1Chapter 7

2Abū Bakr ibn Waḥshiyya has mentioned, in his book called al-Filāḥa [the Agriculture], on the authority of the Nabataeans, talismanic operations that run along these lines. I shall mention some of them. Among these is that a certain of the sages related a long story about the laurel tree; he mentioned that it spoke to the watchman. He said: That is, a certain one of the ploughmen in ancient times was sleeping in the middle of a garden around which were four stocks of laurel tree. He saw in his sleep that one of the trees said to him: 'O man, is there in this garden of yours anything more beautiful than I? Or who is it who can say that he has seen my like?' The watchman said to it: 'And what is the meaning of this?'

3It said to him: 'That you should know my excellence over all the trees and my standing with Jupiter, and that you should show kindness to me with care in the growing and the watering. So rise when the night is half gone, having with you a little oil of wallflower, and anoint me with it; then raise your head toward the sky, look at Jupiter and say: "O Luckiest of the Lucky, add to my life, from this my time, fifteen years"; for you will be confident that you will live them from that time, after you say: "I seek intercession with you through this tree."'

4'So try that, O man; you will find it true and you will benefit by it for yourself, and you will know by that my excellence and my standing with Jupiter.' So the laurel tree was named 'the one who spoke to the watchman', and it was named also 'Who has seen my like?'. And Ibn Waḥshiyya claimed that beneath these words is a great knowledge and a symbol that brings success, [pointing] to the fact that in this tree is this occult property.

6And among them: that whoever takes, of the leaves of the laurel, a leaf which he cuts with his hand without its falling to the ground, and places it behind his ear, then drinks of drink as much as he can, will not become drunk and will not get a headache from taking much of it. Is this not among the wonders of talismans?

8And among them: Shafāhī said: The marsh-mallow tree used to talk to me often in sleep and in waking, except that her speaking to me in sleep was more frequent. He said: So whenever I heard some speech from her, I fixed it then and there in writing, for dislike of forgetting it. Then she came to me one night in sleep and said: Know that my name is one of the names of Mercury, and you think that I am only a marshmallow tree (khaṭmī).

9And [know] that much evil and disputes have arisen between me and the mandrake (yabrūḥ), because he claims that he is more entitled to the rank than I. And every thing on the earth has from the earth a place which it does not pass beyond and cannot move away from; and just as that is not possible for us, so it is not possible for us to increase in our persons, nor to change our selves nor our natures, so that we should do other than our work.

10And the mandrake is ignorant and stupid, for his claim that all that I have said is not possible, he says is possible for us to do. And I ask you, O Shafāhī, to write to the sages of Babylon that they judge between me and the mandrake, for you do not know their knowledge, so that we should take our case to you rather than to them;

11for, as you know, I cannot correspond with humans nor inform them of anything I wish, and I have informed you of this only because I have chosen you from among them. Then the marshmallow dissolved when she reached the end of this speech, and became a vapour rising to the sky, and I did not see her afterwards.

12Then I woke, and wrote to the sages of Babylon about that, and they wrote in answer to my letter, saying: Your letter has arrived, and we were pleased at your safety. The marshmallow is not, in our view, like the mandrake, because the mandrake is greater in standing and higher in rank in his actions, his benefits and his harms; except that he is, with that, wily and evasive: his evil cannot be borne and his power cannot be withstood, and for that reason we seek to be spared his evil.

13And he is not opposed to the marshmallow; rather the two agree in one nature, of cold, heaviness and slowness, and the two are attributed to two planets which are strong, namely Mercury and his father Saturn. And these two plants are both intelligent.

14And we have wondered at evil arising between them, since disputes and evils arise only between two fools; as for two intelligent ones, how seldom does evil arise between them! That is because between two intelligent ones evils do not arise except through a cause that necessitates the arising of evil, through the act of an agent who acts upon them; whereas with the two fools it comes about through that and from themselves.

15So since the two intelligent ones have one way for evil and dispute to arise, and the two ignorant ones two causes, what arises from two causes is more than what arises from one cause. And we have judged in favour of the mandrake because of our frequent use of him, for he is a strong aid to us in our work.

16We use the marshmallow only in some places, some circumstances and some matters, such as union, love and intense affection, and some talismans which are pure benefit; as for the mandrake, his working in evil is more effective.

17Then I brought the letter to the marshmallow tree and informed her of its arrival; then I went away, and she came to me in my sleep, and I told her of that. She said: They have judged for me against him, not for him against me, by their saying that I am good and he is evil, and by their saying: we praise him and prefer him only for his evil.

18And the proof of my statement is that every evil, feared animal among the beasts, such as the predatory beasts and the kinds of snakes, is dreaded for its evil, and it is wretched and worn with toil, while the good one that eats grass is fortunate. For this reason the snake is sought out and killed, while fish and tortoises are protected and safe. They have judged it [pronoun ambiguous: the yabrūḥ] to be [a thing of] evil and fearsome things, while I am more excellent and more fortunate; just as the good among the sons of men are in a far better state than the wicked in things and respects whose enumeration would be long. And even if there were no difference in excellence between the good and the wicked except the ease of the good man's heart and the preoccupation of the wicked man's heart, [it would suffice]: for he whose heart is at ease takes pleasure in what he eats and drinks, while he whose heart is preoccupied never finds any pleasure with them.

19So for the sake of this, Shafāhī, the sage of the Jarāmiqa, commanded the people of his land to depict in their temples the image of Dawānāy the lord, standing; he has made with the fingers of his right hand the count of eight, and the remaining three fingers are upright and erect, and he is ‹leaning on a branch› of the khaṭmī tree, on which are depicted the knots that are in the make of the khaṭmī tree in its branches; and a great snake has coiled round the staff, and on the head of the staff is a cross of gold, and the snake has its mouth gaping towards the face of Dawānāy. And beneath this they have much knowledge and a magical symbol concerning the use of the khaṭmī tree and the yabrūḥ in sīmiyā'.

20Abū Bakr ibn Waḥshiyya has set down a treatise which he called "The Secrets of Mercury", in which he mentioned some of their symbols concerning the yabrūḥ tree; if you wish to become acquainted with it, you will know what I have pointed to.

21And from the "Agriculture": looking at the blossoms of the khaṭmī tree gladdens the soul and removes care; that is, by going round the tree on every side and looking at its blossoms. And from it: if some of the branches of the dardār or its leaves are placed in a spot, the gnats of that whole spot gather to it and range themselves upon it.

22And from it: know that the ghubayrā' is a tree opposed to the sons of men, not by nature, so that it would kill, but by occult properties and by working on the changing of hearts. The sages have used it in their works as they used the yabrūḥ and the khaṭmī. It is the tree of the jinn: they hasten to it at night when the Sun has set, and they lie hidden in it and beneath it and are at ease with it.

23And the blossom of its tree: when women smell it, they are seized by intense lust and are roused to intercourse, as sparrows are roused in the season of spring and beasts of prey in the season of winter; and often they disgrace themselves from the intensity of desire. I think that their intellects depart, and for that reason they disgrace themselves.

24And whoever comes to the ghubayrā' tree and takes a leaf from the highest branch on it and places it on his head like a crown, his head being uncovered to the air, rejoices with a great joy, for no cause except a gladness he finds in his heart and a delight in his soul.

25And whoever takes one of the flowers of the ghubayrā', and one of its leaves, and of its root the size of a fingernail from one of its roots, and puts the three in a thin plate of silver and wraps the silver over them, then covers it with a rag of white silk and a thread of white silk, and puts it either in his sleeve or his pocket, or hangs it on himself, there arises for him in the heart of everyone of the people who sees him and meets him a good acceptance, and he is held in esteem by whomever he goes to, and if he asks him for something he needs, he grants it.

26And among them is the tree of Abraham. In it are wonderful occult properties, and it enters into the nawāmīs, and in it are wonders of effects. Among what Saqūlūniyā the Messenger of the Sun mentioned about it is that, when there is joined of it what is joined to the mandrake (al-yabrūḥ) and the plant called the lamp of the quṭrub, and it is a Nabataean Canaanite tree:

27So if he takes some of its leaves and its fruit and joins [them] to the leaves of the mandrake and its fruit, equal in weight, and that is five raṭls, then wraps some of the leaves upon others with the fruit inside them, and takes of the tender, moist, garden-grown branches of the tree of Abraham the weight of a raṭl, and wraps [them] over those leaves which have the fruit inside them,

28and takes three leaves of the leaves of the cauliflower and wraps [them] over the whole, then puts [it] in a place of putrefaction which he called a muṭahhara, and throws over it twenty-one flowers of the flowers of the tree of Abraham, and pours over all of that four raṭls of cow's milk churned into buttermilk, and lets fall on it one drop of tar, and covers it with a dish of earthenware, and digs in moist ground three and a half cubits, and the muṭahhara is placed at the bottom of it,

29and there is poured over it in that pit enough donkey's urine to submerge it, and it is left for an hour until the earth drinks up that urine; then the earth is trodden down over it well, and it is left thus forty-nine days; then it is opened up and the muṭahhara is taken out and opened, and you will find in it an animal in the form of a fish, having two wings like the two wings of the bat, and two eyes like the two eyes of the crab, protruding from its head, and two hands in which are five fingers on each hand, and it has a hind part like the hind part of the fish.

30So do not hold it with your hand, and leave it in the vessel in the sun for an hour or three hours, for it dies within that [time], and you know this when it becomes still from movement. Then leave it in the vessel, and cover it with the lid, and leave it for seven days without touching it, for you will see that that animal's body has come apart and broken into pieces; and this breaking into pieces is the sign of its having reached maturity and attained what is wanted of it.

31Then he began to enumerate the occult properties that are in this animal, and mentioned many things, among them that if a person takes a censer with live coals in it, then takes a little of the body of this animal with the tip of iron tongs, not touching it with his hand at all, and puts it in a vessel, then throws in with it some dried sirāj al-quṭrub, and some of the mandrake, the figure itself, also dried, then fumigates with that on the fire after mixing — and let him do this while he is either in a wide desert or on a roof — then the stars appear to the eye by day, until the sky is filled with stars while the Sun is risen.

32And if he adds to it a little ox gall and some ushshaq, people hear in the air a clamour and a terrifying, great, frightening roar. As long as the smoke rises upward, this is witnessed, and whenever the smoke stops, those stars begin to vanish from the eye until they all vanish; and so it is likewise with the roar and the clamour.

33And in it there are elegant marvels, which Ḍaghrīth mentioned; and he mentioned, concerning these nāmūsī devices, many things of the kind he described in his book On the Secrets of the Sun, and that book of his is among the marvels of books.

34And the limbs of this fish are used individually in wondrous matters of magic, and its fat and its oil are used in marvels of magic; and with it the master of the Saturnian nāmūses used to work.

35Then Abū Bakr claimed that the magicians say that milks, fats and the oils of every plant, when an incantation is spoken over any of them, receive the speech with a swift reception, so that from it a certain spirit comes to be in them; and milks are the swiftest of them in reception. For that reason we may say an incantation over milk and with it make sick whomever we wish, and alter his state in his body and his heart when he drinks it.

36Then he said: Between the Chaldaeans and the Canaanites there is a fierce dispute over that, because each one of them claims that he devised it. Ṭāshad son of the Canaanite addressed Anūḥā in an epistle in which he rebuked him for his claim of revelation to him from Mercury. Among its sections, he says of his clan that they had attained by their intellects the many marvels, such as the incantation over milk which makes its drinker sick, 'and it is more wondrous than what you claimed by revelation and divine assistance from Mercury.

37And because you, when you had devised by your intellect incantations which you drew out, and by them the drawing of the fruit of the vines from it to you, while you were standing or sitting, became possible for you, were not content with the rank of those who devise and draw out, until you overstepped your bounds.'

38Qūthāmī said: And I say that the first who devised these things was Māsī, for he composed a book on that; and he had met his father's grandfather Adam and he lived after him one hundred and eighty years. And he mentioned in that book how the animal by whose fat magic is worked is to be treated, and how the trees by whose oil magic is worked are to be treated, and he spoke at very great length on that.

39And among them is the saying of Qūthāmī that the myrtle has an operation in the removal of magic, together with other things; and the science of magic is a grave matter for whoever undertakes it, and I do not like to speak of what I have no knowledge of. And the Nabataeans claim that the origin of the cultivators' shaping of it, in its growing-places, into various images after one of the kinds of animals, is an origin from the work of the magicians; for it has effects on the souls of people when they look at it while it is in certain specific images set up for setting [harm] upon [someone].

40And that is by your shaping from it, in its growing-places, out of its branches, the image of a man or a woman, and writing upon it the name of the one depicted by the operation; and you shape the image of a lion, or a great serpent, or a scorpion, or one of the venomous, harmful animals, surrounding that image, or preying upon it, or advancing upon it; and the making of that is to be at a specific time or a specific hour, and for a star in a certain configuration. Then that named one falls ill, or something befalls him of derangement, madness, fears, terrors, loss of intellect, and other harmful afflictions besides these.

41Then he said: The magicians are a people whom I cannot openly censure or disparage, out of fear of their evil; and I ask God, mighty is His name, to ward off their evil from us.

42And among them: Rawāhṭā mentioned many praises of the olive tree in his poem which he composed on agriculture, so that he said: This tree vied in boasting with all the trees, and said: I am the golden one, whose oil resembles the colour of gold, and in it is healing from ninety-eight ailments and illnesses; and there is not among the oils one that strengthens the heart, firms the back and gladdens the soul, other than my oil.

43And I am the blessed one: whoever acquires something of my branches, my leaves and my fruit and stores it in his dwelling will see no misery, nor grief, nor care, and he and his household will live that year the most pleasant life, and I drive away from him loneliness, melancholic obsession and evil imaginings.

44And I am the blessed one: whoever looks at me every day at the rising of the Sun and embraces me with his hand, I gladden him and make him rejoice, and I ward off from him on that day of his all ailments, cares, blights, sorrows and evil imaginings.

45I am the tree of Saturn, the heavy, the slow of motion; I am his greatest, most great name; I am the one with whom every lonely one finds companionship; I am the one who removes from the ill-omened his ill omen; I am the one who has made the ruins flourish, and through me the clime of Persia, of the Jarāmiqa and of the Sūdāniyyūn excels. Mine are, of days, the first of them, and of dwellings, the most splendid of them, and of excavations the oldest of them; of fortresses, the most lasting and the firmest; of rivers, the greatest and the most abundant; of winds, the coldest; of directions, the clearest; of spheres, the highest; of tresses, the longest; and of states, the highest and the most exalted.

46Then he mentioned that Ḍaghrīth said that a people of the ancients used to take something of the fruit of the olive tree and of its leaves at the Sun's alighting at the head of Aries, at the head of Cancer, at the head of Libra and at the head of Capricorn, and they would put it in their dwellings and not leave them empty of it, seeking blessing thereby and taking it as a good omen for continuance and safety. And indeed, by my life, they were, along with the length of their lives, sound of body.

47Then he said: When the conjunction of the Moon with Mercury in the sign of Gemini is sought out, and a citron is buried as it is at the root of the olive tree, and the digging for it is made deep so that the citron touches the roots of the olive tree, and the earth is heaped over it a cubit or a little more, and no water is poured on it, then after seventeen days there grows in that place a fine herb resembling the rice plant, which kindles with fire; and it is among the things they employ in their magical works.

48And Ḍaghrīth said: If a person always takes, at the head of every new moon that appears on the first day of the month, by day in the first hour, olive branches with green leaves on them, with no yellow leaf among them, and puts them in his dwelling; and when the second month appears he again takes some of them in the same way and brings them to their place, then takes those first ones and kindles them in a censer and warms himself at their embers, and sets the second ones down in their place: then the one who always does this act, the Saturnine banes are driven away from him, and he does not cease to be glad in himself in all his states, and sees neither care nor grief.

49And he claimed that his livelihood is widened, his soul is made pleasant, and death is driven away from him until the time of old age. And an increase [of effect]: if some palm fronds are added to them, then by that the bodies of the people of that house become healthy, all the cold ailments are driven away from them, and the light of their eyes increases when they look every day at these branches that have their leaves on them.

50Then he said: And if ninety stones are taken of olive stones and cleaned until the roughness that appears on them is removed from them, then pierced and strung on a black silk thread, thick, middling in that, and then hung on one who feels desolate in darkness and solitude, it removes that from him and produces in him familiarity with people. And likewise it is done for one whose nature is unsociable toward people, remote from them for it makes him sociable and removes from him the aversion to them, and his bad character and his ill temper, and produces in him good thoughts in his heart.

51Then he said: And whoever takes seven olive pits, and the one taking them stands facing the Sun, then throws one of them towards it with all his strength, then follows with another, up to the last of them, while saying: 'O Sun, have mercy on me and remove from me this ailment', that ailment departs from him, even if it has [had] many years. He does that seven times, with forty-nine pits.

52And if a person takes one hundred and seventeen olive pits and washes them well with hot water, then well with cold water, then dries them with a clean cloth and anoints them with oil, and stands by a flowing river with the pits in his left sleeve, then looks at the water and says: 'O flowing water, which is the opposite of blazing fire, calm towards me the anger of So-and-so, and remove from his heart his hatred of me, and make me beloved to him',

53and throws pit after pit into the current of the water, and repeats these words and this seeking of refuge one hundred and seventeen times, the anger of whoever has been angered against him is calmed towards him, even if he is a tyrannical, obstinate king who cannot be approached or withstood and has become enraged against him to the utmost degree of rage; it removes that from his heart, and he receives him with the best reception.

54And if a person takes a vessel of crystal or glass of the utmost whiteness and clarity, and fills it with clear oil, and makes the stopper of its mouth good, and looks at it every day many times, as often as he can, it increases the light of his sight and wards off ailments from his eyelids. And let the one looking at it be sitting in the shade, with the vessel in the sun, for it strengthens the organ and wards off ailments from the sight, and produces for him joy in his soul and prosperity in his livelihood, and adorns him in the eye of everyone who sees him.

55And among them: when springs from which water comes forth fall short of the amount that used to flow from them, [and] a person takes a beautiful slave-girl, young in age, and seats her on something high facing the source, then orders her to play on the reed-pipe much and continuously, and to point the reed-pipe towards the outlet of the water, she doing that for three hours of the day;

56then let him order another slave-girl, of the like of her beauty and her age or close to it, to take a drum and beat it, and sing with the best singing, while the other plays on the reed-pipe in the rhythm of the beating on the drum: then the water becomes abundant by that and its quantity increases, either at the time, or after fourteen hours have passed from that time, or at the like time on the next day.

57And let the piping of the first alone be three hours, and the singing of the other to the drum, the piping and the beating six hours, so that the total of that is nine full hours. This is a strong way for increasing the quantity of the water.

58And among them is another operation, namely that you take beautiful slave-girls, virgins, young in years, and command them to put on clothes, each one of them of a colour other than the colour that is on the other. Then two of them take two lutes and play on them, and one takes a drum, another a ma'zafa, another a ṭunbūr and another a surnāy. Then they face the spring with their faces, standing at a distance of two cubits from it.

59Then they play and sing and pipe, and draw back from the spring; and they do not cease thus, drawing back little by little, one after another, until they come to be at a distance of exactly twenty-one cubits from it. Then they come forward towards it, doing with the instruments of music what we have just described, until they reach about a cubit from it. Then they draw back, until they have done that seven times; for the water increases with a great, evident increase, at the time or a little after it.

60And among them: the people of India say that they cannot do without frankincense in their works and in every compound fumigation; they seek nearness to their idols by burning it, and they benefit from its fumes in their heads and their brains. And likewise all other people benefit from its smell when it is burned on the fire, and from chewing it as well. And the Chaldeans said that it suits all the idols, and for that reason it enters into all the fumigations.

61And among them, for the bees not to approach anyone who takes their honey out of their hives, nor harm him: that is, that he take some powdered leaves of marshmallow, moisten it with oil, and smear his body with it, or whatever place of it he likes.

63And among them, for the spoiling of wine when it turns to vinegar or is about to turn to vinegar: that chickpeas be taken and greased with oil, and put in a frying pan and fried over a light fire with a light frying, and stirred much; then it is ground after it has cooled. Then two ūqiyyas of it, up to a quarter of a raṭl, up to a third of a raṭl at most, are thrown onto every ten mann of the drink spoiled to sourness or otherwise, whatever kind of spoiling it be; and it is left until it settles, from one time to its like; for the sourness departs from it.

64And among them, for warding off hail by artifice: a viper is taken and cut into pieces; then a piece of it is placed then a piece [of it] on the brazier where the wind blows; for the smoke of the viper cuts off the hail-cloud and turns it away altogether from that place.

65And among them, also for repelling hail: three women who are menstruating are ordered to go out to the open country over which clouds have cast their shade that give promise of the falling of hail. They strip off their clothes and face the clouds with their private parts, lying on their backs, having spread their legs, with their private parts toward the clouds. For the hail-cloud turns away from that place, and not a single hailstone of that cloud comes down on it.

66And among them: as for what Māsī al-Sūrānī mentioned, that it is tried for driving away hail-clouds, it is that seven men stand for it with a handful each of cotton in their hands, and they throw that cotton toward the clouds; and with them are four men clapping with their hands, having raised their hands toward the clouds, clapping with them and shouting as the ploughmen shout to drive the birds and sparrows away from the crops.

67And the more numerous those performing this clapping and scolding of the clouds, the more effective it is in driving the clouds away and the quicker for their clearing. He said: For the clouds go away and pass beyond that place. And if the number of these scolders of the clouds increases until they reach forty men, it is better; and their number should not be an odd number but an even one, from forty to sixty. And this has been tried.

68And among them: Qūthāmī said: We have tried something that Yanbūshādh said, and we found it true. It is that a person sound of body, in whom there is no defect in any of his limbs, takes in his hand a large polished mirror of iron and turns its polished face toward the clouds and waves it; for no hail at all falls from the clouds.

69And among them: Qūthāmī said: Yanbūshādh mentioned, for repelling hail and all the harms that come down from the clouds and that arise from the winds harmful to vineyards, that a tablet of marble or wood be taken and the image of a vine with bunches of grapes on it be drawn upon it. This is done from when twenty-two days have passed of Kānūn the Last until four nights have passed of Shubāṭ; whichever day of these days it may be, on it what we have said is drawn, and it is set up fixed in the middle of the vineyard. It is a talisman that protects the vineyards from the heavenly and earthly banes and repels from them the falling of hail.

70And among them, a talisman for driving all the beasts of prey and the foxes away from vineyards and other [places]: take the dung of black dogs and the dung of wolves, combine them, then steep them in human urine aged seven days; then sprinkle some of it on whatever place you wish that the beasts of prey, the wild animals, the foxes and the swine should not approach, sprinkling continuously for three days, for nothing of the wild animals will come near it, nor what is large among the snakes. For snakes and vipers are given to going early to the vines, to hide in them and among their branches; that is because of the thickness of their shade, and because in the heat they are the coolest of the trees and plants, so the snakes and vipers take refuge in them for their coolness and the thickness of their shade.

71And among them is what Māsī al-Sūrānī said: that the smoke of pomegranate wood and the smoke of its rinds, snakes flee from it when they perceive its smell, a violent flight. For that reason the king who feared snakes would always place for himself in his sitting-chamber branches of the pomegranate, and among them its fruit.

72And among them is the description of pellets for driving away snakes, geckos, lizards, mice, banāt wardān and beetles. Māsī al-Sūrānī said: If you take black cumin, mustard, galbanum, stag's horn and goat's hoof and mix them by pounding until they are well mixed, then grind them fine after that, and pour over them some wine vinegar until by cooking it becomes like the consistency of oxymel; then you add pomegranate shavings, ground, and knead it well, and make pellets of it like chickpeas,

73and store them in a vessel of glass or earthenware. If you wish to drive away snakes and other troublesome, harmful vermin, fumigate the place with them until it is choked with the smoke, for all these animals will flee from that place in the utmost flight; and if the smoke is increased, the mice, the banāt wardān and the beetles flee.

79the magicians use its seed in their magic, and they say that it is good for separation between two [people], and that it works a strong work in subjugations, and reaches a great extent in separation and hatred; and it is a sister of the laurel tree in some respect.

80Then he reported of the Nabataeans that, when it is the night of Nīsān, no one of the people spends the night, neither man nor woman nor boy, without there being under his head a piece of bread, four dates, seven raisins, and a ḥarīra with salt in it; for the old woman called the Servant of Venus comes on that night and goes round all the people, feeling their insides and searching under their pillows; and whoever she finds with his belly empty, and without that piece [of bread], the dates and the raisins under his head, she straitens his livelihood that year, and calls upon Venus against him and asks her to make him ill until the coming year. So all the people of Babylon practise this and do not fall short in it; and this is a marvel.

81And among them: the melon, in which the Moon and Mars share. And the magicians claim that its seed, if some of it is sown in a human skull and covered with earth, then the skull is buried in the ground and watered constantly, there comes forth from that seed a stock bearing melons; whoever eats it increases in his intelligence, in the excellence of his thought and in his knowledge. And they, I mean the magicians, put it to all kinds of uses.

83And they use its root-fibre for some purpose together with its stock, and its leaves and stems for another purpose, and its fruit for another purpose, and its seeds which are in its interior for another purpose; and in it are marvels of curious effects. And all this is only because of the swiftness of its reception of the natures of things and the excellence of its drawing to itself, from the things it comes near, what is in their natures; so when they mingle with its natures, marvels of effects come about in it.

84And it may be sown in skulls, and on bones, and in the bellies of kinds of animals, and buried in the ground, and there comes forth from them a melon that performs wondrous, curious effects: from each animal a kind of effect, of those nearest in likeness to the nature that belongs to that animal. And when [they] mingle with the nature of man, there is between them a curious thing which the melon conveys to the bodies of people.

86And they have kinds of works with it, because it is divided into two kinds: that is, some of it is male and some of it female. The male has a penis and two thighs, and the female has what the female has.

87I had seen, in the year three hundred and twelve, by one of the accomplished ones famed in this matter, namely Abū Manṣūr al-Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr, known as al-Ḥallāj, a composition in which he set down marvels of magical matters.

89And among them: that between endive and the rooster there is a subtle affinity, and especially for the white of them [pronoun ambiguous: the white endive, or the white rooster]. So if a person takes something of the leaves of garden endive, rolls it into small rolls, and feeds them by the mouthful to a rooster for three days, each day three mouthfuls (and let the first of these days be Wednesday), then that rooster becomes strongly attached to the person who fed it those rolls, and grows familiar with him, and does not shy away from him as it shies away from the rest of people.

90And this is among the secrets concerning beasts, and it is among the works of the magicians, and this operation has an addition by which it is completed.

91And among their works: when a person takes in his hand a bunch of endive and watches for the time of the rising of the Moon on one of the nights on which it rises after sunset, and stands facing it and speaks some praises, then says: "I swear by you, O Moon, that if you calm the pain of all my teeth, I will not taste any endive at all," then his teeth and molars, their throbbing calms and they become wholly sound, if he forsakes endive and does not eat it and keeps up this operation at the head of every month.

92And among them: there grows among the vines a herb called "dog of the vines," which does not stand on a stem but spreads over the face of the ground and buries itself in the earth, so that hardly anyone can make it out. It has small leaves, smaller than the leaves of rue, about [like] the leaves of the chickpea and smaller than that. And when it grows in a desert in which there is no vegetation, it works wonders and strange magical devices.

93And Adam described it and spoke much of it and of its effects, so much that he said:

94whoever takes with him something of it, of its branches and its leaves, and kneads it in wax and leaves it in his pocket, his person is hidden from all people, so that no one sees where he enters nor where he walks.

95Then he said that the one who does that is afflicted, on the heels of that act, with tightness of chest and shortness of breath, either a day or two days or three, according to how long he left it [on him] and was hidden from people's eyes. He said: perhaps for every hour in which he was hidden from the eyes of onlookers [there is] its measure; so many people turn away from taking it, in flight from this cause.

96Then he said: if a fumigator fumigates with its leaves and branches on strong coals under the sky, people hear after an hour in the air a severe, terrifying, mighty droning as long as the smoke lasts; and when it subsides, that droning ceases and comes to nothing.

97Then he said: And if one mixes something of its branches

98…and its leaves, with pig's fat, and pounded them in the mortar until they mixed thoroughly, then made it into the shape of a walnut or smaller, and put it in his left palm and closed his right hand over it, and went to where the pigs are: then wherever he goes and comes, and wherever he passes, they race one another to him until they surround him, behind him and before him and on his right and on his left, and they never cease always turning towards him.

99"Ādam" mentioned all of this. Then he said that the clime of the Sun is to the right of the clime of India, and it is the one which "Ādam" entered, and from it he brought to Babylon marvels which he used to show the people.

100And he claimed that the Nabataeans have houses in which are the idols of the seven planets, and they have a house which they call the House of al-Na'na'a, which they venerate.

101And among them is a talisman for softening bones, horns, stones, metallic bodies and everything whose parts cohere, so that it softens and becomes like dough.

103And another method, and that is that you press out as much as you wish of the acid [juice] of citron, and the like of it of rice vinegar is added to it, and it is shaken until it mixes; and there is thrown onto it of sea-foam and sal ammoniac, for every raṭl the weight of three dirhams of them, ground; and it is shaken continually for a day; then it is left in the sun for three days; then you steep in it whatever you wish to soften, and put it in a hot sun until it softens and becomes like dough. And sulphur softens [things with] a great softening, were it not for the loathsomeness of its smell; so it does not enter into anything of the vessels in which [food] is eaten, but in other operations than that, such as stones and fusible bodies, its working in them is wondrous.

106And this would have been more fitting to mention in the section that follows it, together with the things that act by their occult properties; but we have mentioned it here because of its connection with what I found in the reports of the Nabataeans.

107And among them: the plant known as lion's herb harms the plants around it; and the occult property of its action is that a maiden comes with a white cock with a parted comb and goes round the place, and moves the cock until it beats its wings, and repeats that several times; then the herb dries up and becomes void. Do you think the herb was frightened of the cock and so dried up, or did it understand anything of this?

108And spikenard: when cats smell its scent they roll about on it and wish not to leave it, finding it pleasant; and sometimes one of them, when it smells it, cries out with continuous cries, and seeks it and follows it. What is this wonder?

109And among them: Ḍaghrīth mentioned that he perceived, in his travels through the lands of India and elsewhere, that one land of the earth grows something that does not grow in another, and likewise in all the rest of them: such as the growth of balsam in the land of Egypt, ebony in the lands of the Sūdān, Zanjī wood in the lands of the Zanj, the banana and the ṣabbārī [word uncertain] in the lands of the Maghrib and others of those that are on its line in the East, and the frankincense tree in al-Shiḥr of Oman, and whenever it grows elsewhere it does not turn out [as] in its own place; and other such things, by which one land is distinguished to the exclusion of another.

110And that is not due to the particularity of some land, but through the concurrence of some nature with some air and watering by a particular water; and by the combination of these with the natural disposition of the land and the particularity of the country in which it grows, the generation of that is completed. And the first cause of that comes from the line passing over the horizon of that land, namely the standing of certain stars at the zenith of certain countries; so there arise in them things, of plants and other, that do not exist elsewhere.

111And he mentioned that Adam mentioned that the cause of that is the standing of certain stars at the zenith of certain particular spots of the earth, so that there grows in them what does not grow elsewhere. And he began the depiction of these from the West to the East, and said: In the lands of al-Andalus, on an island of them, which is Cádiz, in the Green Sea belonging to it, which no ship has ever travelled and on which no one of mankind has ever sailed, [there is]

113And Sijilmāsa, of the lands neighbouring al-Andalus: in it there is a tree that rises to half the stature of a man, or a little more; its leaves are like the leaves of the bay. When a man makes a crown from it and wears it on his head, and sits or walks or does his works, he does not sleep so long as that crown remains on his head, and there does not befall him, from the pain of that wakefulness and its weakening of the strength, what befalls all others who stay awake.

114And in the land of the Franks there is a tree: if a man sits beneath it for half an hour of the day, he dies; and if someone touches it, or cuts a branch or a leaf from it, or shakes it, he dies.

115And in the land of the Slavs there is a small plant, like some of the herbs, whose leaves resemble the leaves of rue. When its root, just as it is with its leaves and its branches, after it has been washed of its dust and its mud, is thrown into cold water and stays there for an hour of the day, the water becomes hot like fire; and if the root is taken out of it and it remains a little while, it grows cold. And it is a wonder.

116And in the land of Rome there is a slender tree that grows on the shore of the sea; its leaves are like chickpeas, small, and its height is two cubits.

118And in the land of India there is a plant that fire does not burn; and in it there is a tree from whose branches something is cut and thrown on the ground, and it moves, and sometimes it runs as snakes run, and sometimes it creeps as creeping things creep.

119And in some of them, in what lies toward where the north wind blows, there is a tree from which is heard, in the season of spring and summer, the murmuring of a man; and he named it the Tree of the Sun, and mentioned that its root is in the form of a man, and all the roots of this tree are in the form of a male man; there is no female form among them at all.

120And in the land of al-Bākiyān there is a tree that shines by night as the lamp shines; and when one travels near it by night, he has no need of a lamp because of the abundance of its light. It is called the Tree of the Moon.

121And these wonders "Adam" mentioned only because God revealed them to him; and for that reason he composed on the occult properties of plants a book containing a thousand leaves, in which are wonders of the secrets of plants. And among the sum of what he mentioned in it is a tree which he named the Tree of the Hidden: it does not appear by day to the eye of anyone, and it appears by night until two hours of it remain, and it hides from the one who looks and the one who touches. Its places of growth are the open lands and the wastes, and it has charming wonders.

122And among them: that the costus tree, that of it which grows in India being the sweetest in scent, is among the incenses of the idols and their temples; and the Chaldaeans say that it is the best thing offered by burning before the idol of Venus, and it is used in the sacrifices in which the fulfilment of needs is sought, whichever they may be. And "Ḍaghrīth" named it the one that brings success, and praised it with a long praise.

123And a group of them used to mix with its wood lichen, and storax, moist and dry, and rose leaves, and myrtle smeared with saffron threads and they fumigate with it their garments and their idols at many festivals of theirs, finding it pleasant. And Ḍaghrīth said that smelling its incense wards off the harm of the corruption of the air from which plague comes, if frankincense is mixed with it. Then he mentioned ḥamāmā and said: the people of Babylon named it 'the incense of the Kurds'.

124And among them: he mentioned the tree rabākashānā, which he named the tree of Jupiter. This is a short, full tree, thick of trunk, rising from the ground to the height of a man. The Persians call it dār shīsh'ān and the Greeks isbālāthūn. It has small leaves like the leaves of the myrtle; it grows in Babylon; it has many thorns, and its wood is heavy, and when its bark is peeled its inside comes out red, intensely red. It is aromatic, of pleasant smell; it enters into perfume, and the perfumers astringe oils with it.

125And the Kasdānians have stories about it. Among them: that one of their kings in ancient times was angry with a wife of his who had committed a great sin, and he loved her. So he summoned one of his trusted brethren and handed her over to him, that he should kill her, and not slaughter her with a knife nor strike off her head with a sword. So that man went with her to his house and hid her in a secret hiding place. And he sought a woman of her bearing and form, and found a woman like her who had died; so he guaranteed to her family that he would return her to them, and carried her to the king

126and informed him that he had stopped the breath of that wretched woman until she died, 'and here she is with me'. So the king ordered her to be brought, and looked at her from afar, and did not examine her well; rather he saw a dead woman resembling her, and did not doubt that it was she, and ordered him to bury her. So the man returned that woman to her family and gave them a thousand dirhams.

127Then the days passed, and the king regretted killing her with the most intense regret, and was distraught with the remembrance of her, and his sleep was withheld and his wakefulness continued. So he took refuge in the temple of Jupiter, calling upon its idol and humbling himself before it, and offering its offering, while the singers played before it lutes, ṭunbūrs and drums, drawing near thereby to the idol and seeking intercession through it with Jupiter.

128Then one night he saw in his sleep the idol of Jupiter, as though it were saying to him: 'Go to the tree rabākashānā, and fumigate yourself with something of its wood, and fumigate with it what is near you of your sitting-place and your house; and take a stick from its sticks and wrap around it as much of its leaves as you can, and put it under your pillows, and sleep, and see what you see in your sleep.'

129So the king did all that he was told, and he saw in his sleep as though the rabākashānā tree that was in his house — that is, in one of its courtyards there was a garden in which was a tree of the rabākashānā trees — so he saw as though that tree was addressing him and saying to him: 'So-and-so, your wife, is alive in the world; so summon so-and-so and adjure him …to bring her to you, for he did not accept [the command] from you and did not kill her." So the king awoke glad and joyful, and called for that man, and he came to him in shrouds and embalming spices. The king said to him: "Woe to you! You have had a share in your own affair by leaving off informing me that you had not killed so-and-so." He said to him: "O king, I did not spare her except because of my knowledge of your inclination towards her, and I did that seeking favour with you. And if I have erred, and the king has called for me and his speech to me was a testing and a trial, then I have come to the king in a shroud and embalming spices; so let him command concerning me what he wishes.

130And if the king is pleased with my sparing her and my going against his command, then I have answered the king according to his wish, seeking favour with him." The king said to him: "You have gained favour with me, and I am thankful for your sparing her, because of the grief that befell me at parting from her and the sorrow at losing her. So bring her this very hour." He went and brought her, and the king prostrated himself in joy and thanks, and ordered for the man a weighty reward.

131The man said: "O king, I will not depart until the king ascertains that I am not fit for women." The king said to him: "You are higher in standing with us [than that]." He said: "I will not depart until the king tests me in what I have said, or kills me if he wishes." So he commanded the physicians and the jurists to test him, and they said to the king: "He is impotent, without doubt." So he doubled the reward for him and ordered him to depart.

132And he did not cease to prostrate himself to the rabākashānā tree all the days of his life; he did that during the period of his reign, and the period of his reign was seventy-five years. This story spread at that time among the Kasdānians, and they named this tree the tree of passionate love, and composed poems about it, and were eager to acquire it, so that it became plentiful in this clime until the time of King Kāthūr. For he forbade acquiring it and what they did with it, and named it "the king's detested one"; so people turned away from mentioning it and from being devoted to it. And this was policy on his part, that they should not worship it, since they had gone to excess in praising it.

133And among them: that of the myrrh tree, fumigation with its wood wards off pestilence when the air is corrupted, and the temples are fumigated with it. And they make a compound of its wood and its resin, and add to it frankincense, lichen and storax, and call it saqūqūmsā, and its meaning in Arabic is "the delight of the idols". The Canaanites say that this fumigant pleases Venus, and they draw near to her by burning it. Whoever of them wishes to recite the adjurations of Venus before her scroll in front of her idol first offers the fumigation of this fumigant, and plays the pipe and beats the drum, or strikes the lute, for an hour; then he adjures Venus concerning what he wishes to ask of her, and she answers his prayer and does what he wishes.

134And that is when she is left free and her action, no hindrance from the planets hindering her from it, and she is not in an aspect from Mercury nor in conjunction with him; for he is more hindering to her when he is in conjunction with her than by aspecting her. Ḍaghrīth said: And if something of saffron threads and costus is added to this fumigant, it is more complete and more successful in fulfilling the need. The Canaanites did not add that to it, nor do they use it to this time of ours; except that the Canaanites' veneration of Jupiter is greater, their prayer to him more constant, and their preferring him over the other planets is, in what they hold, more correct. And this disagreement between us and them is not counted a contradiction nor a divergence; rather all of it is correct, experience having revealed its correctness, and what the Canaanites and the Kasdānians do is correct.

135And among them: Ḍaghrīth said that in the knowledge of plants, and of which of the planets each belongs to, there are subtle occult properties and hidden secrets by which one attains to great and mighty matters; and the ancients were sparing with them and concealed them, and did not reveal them to the common people, keeping them concealed. For the precious sciences the ancients all scattered, not out of sparingness nor avarice with them toward people, but so that the knowledge should not pass to those not worthy of it, and so that the reflecting mind, abundant in intellect, should take it.

136Abū Bakr the translator said that Ḍaghrīth composed a book in which he mentioned the plants in succession, one by one: what belongs to Saturn, then to Jupiter, then to Mars, according to the order of the seven planets.

137And among them: that the soul is gladdened by subtle markings, and likewise by beautiful colours. And markings may be on vessels, with lines and windings; and likewise colours, such as the colours of plants and the colours of animals of differing colours, and the markings of the beasts of the lands and the beasts of the water, and of birds, and other than that. For among them is what is marked with a strange, wondrous marking that delights the soul and gladdens it.

138And what resembles it is the subtle colours that arise from gems facing the rays of the Sun, the Moon and the stars; and most of them come about through the devices of magic, and by them they are shown wonders whose causes are hidden and whose effects are manifest to the senses, exceedingly subtle; so they are for the soul an occupation and a gladdening.

139Except that the most gladdening of them to the soul are the colours of plants, such as the narcissus, whose flower is yellow set upon white petals, standing on a green stem; and of the animals the best of them and the most gladdening is the human being of handsome face, beautiful; for he is delightful and gladdening, like the gillyflower, the prince of plants, which is of seven colours, each colour wondrous and subtle.

140And among plants is what is marked, like the asparagus, in which there is whiteness, redness, yellowness and turquoise. And among the great trees there is delight, such as the bitter orange, of which a single tree bears of its fruit what is partly green, partly yellow, and partly sweet and some of it sour, and the flower on it is white. And there may appear in plants, together with these colours, marvels of images like the images of people, elegant, such as the tree which Adam mentioned that he saw in the land of India and brought images from it to the clime of Babylon to show them to the sons of his kind; and such as a tree in other than the land of India which bears a fruit like the rose in the images of people, and on the leaves of some of them there are images depicted like the images of people. And this is among the things at which the beholder marvels and which he finds elegant, and beneath that are natural wonders.

141So this is what I saw fit to relate to you and to excerpt from the book of this man, Ibn Waḥshiyya, taken from the Nabataeans, composed on plants specifically, which [the plant] is one of the pillars of the world; because the world in its entirety, I mean the world of generation and corruption, is three generated kingdoms: animal, plant and mineral. And the plant is intermediate between them, since the plant shares with the animal in growth and nourishment, and shares with the mineral in stoniness, scantness of sensation and lack of touch.

142And the plant is employed in benefits more than the rest of its siblings, I mean in the well-being of the body. And it is divided in medical treatment into divisions: what is used for treatment from it is seeds, roots, woods, leaves, bark and hair; and what is used for treatment from the minerals is salts, alums, stones and bodies such as mercury and the rest of its siblings, gold and silver; and from the animal, all its members, such as its flesh, its fat and its feathers. And the plant is nearer to animality than to minerality.

143Then among plants there is that of which some excel others, either by scent or by an occult property of benefit in it, as among the minerals, like the ruby over the rest of the stones and gold over the rest of the bodies. And the most excellent thing in the world is the rational animal, who disposes of all that we have mentioned as he wills and distinguishes them with true distinction.

144And this whole world in its entirety is under the disposal of the elements, and the elements are under nature, and nature is under the soul, and the soul is under the intellect, and the intellect is from the Creator, exalted be His name, since He is the one who pours forth generosity upon it and upon all. And 'from' here is in the sense of the agent, not in the sense of matter, like the ewer which is from copper, that is, that it [the copper] is matter for it; nor in the sense that He is a cause of it, but in the sense that He is an agent. So understand.

145And it is incumbent on you, O you who become acquainted with what we have deposited in this our book, to pray for us; for we have excerpted for you in it the choicest of what the people mentioned in their books, not out of stinginess on our part nor out of niggardliness with it, as those who preceded did. And for that reason we saw fit that it should not be devoid of the secrets of the Nabataeans which this man, Ibn Waḥshiyya, translated from them; and also because of the greatness of the book and its nobility in existence. So I have mentioned to you its obscure parts and spared you study and the use of reflection upon it. And may God bring you to the things you love.