King Ur-Nammo offers libations

to the Tree of Life to the Moon Goddess Ningal

from Leonard Woolley ‘s ‘Excavations at Ur’ published in 1954.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, an extract from Sylvain Marechal’s ‘The Journey’s of Pythagoras’, Volume III, Paris Deterville, 1799. Page 33 to 37. English translation from the French by Via-HYGEIA. It is a nice follow up of our preceding post about ‘Making Moon in ourselves‘ with this ‘Chaldean Hymn to the Moon‘ displaying a wealth of details and descriptions about the Goddess’ given epithets, attributes and functions. Even though it takes some liberties with the ‘proper Chaldean pantheon’, it does still develop an overview of a ‘romantically reconstructed‘ hierophanic system of devotion, as taken by antiquarian Marechal from the best ancient sources available at the eve of the Napoleonic era-as shown in the French originals below. It may guide us by example in our own daily labors, experiences and encounters with the Divine Realms.

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I

Peaceful Mediator between the Fixed Stars and Humanity, Sister of the Sun, Great and Benevolent Planet! Good Nebo! You are the One who makes the nights Beautiful: May you continue to pour your Soft Light upon our flock and their shepherds. You are the Celestial She-Wolf that breaks up and disband the Herd of the Stars.

II

O, Thee, the other Eye of Nature! We pledge to never defile the Earth whitened by your Silver Rays with human blood.

III

Beloved Bride of the Sun, who sometimes uses Thee as a Veil; from your union with the King of the Heavens Light is born: it gushes from your Bosom, frail first, but then through the sustaining action of its father, it receives new growths, until finally your Disk-fully completed-rounds off, alike its First Maker.

IV

Mother of Life! O Moon! Are you not this Aerial and Celestial Earth that stand the media regione between the dark exile of Humanity and the shining dwelling of the immortal Stars? You are the great Isis of the Egyptians, and consorting with Osiris, you battle Typhon, the sinister genie of the shadows.

V

O Moon! The inhabitants of Armenia, our first ancestors, consecrated to Thee a mountain and a cult; they glory themselves to carry Your Name. The wise men of the Ganges river devoted a whole college placed under your protection.

VI

You are the Star of Life; why wouldn’t you also be Luminous All By Yourself? O Moon, the Phoenicians called you the Celestial Venus.

VII

O Moon! You are the Queen of the Stars and the Mother of Astronomy. It is by your regular and frequent phases that our first ancestors initiated the study of the skies, and divided it in as many parts as you have encounters with the Sun during its annual Journey.

VIII

We delight in admitting this: all the Goods we enjoy are Happy Fruits of your Shining Mariage with the Celestial Bull, signed at your forehead with your Silver Crescent. In turns, Virgin, Wife & Widow, may you be propitious to us in all these three Emanations!

IX

Providence of the Nights! Wise Law-Giver to Women! O Thee, Benevolent Adviser! Queen of Silence! May our companions be always Modest and Silent like Thee! May they model themselves always upon the shining stars of the constellation of the Hen and its Chicks, regularly witnessing the procession of the Queen of the Nights!

X

You are the Supreme Moderator of the months, alike the Sun is the Moderator of the year. The snake renew itself during the year: this is the incomplete image of your twelve yearly Revolutions! During the day, the Sun is the Ruler of the Sky: O Moon! By night, You are its Ruler.

XI

Queen of the West, may you spread upon us your Benevolent Influences. You are not the biggest of the Planets; but you reflect upon us more light than any of them, and your Nocturnal Emanations softens the ardors of the Day Star. O Thee, the Ancient among all of the divinities! Mother of the Four Daughters! Ruler of the Heavens! We did not build you temples; where are the altars worthier of your Light than the hills of Sinan? And in which region do you receive a cult more pure than in ours?

XII

Eye of the Night! Mother Nurse of the World! Nature’s Providence & Funnel! May you grant good people as many centuries than the lunar year bestows of days!

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Original French

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Volume III, full text here

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