Cyranides
Encyclopedia
The Cyranides is a compilation of Hermetic
magico-medical works in Greek
first put together in the 4th century. A Latin
translation also exists. It has been described as a "farrago" and a texte vivant, owing to the complexities of its transmission: it has been abridged, rearranged, and supplemented. The resulting compilation covers the magical properties and practical uses of gemstones, plants, and animals, and is a virtual encyclopedia of amulet
s; it also contains material pertinent to the history of western alchemy
, and to New Testament
studies, particularly in illuminating meanings of words and magico-religious practices. As a medical text, the Cyranides was held in relatively low esteem even in antiquity
and the Middle Ages
because of its use of vernacular
language and reliance on lore
rather than Hippocratic or Galen
ic medical theory.
In the Pseudodoxia Epidemica
, Thomas Browne
described the Cyranides as "a collection out of Harpocration
the Greek and sundry Arabick writers delivering not only the Naturall but Magicall propriety of things." Although the Cyranides was considered "dangerous and disreputable" in the Middle Ages, it was translated into Latin by Pascalis Romanus
, a clergyman with medical expertise who was the Latin interpreter for Emperor Manuel I Komnenos
. The 14th-century cleric Demetrios Chloros
was put on trial because he transcribed magical texts, including what was referred to as the Coeranis.
added a fourth. The original first book of the Cyranides, the Κυρανίς (Kuranis), was the second component of a two-part work, the first part of which was the Ἀρχαϊκἠ (Archaikê). Books 2–4 are a bestiary
. The edition of Kaimakis (see below) contains a fifth and sixth book which were not transmitted under the name Cyranides but which were included with the work in a limited number of manuscripts. A medieval Arabic
translation of the first book exists, and portions of it are "reflected" in the Old French
work Le livre des secrez de nature (The Book of Nature's Secrets).
The Cyranides begins by instructing the reader to keep its contents secret, and with a fictional narrative of how the work was discovered. In one 15th-century manuscript, the author of the work is said to be Kyranos (Κοίρανος), king of Persia.
is used to cure dropsy
. Fish gall
is recommended for healing white spots in the eye; fish liver is supposed to cure blindness. For a "large and pleasurable" erection, a mixture of arugula
, spices, and honey is recommended, as is carrying the tail of a lizard or the right molar
of a skink
. The fumigation or wearing of bear hair turns away evil spirits and fever.
Daniel Ogden, a specialist in magic and the supernatural in antiquity, has gathered several references from the Cyranides on the use of gemstones and amulets. The collection offers spells to avert the child-harming demon Gello
, who was blamed for miscarriage
s and infant mortality
, and says that aetite
can be worn as an amulet against miscarriage.
provides a summary of a passage from the work, not part of the abridged version now extant, that has cosmological
as well as alchemical implications:
In the extant version, the Cyranides contains a description of the heliodromus, a phoenix
-like bird from India
which, upon hatching, flies to the rising sun and then goes west when the sun passes the zenith
. It lives only a year, and leaves behind a single androgynous
progeny.
Hermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
magico-medical works in Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
first put together in the 4th century. A Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
translation also exists. It has been described as a "farrago" and a texte vivant, owing to the complexities of its transmission: it has been abridged, rearranged, and supplemented. The resulting compilation covers the magical properties and practical uses of gemstones, plants, and animals, and is a virtual encyclopedia of amulet
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
s; it also contains material pertinent to the history of western alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, and to New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
studies, particularly in illuminating meanings of words and magico-religious practices. As a medical text, the Cyranides was held in relatively low esteem even in antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
because of its use of vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
language and reliance on lore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
rather than Hippocratic or Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
ic medical theory.
In the Pseudodoxia Epidemica
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquries into very many received tenets and commonly presumed truths, also known simply as Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors, is a work by Thomas Browne refuting the common errors and superstitions of his age. It first appeared in 1646 and went through five subsequent...
, Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
described the Cyranides as "a collection out of Harpocration
Harpocration
Valerius Harpocration was a Greek grammarian of Alexandria, probably working in the 2nd century CE. He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus as the Greek tutor of Lucius Verus ; some authorities place him much later, on the ground that he borrowed from Athenaeus...
the Greek and sundry Arabick writers delivering not only the Naturall but Magicall propriety of things." Although the Cyranides was considered "dangerous and disreputable" in the Middle Ages, it was translated into Latin by Pascalis Romanus
Pascalis Romanus
Pascalis Romanus was a 12th-century priest, medical expert, and dream theorist, noted especially for his Latin translations of Greek texts on theology, oneirocritics, and related subjects...
, a clergyman with medical expertise who was the Latin interpreter for Emperor Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean....
. The 14th-century cleric Demetrios Chloros
Demetrios Chloros
Demetrios Chloros was a 14th-century physician, astrologer, and priest who was tried for possessing magic books.Chloros was a protonotarios, or secretary of the patriarch, and former kanstresios, supervisor of offerings...
was put on trial because he transcribed magical texts, including what was referred to as the Coeranis.
Form and structure
The original 4th-century Cyranides comprised three books, to which a redactorRedaction
Redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined and subjected to minor alteration to make them into a single work. Often this is a method of collecting a series of writings on a similar theme and creating a definitive and coherent work...
added a fourth. The original first book of the Cyranides, the Κυρανίς (Kuranis), was the second component of a two-part work, the first part of which was the Ἀρχαϊκἠ (Archaikê). Books 2–4 are a bestiary
Bestiary
A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts. Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson...
. The edition of Kaimakis (see below) contains a fifth and sixth book which were not transmitted under the name Cyranides but which were included with the work in a limited number of manuscripts. A medieval Arabic
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
translation of the first book exists, and portions of it are "reflected" in the Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
work Le livre des secrez de nature (The Book of Nature's Secrets).
The Cyranides begins by instructing the reader to keep its contents secret, and with a fictional narrative of how the work was discovered. In one 15th-century manuscript, the author of the work is said to be Kyranos (Κοίρανος), king of Persia.
Sample remedies and spells
The Cyranides devotes a chapter to the healing powers of the water snake; its bezoarBezoar
A bezoar is a mass found trapped in the gastrointestinal system , though it can occur in other locations. A pseudobezoar is an indigestible object introduced intentionally into the digestive system....
is used to cure dropsy
Edema
Edema or oedema ; both words from the Greek , oídēma "swelling"), formerly known as dropsy or hydropsy, is an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin or in one or more cavities of the body that produces swelling...
. Fish gall
Gall
Galls or cecidia are outgrowths on the surface of lifeforms caused by invasion by other lifeforms, such as parasites or bacterial infection. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues and can be caused by various parasites, from fungi and bacteria, to insects and mites...
is recommended for healing white spots in the eye; fish liver is supposed to cure blindness. For a "large and pleasurable" erection, a mixture of arugula
Arugula
Eruca sativa , is an edible annual plant, commonly known as rocket, roquette, rucola or arugula, not to be confused with Wild rocket. It is a species of Eruca native to the Mediterranean region, from Morocco and Portugal east to Lebanon and Turkey...
, spices, and honey is recommended, as is carrying the tail of a lizard or the right molar
Molar (tooth)
Molars are the rearmost and most complicated kind of tooth in most mammals. In many mammals they grind food; hence the Latin name mola, "millstone"....
of a skink
Skink
Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae. Together with several other lizard families, including Lacertidae , they comprise the superfamily or infraorder Scincomorpha...
. The fumigation or wearing of bear hair turns away evil spirits and fever.
Daniel Ogden, a specialist in magic and the supernatural in antiquity, has gathered several references from the Cyranides on the use of gemstones and amulets. The collection offers spells to avert the child-harming demon Gello
Gello
In the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Gello is one of the many names for a female demon or revenant who threatens the reproductive cycle by causing infertility, spontaneous abortion, and infant mortality.By the Byzantine era, the gello had become a type of demonic possession...
, who was blamed for miscarriage
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
s and infant mortality
Infant mortality
Infant mortality is defined as the number of infant deaths per 1000 live births. Traditionally, the most common cause worldwide was dehydration from diarrhea. However, the spreading information about Oral Re-hydration Solution to mothers around the world has decreased the rate of children dying...
, and says that aetite
Aetites
In the magico-medical tradition of Europe and the Near East, the aetites or aetite is a stone used to promote childbirth. It is also called an eagle-stone, aquiline, or aquilaeus...
can be worn as an amulet against miscarriage.
Magico-religious tradition
OlympidorusOlympiodorus the Younger
Olympiodorus the Younger was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astrologer and teacher who lived in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, after Justinian's Decree of 529 A.D. which closed Plato's Academy in Athens and other pagan schools...
provides a summary of a passage from the work, not part of the abridged version now extant, that has cosmological
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
as well as alchemical implications:
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
-like bird from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
which, upon hatching, flies to the rising sun and then goes west when the sun passes the zenith
Zenith
The zenith is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the imaginary celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction opposite to the apparent gravitational force at that location. The opposite direction, i.e...
. It lives only a year, and leaves behind a single androgynous
Androgyny
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- and γυνή , referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics...
progeny.
Editions and translations
- Kaimikis, D. Die Kyraniden. Meisenheim am Glan, 1976. The Greek text.
- Delatte, Louis. Textes latins et vieux francais relatifs aux Cyranides. Paris: Droz, 1942. The Latin translation.
- Waegeman, Maryse. Amulet and Alphabet: Magical Amulets in the First Book of Cyranides. Amsterdam, 1987. Text of Book 1 in Greek, with English translation and commentary.
Selected bibliography
- Bain, David. "Μελανῖτις γῆ in the Cyranides and Related Texts: New Evidence for the Origins and Etymology of Alchemy." In Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of AaronAaron's rodAaron's rod refers to any of the staves carried by Moses' brother, Aaron, in the Old Testament of the Bible. The Bible tells how, along with Moses' rod, Aaron's rod was endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt which preceded the Exodus...
to the Ring of SolomonSolomon's SealSolomon's Seal may refer to:*Seal of Solomon, a legendary object*Solomon's Seal , by Pentangle*Star of David, a hexagram symbol of Judaism*Polygonatum, a genus of flowering plants...
. T&T Clark International, 2003, pp. 191–218. Limited preview online. - Bain, David. "περιγίνεσθαι as a Medical Term and a Conjecture in the Cyranides." In Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, pp. 281–286. Limited preview online.
- Faraone, Christopher A. Ancient Greek Love Magic. Harvard University Press, 2001. Limited preview online.
- Mavroudi, Maria. "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research." University of California, Berkeley. Full text downloadable. Also published in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (La Pomme d'or, 2006), limited preview online.