The Basis of Faith in Art

To supplement last week's dispatch, I thought I'd slap an excerpt from William Carlos Williams' "The Basis of Faith in Art" up on here. But since I can't find an etext and the thing is hard to chop up (like much of Williams' poetry, it doesn't trace out an easy A to Z argument and lends itself poorly to blurbs), I went ahead and transcribed the whole damn thing out of his Selected Essays. Hopefully there aren't too many typos.

Thought to have been written around 1937, the piece depicts an impassioned dialogue between the poet and his architect brother about art -- what it is, what it does, who it's for. It can be hard to follow, but I can promise an interesting and fun (if not rewarding) read if you can spare the time and patience.

The Basis of Faith in Art

William Carlos Williams

My brother, who is an architect, told me recently that his mind had been aflame over the problems of construction today more than ever before. Upon what she we base our judgments? he said to me almost in despair. You are a writer, he said, I'd like to know how you work. What do you find to be of importance? We must both be looking for more or less the same things. Tell me how you go about it.

I just sit down and write.

It must be more conscious than that. You must have some basis for acceptance of a word, a phrase——a general character of composition. I, for instance, after a lifetime of practice, feel that I'm just beginning to sense a few of the underlying movements, call them rules, governing my profession and that this talk of "old" and "modern" has very little to do with the matter.

That's a large piece of woods, though, to get lost in.

The basis is honesty in construction, that you can do certain things with the material and other things you cannot do. Therein lie all the answers.

Yes, if you get it down to a bare hunk of rock, a few tree-length timbers, a bucket of rubble and cement and a bundle of glass. But what are you going to do with them? Isn't that more to the point?

Build a house. A few years ago we began to get the first models and then gradually the local examples of the modernistic dwellings as originated in France and Germany, the so-called "functional" dwelling. This, we were told, is the future. Everything else is old hat. At last architecture has been freed from its trammels. This is the new.

It was intended to be a house though, wasn't it?

Yes, a house; rooms, doors, windows....

Electricity, modern plumbing, refrigeration, autos, twin beds....just to emphasize the modern phase.

And very good houses they are too, some of them——by Le Corbusier and the rest. But I always wondered about certain of their structural features, their narrow moldings, etc. Look at them today. They are falling apart. Look. I've been designing a display window for a large manufacturer down South. I've been almost crazy with it. I tried the engineers, the glass makers, everybody, on the proper thickness of the pane, the maximum area and safety factors, the proper anchoring of it. They all say it can't be done. But I've got to do it. Then one day last week, right in the middle of my troubles, I walked out of the office and hadn't gone three blocks when I ran plump into such a window as I had been working on, installed, right in front of me. I couldn't believe my eyes so I went up and put my thumb against the glass and pressed! The whole thing shook as if an earthquake had struck it and almost exploded in my face on the rebound. Such a thing can't stand. It wobbled back and forth even under that slight pressure. That's not architecture.

So we talked along.

On the other hand, he said, look at the new So-and-So building they want to put up in Washington. As if we hadn't enough stone columns there already, X's idea is to take such and such a perfect example of the Greek——he doesn't even bother to design anything——and tell them to large-scale it in everywhere. I can't do anything better than that, he says, why even try?

The spirit of Phidias, eh?——without Phidias.

Tell me, continued my brother earnestly, what about writing? I'm tremendously interested.

You know how I started to write, I said. I didn't know what I was doing but I knew what I wanted to do.

What, for instance?

I wanted to protest against the blackguardy and beauty of the world, my world.

So you took to poetry.

The only way I could find was poetry——and prose to a lesser extent. So I gradually began to learn, very slowly. If I remember rightly it was more a matter of how I could cling to what I had and not relinquish it in the face of tradition than anything else.

NPM: Song of Napalm

We have some unfinished National Poetry Month business. I intended two more updates, but it looks like we're going to leave off on the first of the two. My apologies for slacking, and I have two words in my defense: nicotine withdrawal. It's worse than I imagined it could be, and it's somewhat disrupted my other habits.

Anyway, closing out this year's National Poetry Month, we have a couple of pieces from Bruce Wiegl's (1949 - ) Song of Napalm collection. Once again, here is a poet about whom I know next to nothing -- only that he is a Vietnam War veteran and that he's got quite a lot to say about his experience.

Experience. Jay Parini called poetry "a language that is adequate to our experience." The stereotypical experiences of the poet are usually moments of love, heartache, or the perception of the beautiful or the sublime. It is just as effective as creating a language that comes close to conveying ye liveliest Awfulness, to borrow a phrase from HP Lovecraft. (Sublime moments of beauty and wrenching existential panic attacks, I think, are two variations of the same essential experience, and the line between them sometimes appears very tenuous indeed.)


Breakdown

With sleep that is barely under the surface
it begins, a twisting sleep as if a wire
were inside you and tried at night
to straighten your body.
Or it's like a twitch
through your nerves as you sleep
so you tear the sheet from the bed
to try to stop the pounding spine.
A lousy, worthless
sleep of strangers with guns,
children trapped in the alley,
the teenage soldiers glancing back
over their soldiers*
the moment before
they squeeze the trigger.

I am going to stay here as long as I can.
I am going to sit in the garden as if nothing has
  happened
and let the bruised azaleas have their way.

* I really wanted to transcribe it as "shoulders," but the book says "soldiers." Hm.


Surrounding Blues on the Way Down

I was barely in country.

We slipped under the rain-black clouds

opening around us like orchids.

He'd come to take me into the jungle

so I felt the loneliness

though I did not yet hate the beautiful war.

Eighteen years old and a man

was telling me how to stay alive

in the tropics he said would rot me——

brothers of the heart he said and smiled

until we came upon a mama san

bent over from her stuffed sack of flowers.

We flew past her but he hit the brakes hard,

he spun the tires backwards in the mud.

He did not hate the war either

but other reasons made him cry out to her

so she stopped,

she smiled her beetle-black teeth at us,

in the air she raised her arms.

I have no excuse for myself.

I sat in that man's jeep in the rain

and watched him slam her to her knees,

the plastic butt of his M16

crashing down on her.

I was barely in country, the clouds

hung like huge flowers, black

like her teeth.

Snowy Egret

My neighbor's boy has lifted his father's shotgun
  and stolen
down to the backwaters of the Elizabeth
and in the moon he's blasted a snowy egret
from the shallows it stalked for small fish.

Midnight. My wife wakes me. He's in the backyard
with a shovel so I go down half drunk with pills
that let me sleep to see what I can see and if it's
  safe.
They boy doesn't hear me come across the dewy
  grass.
He says through tears he has to bury it,
he says his father will kill him
and he digs until the hole is deep enough and
  gathers
the egret carefully into his arms
as if not to harm the blood-splattered wings
gleaming in the flashlight beam.

His man's muscled shoulders
shake with the weight of what he can't set right no
  matter what,
but one last time he tries to stay a child, sobbing
please don't tell. . . .
He says he only meant to flush it from the shadows,
he only meant to watch it fly
but the shot spread too far
ripping into the white wings
spanned awkwardly for a moment
until it glided into brackish death.

I want to grab his shoulders,
Shake the lies loose from his lips but he hurts
  enough,
he burns with shame for what he's done,
with fear for his father's
fists I've seen crash down on him for so much less.
I don't know what to do but hold him.
If I let go he'll fly to pieces before me.
What a time we share, that can make a good boy
  steal away,
wiping out from the blue face of the pond
what he hadn't even known he loved, blasting
such beauty into nothing.


The Last Lie

Some guy in the miserable convoy
raised up in the back of our open truck
and threw a can of C rations at a child
who called into the rumble for food.
He didn't toss the can, he wound it up and hung it
on the child's forehead and she was stunned
backwards into the dust of our tracks.

Across the sudden angle of the road's curving
I could see her when she rose,
waving one hand across her swollen, bleeding head,
wildly swinging her other hand
at the children who mobbed her,
who tried to take her food.

I grit my teeth to myself to remember that girl
smiling as she fought off her brothers and sisters.
She laughed
as if she thought it were a joke
and the guy with me laughed
and fingered the edge of another can
like it was the seam of a baseball
until his rage ripped
again into the faces of children
who called to us for food.


The Soldier's Brief Epistle

You think you're better than me,

cleaner or more good

because I did what you may have only

imagined as you leaned over the crib

or watched your woman sleep.

You think you're far away from me

but you're right here in my pants

and I can grab your throat

like a cock and squeeze.

And you want to know what it's like

before I go. It's like

a bad habit, pulling the trigger,

like a dream come true.

And he did not hide well enough

I would tell his family

in a language they would not understand,

but he did not cry out,

and he was very difficult to kill.

And I guess we're done!

Apologies to Jeff for not closing out with Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein, like he suggested:

I decided while celebrating NPM with my class that you should write about children's poetry in your blog. I have a whole list of reasons why, but mainly because it's clever and holds up better than prose when you go back to read it as an adult. Seuss and Silverstein are a great place to start and my personal favorites. Let me know if you want to do this, or want me to give you the in-depth version of why this is a good idea.

I haven't even begun to think about posting poetry throughout next April -- I have no freaking idea where I'll even be next April -- but whatever happens, I plan on kicking off the festivities with some Silverstein.


One last thing.


If I go down to floor below me and stand more or less under my room, the scene looks like:

I live directly above a library. It's a luxury I'll be very reluctant to give up.

Most of the stuff posted here during the month came off that shelf against the wall. It's unlikely I would have discovered these collections and authors otherwise.


......


I was planning on giving a pedantic little speech about why libraries and stores selling a wide spectrum of printed books are such a valuable resource and how they perform a service that their digital counterparts cannot yet adequately match, but instead I think I'm going to pace around, drink a lot of water, and try not to think about cigarettes.


'Til next time!

NPM: Lorca's Lament

Today we'll be looking a piece by Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936), another poet I've never really explored until recently. I knew his name from one of my favorite Allen Ginsberg pieces, where he makes a cameo appearance with Walt Whitman. After reading through an old Lorca collection I found in the library downstairs (wow -- now that I notice, this copy's from the first printing), the connection seems so obvious. If we were dealing with a fossil record, Lorca would appear as the missing link between Whitman and Ginsberg. I used to believe Ginsberg was the 20th century reincarnation of Whitman, but now it seems more likely that he's actually an American incarnation of Lorca. (Compare: Lorca's "Ode to Walt Whitman" and "The King of Harlem" (link is to an incomplete transcription) with "Supermarket in California," and, really, pretty much everything else collected in Howl and Other Poems.)

The poem we'll be reading (or skimming, or skipping, or whichever gives you the most pleasure) was written to commemorate his friend Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (1891 - 1934), a poet, actor, and bullfighter who sustained a fatal goring by a bull named Granadino. It's a long one, but it's rather lovely -- and like yesterday, we see a lyrical refrain being put to good use.


Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias
(Translated from the Spanish by Stephen Spender and J.L. Gili)

   1. Cogida and Death

At five in the afternoon.

It was exactly five in the afternoon.

A boy brought the white sheet

at five in the afternoon.

A frail of lime ready prepared

at five in the afternoon.

The rest was death, and death alone.

The wind carried away the cottonwool

at five in the afternoon.

And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel

at five in the afternoon.

Now the dove and the leopard wrestle

at five in the afternoon.

And a thigh with a desolate horn

at five in the afternoon.

The bass-string struck up

at five in the afternoon.

Arsenic bells and smoke

at five in the afternoon.

Groups of silence in the corners

at five in the afternoon.

And the bull alone with a high heart!

At five in the afternoon.

When the sweat of snow was coming

at five in the afternoon,

when the bull ring was covered with iodine

at five in the afternoon.

Death laid eggs in the wound

at five in the afternoon.

At five in the afternoon.

Exactly at five o'clock in the afternoon.

A coffin on wheels is his bed

at five in the afternoon.

Bones and flutes resound in his ears

at five in the afternoon.

Now the bull was bellowing through his forehead

at five in the afternoon.

The room was iridescent with agony

at five in the afternoon.

In the distance the gangrene now comes

at five in the afternoon.

Horn of the lily through green groins

at five in the afternoon.

The wounds were burning like suns

at five in the afternoon,

and the crowd was breaking the windows

at five in the afternoon.

At five in the afternoon.

Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon!

It was five by all the clocks!

It was five in the shade of the afternoon!

   2. The Spilled Blood

I will not see it!

Tell the moon to come,

for I do not want to see the blood

of Ignacio on the sand.

I will not see it!

The moon wide open.

Horse of still clouds,

and the grey bull ring of dreams

with willows in the barreras.

I will not see it!

Let my memory kindle!

Warm the jasmines

of such minute whiteness!

I will not see it!

The cow of the ancient world

passed her sad tongue

over a snout of blood

spilled on the sand,

and the bulls of Guisando,

partly death and partly stone,

bellowed like two centuries

sated with threading the earth.

No.

I do not want to see it!

I will not see it!

Ignacio goes up the tiers

with all his death on his shoulders.

He sought for the dawn

but the dawn was no more.

He seeks for his confident profile

and the dream bewilders him

He sought for his beautiful body

and encountered his opened blood.

I will not see it!

I do not want to hear it spurt

each time with less strength:

that spurt that illuminates

the tiers of seats, and spills

over the corduroy and the leather

of a thirsty multitude.

Who shouts that I should come near!

Do not ask me to see it!

His eyes did not close

when he saw the horns near,

but the terrible mothers

lifted their heads.

And across the ranches,

an air of secret voices rose,

shouting to celestial bulls,

herdsmen of pale mist.

There was no prince in Seville

who could compare to him,

nor sword like his sword

nor heart so true.

Like a river of lions

was his marvellous strength,

and like a marble torso

his firm drawn moderation.

The air of Andalusian Rome

gilded his head

where his smile was a spikenard

of wit and intelligence.

What a great torero in the ring!

What a good peasant in the sierra!

How gentle with the sheaves!

How hard with the spurs!

How tender with the dew!

How dazzling the fiesta!

How tremendous with the final

banderillas of darkness!

But now he sleeps without end.

Now the moss and the grass

open with sure fingers

the flower of his skull.

And now his blood comes out singing;

singing along marshes and meadows,

sliding on frozen horns,

faltering soulless in the mist

stumbling over a thousand hoofs

like a long, dark, sad tongue,

to form a pool of agony

close to the starry Guadalquivir.

Oh, white wall of Spain!

Oh, black bull of sorrow!

Oh, hard blood of Ignacio!

Oh, nightingale of his veins!

No.

I will not see it!

No chalice can contain it,

no swallows can drink it,

no frost of light can cool it,

nor song nor deluge of white lilies,

no glass can cover it with silver.

No.

I will not see it!!

   3. The Laid Out Body

Stone is a forehead where dreams grieve

without curving waters and frozen cypresses.

Stone is a shoulder on which to bear Time

with trees formed of tears and ribbons and planets.

I have seen grey showers move towards the waves

raising their tender riddled arms,

to avoid being caught by lying stone

which loosens their limbs without soaking their blood.

For stone gathers seed and clouds,

skeleton larks and wolves of penumbra:

but yields not sounds nor crystals nor fire,

only bull rings and bull rings and more bull rings without walls.

Now, Ignacio the well born lies on the stone.

All is finished. What is happening? Contemplate his face:

death has covered him with pale sulphur

and has place on him the head of dark minotaur.

All is finished. The rain penetrates his mouth.

The air, as if mad, leaves his sunken chest,

and Love, soaked through with tears of snow,

warms itself on the peak of the herd.

What is they saying? A stenching silence settles down.

We are here with a body laid out which fades away,

with a pure shape which had nightingales

and we see it being filled with depthless holes.

Who creases the shroud? What he says is not true!

Nobody sings here, nobody weeps in the corner,

nobody pricks the spurs, nor terrifies the serpent.

Here I want nothing else but the round eyes

to see his body without a chance of rest.

Here I want to see those men of hard voice.

Those that break horses and dominate rivers;

those men of sonorous skeleton who sing

with a mouth full of sun and flint.

Here I want to see them. Before the stone.

Before this body with broken reins.

I want to know from them the way out

for this captain stripped down by death.

I want them to show me a lament like a river

which will have sweet mists and deep shores,

to take the body of Ignacio where it looses itself

without hearing the double panting of the bulls.

Loses itself in the round bull ring of the moon

which feigns in its youth a sad quiet bull,

loses itself in the night without song of fishes

and in the white thicket of frozen smoke.

I don't want to cover his face with handkerchiefs

that he may get used to the death he carries.

Go, Ignacio, feel not the hot bellowing.

Sleep, fly, rest: even the sea dies!

   4. Absent Soul

The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,

nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.

The child and the afternoon do not know you

because you have died for ever.

The shoulder of the stone does not know you,

nor the black satin in which you crumble.

Your silent memory does not know you

because you have died for ever.

The autumn will come with small white snails,

misty grapes and with clustered hills,

but no one will look into your eyes

because you have died for ever.

Because you have died for ever,

like all the dead of the Earth,

like all the dead who are forgotten

in a heap of lifeless dogs.

Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.

For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.

Of the signal maturity of your understanding.

Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.

Of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.

It will be a long time, if ever, before there is born

an Andalusian so true, so rich in adventure.

I sing of his elegance with words that groan,

and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.

NPM: War God's Horse Song II

 

 (Image kidnapped from Quincy Tahoma Blog)

Hmm. Only three more days until National Poetry Month ends. Whew. It'll be nice not having to spend an hour or so a night flipping through books and transcribing stuff that other people wrote.

So why bother with all this? you ask.

Spreading the love, I suppose.

I guess one of the reasons I so enjoy reading poetry is that there are times I'll glance at the comments on a Slate or WaPo article, scroll down through Twitter, skim a magazine in the checkout line, hover around a television set, or overhear chatter between kids, businessmen, or housewives on a subway car, and I'll find myself thinking

Shut up.

Just shut up.

Shut. the fuck. up.

You can only absorb so much snark, insincerity, irony, glibness, sales talk, and stupid human static before it poisons you. People's mental physiology will vary, but I frequently find that poetry works as a powerful antidote to the psychic toxins of the modern age.

Anyway.

Here's a piece I remember first reading in a packet that was distributed during the first day of a creative writing class, and I've spent at least one evening going through all my collected papers and notebooks trying to track down. Managing to track it down on Google Books a few months ago was a great joy and relief.

I'll spare you the uninformed analysis or hastily-Googled autobiographical details. It will be enough to mention how much I enjoy the hypnotic effect of the refrain, and how unusual it is (at least from the perspective of one accustomed to reading American and British poetry) to see it used to such an extreme.


War God's Horse Song II
(by Frank Mitchell; translated from the Navajo by David P. McAllester)

With their voices they are calling me,
With their voices they are calling me!

I am the child of White Shell Woman,
     With their voices they are calling me,
I am the son of the Sun,
     With their voices they are calling me,
I am Turquoise Boy,
     With their voices they are calling me!

From the arching rainbow, turquoise on its outer edge,
  from this side of where it touches the earth,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Now the horses of the Sun-descended-boy,
     With their voices they are calling me!

The turquoise horses are my horses,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Dark stone water jars their hooves,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Arrowheads the frogs of their hooves,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Mirage-stone their striped hooves,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Dark wind their legs,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Cloud shadow their tails,
     With their voices they are calling me,
All precious fabrics their bodies,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Dark cloud their skins,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Scattered rainbow their hair,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Now the Sun rises before them to shine on them,
     With their voices they are calling me!

New moons their cantles,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Sunrays their backstraps,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Rainbows their girths,
     With their voices they are calling me,
They are standing, waiting, on rainbows,
     With their voices they are calling me,
The dark-rain-four-footed-ones, their neck hair falling in a wave,
     With their voices they are calling me!

Sprouting plants their ears,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Great dark stars their eyes,
     With their voices they are calling me,
All kinds of spring waters their faces,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Great shell their lips,
     With their voices they are calling me,
White shell their teeth,
     With their voices they are calling me,
There is flash-lightning in their mouths,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Dark-music sounds from their mouths,
     With their voices they are calling me,
They call out into dawn,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Their voices reach all the way out to me,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Dawn-pollen is in their mouths,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Flowers and plant-dew are in their mouths,
     With their voices they are calling me!

Sunray their bridles,
     With their voices they are calling me,
To my right arm, beautifully to my hand they come,
     With their voices they are calling me,
This day they become my own horses,
     With their voices they are calling me,
Ever increasing, never diminishing,
     With their voices they are calling me,
My horses of long life and happiness,
     With their voices they are calling me,
I, myself, am the boy of long life and happiness,
     With their voices they are calling me!

With their voices they are calling me,
With their voices they are calling me!

NPM: Thunder, Perfect Mind

Time for a little something from the old school: verses discovered in the gnostic manuscripts unearthed at Nag Hammandi in 1945. It is suspected that the original Greek text was composed in Alexandria at an unknown date (300 - 100 B.C.?), but all that remains is the Coptic version found at Nag Hammandi, which is estimated to be about 1,650 years old. (There has been some degradation in the papyrus, which is the reason for the gaps and guesses in the text.)

Can you think of any other third-century middle eastern poems that have appeared in Prada commercials? Me neither. There must have been some real hep cats hanging around Egypt back then.

Thunder, Perfect Mind
(Author unknown; translated by George W. MacRae) 
 
I was sent forth from the power,
 and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
 and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
 and you hearers, hear me.
 You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
 And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
 Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
 Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am [the mother] and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
 and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
 and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
 and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
 and the sister of my husband,
 and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
 But he is the one who [begot me] before the time
  on a birthday.
 And he is my offspring [in due] time,
  and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
 [and] he is the rod of my old age.
 And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
 and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
 and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.

Why, you who hate me, do you love me,
 and you hate those who love me?
You who deny me, confess me,
 and you who confess me, deny me.
You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,
 and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.
You who know me, be ignorant of me,
 and those who have not known me, let them know me.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.

Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.
Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,
 [and] you will find me in [those that] are to come.
And do not look [upon] me on the dung-heap
 nor go and leave me cast out,
 and you will find me in the kingdoms.
And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who
 are disgraced and in the least places,
 nor laugh at me.
And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.
But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.
Be on your guard!
Do not hate my obedience
 and do not love my self-control.
In my weakness, do not forsake me,
 amd do not be afraid of my power.
For why do you despise my fear
 and curse my pride?

But I am she who exists in all fears
 and strength in trembling.
I am she who is weak,
 and I am well in a pleasant place.
I am senseless and I am wise.

Why have you hated me in your counsels?
For I shall be silent among those who are silent,
 and I shall appear and speak.
Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?
 Because I am a barbarian among [the] barbarians?
For I am the wisdom [of the] Greeks
 and the knowledge of [the] barbarians.
I am the judgment of [the] Greeks and the barbarians.
[I] am the one whose image is great in Egypt
 and the one who has no image among the barbarians.
I am the one who is hated everywhere
 and who has been loved everywhere.
I am the one whom they call Life,
 and you have called Death.
I am the one whom they call Law,
 and you have called Lawlessness.
I am the one whom you have pursued,
 and I am the one whom you have seized.
I am the one you have scattered,
 and you have gathered me together.
I am the one before whom you have been ashamed,
 and you have been shameless to me.
I am she who does not keep festival,
 and I am she whose festivals are many.
I, I am godless,
 and I am one whose God is great.
I am the one whom you have reflected upon,
 and you have scorned me.
I am unlearned,
 and they learn from me.
I am the one whom you have despised,
 and you reflect upon me.
I am the one whom you have hidden from,
 and you appear to me.
 But whenever you hide yourselves,
  I myself will appear.
 For [whenever] you [appear],
  I myself [will hide] from you.
Those who have [...] to it [...] senselessly [...].

Take me [... understanding] from grief,
 and take me to yourselves from understanding [and] grief.
And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,
 and rob from those which are good even though in ugliness.
Out of shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly;
 and out of shamelessness and shame, upbraid my members
  in yourselves.
And come foreward to me, you who know me
   and you who know my members,
 and establish the great ones among the small first creatures.
Come foreward to childhood,
 and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.
And do not turn away greatness in some parts from the
   smallnesses,
 for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.

Why do you curse me and honor me?
You have wounded and you have had mercy.
Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have [known].
[And] do not cast anyone [out nor] turn anyone away
  [...] turn away and [... know] him not.
  [... him].
  What is mine [...].
I know the [first ones] and those after them [know] me.

But I am the mind of [...] and the rest of [...].
I am the knowledge of my inquiry,
 and the finding of those who seek after me,
 and the command of those who ask of me,
 and the power of the powers in my knowledge
   of the angels, who have been sent at my word,
   and of the gods in their seasons by my counsel,
   and of the spirits of every man who exists with me,
    and of the women who dwell within me.
I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,
  and who is despised scornfully.
I am peace,
  and war has come because of me.
I am an alien and a citizen.
I am the substance and the one who has no substance.

Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,
 and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.
Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,
 and those who are far away from me are the ones who have
   known me.
On the day when I am close to [you],
   [you] are far away [from me],
 [and] on the day when I [am far away] from you,
   [I am close] to you.

[I am ...] within.
[I am ...] of the natures.
I am [...] of the creation of the spirits.
[...] request of souls.
[I am] control and the uncontrollable.
I am the union and the dissolution.
I am the abiding and the dissolving.
I am the one below,
 and they come up to me.
I am the judgment and the acquittal.
I, I am sinless,
 and the root of sin derives from me.
I am lust in (outward) appearance,
 and interior self-control exists within me.
I am the hearing that is attainable to everyone
 and the speech that cannot be grasped.
I am a mute who does not speak,
 and great is the multitude of my words.

Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.
I am she who cries out,
  and I am cast out on the face of the earth.
I prepare the bread and my mind within.
I am the knowledge of my name.
I am one who cries out,
  and I listen.
I appear and [...] walk in [...] seal of my [...].
I am [...] the defense [...].
I am the one who is called Truth,
  and iniquity [...].

You honor me [...] and you whisper against [me].
[...] victorious over them.
Judge then before they give judgment against you,
  because the judge and the partiality exist in you.
If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you?
   Or if you are acquitted by him who will be able to detain you?
For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,
 and the one who fashions you on the outside
  is the one who shaped the inside of you.
 And what you see outside of you,
  you see outside of you;
  it is visible and it is your garment.

Hear me, you hearers,
 and learn of my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;
  I am the speech that can not be grasped.
I am the name of the sound
  and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
  and the designation of the division.
And I [...].
[...] light [...].
[...] hearers [...] to you
[...] the great power.
And [...] will not move the name.
[...] to the one who created me.
  And I will speak his name.

Look then at his words
 and all the writings which have been completed.
Give heed then, you hearers
 and you also, the angels and those who have been sent,
 and you spirits who have arisen from the dead.
For I am the one who alone exists,
 and I have no one who will judge me.

For many are the pleasant forms which exist in
 numerous sins,
 and incontinencies,
 and disgraceful passions,
 and fleeting pleasures,
   which (men) embrace until they become sober
   and go up to their resting-place.
And they will find me there,
 and they will live,
 and they will not die again.