Page 85 - GALIET HEAVEN´S SCROLL IV

Who in his own skill confiding, Shall with rule and line
Mark the borderland dividing Human and divine?
Trismegistus! Three times greatest! How thy name sublime
Has descended to this latest Progeny of time!
Longfellow, Hermes Trismegistus93
Hermes of the cryptic name, whose nature, as Plato’s Cratylus suggests, possesses a flair for divine wisdom, as μῆτις.94 Hermes — as μῆτις in being and being in μῆτις, is called into
93 His poem is dated January 1882. Chambers (p. 155, n.) says: “It is noteworthy that the last poem of Longfellow was a lyrical ode in celebration of Hermes Trismegistus.” http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/th1/th103.htm#fr_0, February 2012. I must thank you, Dr. Cousland, for reminding me of Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice-Greatest Hermes, the Grecian-Egyptian deity, in your commentary to my annotated bibliography. I perused Mr. Mead ́s translation of Thrice Greatest Hermes, a study in Hellenistic theosophy and gnosis, and I marveled at its eloquently written dialogues replete with complex philosophical, metaphysical, moral issues and magical and wisdom lore. It is difficult to discern whether it espouses monism or dualism. Nonetheless, what a wondrous transformation is witnessed from the Egyptian Thoth to the wily Hermes, to Hermes psychopompos, and to the manifold epithets Hermes accumulates in time. It would be fascinating to trace Hermes’ entire metamorphosis from his beginnings in Egypt all the way to Hellenism; for what a complex deity he is! He is the key to the art of hermeneutics; and I have only trod a short path in my modest writings, and studies of him in my Egyptian mythology class. May I be blessed with good health and the luxury of available time to go on journeying and learning about him some more, for the rest is yet to come!
94 Other sources say μῆτις is cunning, a form of natural, spontaneous wisdom. Plato says it is divine. If so, Hermes’ innate wisdom to create his poetic lyre from a tortoise’s shell is a divine, creative wisdom. Plato. Complete Works. Cratylus. 407e-408d. Ed. By John Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1997. 125-126.
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