I think, my
dear son Aḥmad, I must make a bequest that you preserve this book, conceal it,
and not give it to anyone except to one who is mild, sympathetic, and who has drawn
away and separated himself from anger and nastiness. I mean one who does not anger
quickly; on the contrary, he must be one of those who control their passion and
are not malicious and envious.
[…] Now I
suggest that you have more compassion and mercy, conceal the secret of this
book, keep it from any but those I have described to you. Those I have
described to you are rare but non-existent. Be attentive to Allah and be niggardly
with this book. Do not give it away.
(Source of translation, throughout
this post, is Levey, Medieval Arabic
toxicology: the Book on Poisons of Ibn Waḥšīya, 1966)
Introduction
The Book on Poisons is part of the important but understudied Nabatean
corpus – a number of Arabic books translated from Mesopotamian Aramaic (“ancient
Nabatean”) originals by Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ˤAlī (and so on), known as Ibn Waḥšīya
(also spelled Ibn Waḥshiyya). But the situation is a little more complicated,
since the Book on Poisons is actually
based on two different Aramaic works, and the text as we have it was not
written by Ibn Waḥšīya himself, but by his student (not literally his son) Abū Ṭalib
Aḥmad ibn ˤAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn ˤAbdalmalik, who had the text dictated to
him. As a result, “I” in the text can be Aḥmad, or Ibn Waḥšīya, or one of the two
Nabatean authors. A further problem is that these original authors in turn either
quote or pretend to quote earlier Aramaic-language authors, and it is basically
impossible to determine what historical depth this layer has.
Since we know little about Aḥmad, I
will start with what Ibn Waḥšīya tells us about his motivations for translating,
before I talk more about his sources:
Know, my son,
that I felt it essential to translate this book and others also into Arabic
from language of this Nabatean people. I listened to people calumniate them and
perpetrate evil on them; these people were praising themselves, increasing
their slanders, and saying, “We did not receive any science or philosophy from
them nor moral virtue, nor any praiseworthy scientific work.”
They ridiculed
other things and scoffed at them; they made much of faults in their words and
blamed them for their language, and made the Nabateans shameful as Nabateans.
These calumniators are Arabic-speaking
Muslims, people who consider themselves Arabs, but many of whom have “Nabatean”
ancestry, especially on their mothers and grandmothers’ sides, which are often
hidden behind the line of patrilineal names. Ibn Waḥšīya himself might be
assumed to be fully Arabized if we judged from the names of his fathers’
fathers. As he says:
They
calumniate the Nabateans since they are in pure ignorance as to themselves, and
are in a state of forgetfulness. If they would but know that they are their
descendants, that they came from the Nabateans who are their ancestors, and have
taken the place of the Nabatean, […]
So much for the context of our
translator. What of his sources? First of all, rather than Nabateans, which invites
confusion with the Arab-ruled Nabataean kingdom – much earlier and further west
–, I would like to call Ibn Waḥšīya’s Aramaic-speaking sources by their endonym,
Kasdānians (Arabic Kasdānī). This is
the same word, in origin, as Chaldaean, but I would like to use this dialectal
form to name the specific community whose texts Ibn Waḥšīya used. Rather than
simply recording Mesopotamian traditions, the Kasdānian authors (living at some
point between the 5th and 9th century, it seems) wrote
treatises that combined traditional knowledge, information from Greek-language
sources, and novel ideas, attributing them exclusively to Kasdānians, often
with outlandish invented names. In my ignorance of Semitic linguistics, I cannot
say for certain that Yārbūqā and Sūhāb Sāṭ are such invented names, but Yārbūqā
at least cites several of them, and it is not unlikely that “Yārbūqā” and his sources
are the invention of the same person or persons. “Our Lord Dawānāy”, for example,
is in all likelihood an invented (if not exactly fictional) figure in a history
newly created for a community that had lost cuneiform literacy centuries prior,
which had undergone some degree of Hellenization (such that their scientific
and philosophical knowledge was largely Greek), and whose local traditions were
situated in a largely Christian and Jewish world. The Kasdānians in central
Mesopotamia thus seem to fall in between the more thoroughly Hellenized Ḥarrānians
in the North and the loss of a self-consciously pagan identity in the South.
Ibn Waḥšīya’s intellectual context
Ibn Waḥšīya spoke Arabic and
Aramaic, but the latter less fluently. Unlike his Kasdānian authorities, who
had been influenced by Greek learning quite directly, he could only access it through
Arabic translations. Nevertheless, he was clearly not ignorant of those
translations that did exist:
There are
also those books [on poisons] which are from the Greeks. One of them contains two
treatises on poisons of Dioscorides appended to a book on hashish. There is a
pleasant book of Theophrastus. […] Then there is a treatise on poisons
attributed to Galen. Also, there is a book on poisons attributed to a man called
Alexander. I do not know whether he is Alexander the physician or the other one
who is a philosopher. I know two Alexanders aside from Alexander, the king, and
the Alexander who compiled a book on art. The latter is an Egyptian, and is a
philosopher and scholar.
Among toxological authors, he also
lists “genuine Arabs, who were from Yemen”, and later Muslims, including Qusṭā
b. Lūqā (latinized Costa ben Luca)
and the Philosopher of the Arabs, al-Kindī (latinized Alkindus); Egyptians, namely Cleopatra (referring to a
pseudo-Cleopatran treatise translated from Greek) and “the books on Egyptian
agriculture”; three Indian books, which he read in Arabic translation; and three
old books in Persian, which he seems to have read in the original? At any rate,
there are several remarks which seem to suggest that Persian culture had a
similar status in the region as Arabic, making this a priori plausible.
His personal appreciation of Persian
literature may be judged from the following:
The knowledge
[…] of the Persians in astrology and its prerequisite, the motions of the
stars, is paramount in this field over all peoples.
This was a relatively recent advance,
as Persians had been largely dependent on Greeks (and Indians), and the Greek
authors on Egyptians and Babylonians. Clearly, knowledge is passed on in complicated
ways, and not simply through bloodlines or diffusion within the “body” of a
people.
Ibn Waḥšīya’s learning thus seems wider
but qualitatively different than that of the older Kasdānians. He considered
them a noteworthy addition to the Persian-Arabic mainstream, and his
translation efforts – clearly a labor of love – did save unique and valuable
cultural knowledge from total obliteration.
Was Ibn Waḥšīya a Pagan?
Our translator saved texts written
by pagan authors, and – unlike many translators from Greek – preserved their
pagan character. He also mentions contemporary pagan informers without
criticism of their holding on to ancestral tradition, even if he usually seems
to speak as a Muslim. There are some suggestions, however, that his sympathies
were not only with his fellow Kasdānian Nabateans and against the Arabs, but
also with the Kasdānian pagans and against Islam. This is the only
interpretation I can come up with for the following passage, at least, although
for all I know the reference may well be to an Arab ruler later than Muhammad:
What do you
think [of the king] who threatened people with murder unless they embraced the
religion of Zoroaster[?] He probably did away with millions of people. Another,
at a time closer to ours, prohibited us from perpetrating evil, but he himself
did so. He prohibited us from abducting people by violence but he himself did
so. He upset people and smote them with the sword until he became chief, until
he acquired the power, until he appointed his people the heir of it, until he
attained the tastes of the world according to his wishes, and until he achieved
all he desired. I hope to Allah that his religion be exterminated, that his
name be erased, and that his traces be obliterated. […] They are like [the prominently
irreligious] Murādīdaq (?), [Mani], Paul who spread Christianity, Mazdak,
Pharaoh, Ḥarramān (?), and those like them who followed the same course as
they.
Whether Ibn Waḥšīya was a
crypto-pagan or not, let’s now turn to the open paganism of the Kasdānian Yārbūqā.
Kasdānian Paganism
He commenced
his book with a beginning with was then current as a custom of those from Kasadān,
glorifying the sun, revering it, and praying to it as did other authors.
Thus Yārbūqā’s work is markedly pagan
from the outset, and in line with the opening prayer to the sun, the only gods
mentioned – excepting mentions of Allah added during and after the translation –
are the planets, whom Ibn Waḥšīya calls by their ordinary Arabic names.
One of the first “poisons” relates to
the Sun, as well:
After this is
a more wonderful poison which kills by means of its sound. This should perhaps
not deserve the name “poison” for it is something arising originally from the
voice. It could affect the heart so that a weak-hearted one often will die and
a strong-hearted person is seldom affected. At the least, it can cause serious
illness or faintness depending on the health of the heart and body. I do not
like to ignore it, for to abandon it would not account for a poison which could
kill many.
Have recourse
to the God of the Gods (the Sun) from these injuries and ask him that he do away
with the deceit of the envious of the enemy, of those close to the enemy, and
of the neighbor of the enemy. Ask him to protect you as he protected his slave
Farghīlā, the King, when he besought him and presented an offering to him of
three hundred and sixty-five victims. When he asked him to save him from the
wickedness of Kūkāsh al-Bīlqānī, he heard his prayer and ordered Saturn, the
great God, to kill him, to make him fall. He made hisarmy shiver from cold
until it was disordered and dispersed while they themselves were in good order.
This is because the Sun is a compassionate, generous, and excellent God.
It is important to note here that
the book does not make categorical distinctions between the effectiveness of
prayers, “natural” remedies and other methods, or between physical and
psychological effects. This explains the presence of observations like the
following in a book on poisons:
When a man
loves and desires one, and when he hears her voice, his color changes. Often he
trembles and he becomes languid when exposed to that.
The focus is not on the underlying mechanisms,
but on efficacy: “There are wonders […] that the hearer would find impossible
to believe unless he himself observed them […]. It is like the characteristics
of witchcraft, the talisman, and others related to these, in the act.”
The historiola of Farghīlā is
slightly reminiscent of another hero connected to the sun:
I (Yārbūqā) extracted
this (recipe) from the poetry of Fashūqūnyū (?) who appeared on top of the sun
and was the chief of his time and lord of his age. I have added to it what I
have invented […]
But the most interest pagan feature
of the text, to my mind, are the prayers, which show the creative renewal of
Mesopotamian ideas about the planetary gods, in some part through the appropriation
of elements from Greek philosophy. These prayers are embedded in recipes for “poisons”
and “cures”:
Second Chapter on the Preparation of
What Kills People and Others by Sound
This gives the instructions for the
creation of a set of castanets to be cast from a mixture of many different
models, which are then put in a large copper pot, into which a mixture of plant
juices is poured while the moon is opposite to Saturn. Then certain seeds,
leaves and roots are thrown into the juice, the pot’s contents are boiled for a
long time until all liquid is gone. “Then remove the castanets and have them in
sight of Saturn for one night. Take them away before the sun can shine on them.”
The castanets are put in another vessel with oils, and the contents are boiled
until the oil is gone. “Wash with pure water and good alkali until the odor of
oil and its power disappear from everything. Expose them to the power of Saturn—if
the moon was with Saturn the night before these nights then it is best—for three
nights. Retrieve it at the end of every night while the world is becoming light
before the rising of the sun. If it is the night of Saturday and if Saturn is situated
before the moon when the evening twilight is disappearing and when the darkness
is becoming confused, then raise the two castanets in your hand and with a voice
which can be heard say:
[here follows a corrupt Aramaic prayer
to Saturn in Arabic letters, which
Levey does not print; then, an Arabic translation:]
O God of the
sky and earth! O the Mighty! O the Violent! O whose power is perfect and whose
action is piercing! O Glorious One, Strong, Great! Take[] quickly the soul of
everyone who hears the sound of these castanets—without any delay! Amen, amen,
amen.
“Then, make it stink with the hide
which is dead but untanned, and with dry suet, and gum Arabic, and then repeat
the prayer in Nabatean. Abū Bakr b. Waḥšīya said, You may utter it in Arabic
also. Let the smoke rise until ten dirhams of this incense is burned up. Do
this with prayer, incense, and raising the two castanets with your hand for
three consecutive nights. Then put them in a red copper vessel, plunging them
into bovine urine. Leave the vessel so. Do this if the sun is in the second
[part of] Scorpion, in the sign of Sagittarius, in the sign of Capricorn, or in
the sign of Aquarius, leaving the vessel in the sun for seven days.”
I am uncertain whether these rather
foul materials relate more to the purpose of the recipe, or whether this is an
example of the association of Saturn with pungent smells and unpleasant tastes (e.g.
in the Picatrix). At any rate the
castanets are dried for three days and nights; “[t]hen take two black woolen
strings” – black being Saturn’s color – “and hang the castanets by them in the
air. Do not clean them of the bovine urine.”
The castanets are supposed to be effective
when the moon “is with Saturn where Saturn is. If it is returning, that is
better; otherwise it is not so good.” Depending on the humors in the body of
the victim, the effect will kill within the next few days. In addition to people,
it “can kill some animals and cannot kill others”. “Whenever you want to play
them, do this only when the moon is with Saturn, either when going into the
quartile aspect or in the opposite direction.”
Antidote
For the one
who wishes to make this castanet and to play it to kill one, it is necessary to
manufacture this [antidote] first.
Six hazelnut-like objects are made
from silver and gold (again under specific astrological circumstances), and “stones
of the sun” (or a certain type of bezoar stone as a replacement) are inserted
in each, then the ‘hazelnuts’ are soldered with gold solder and bound up with
green silk string, “in such a manner that the string may be seen on the four
sides of every one of the hazelnuts. Then, in the middle of each of these
hazelnuts a red ruby of any size, a diamond or a pure green emerald is
attached. When this is done, a coal-burning censer is taken. On it is thrown
one dirham of aloeswood which has a good odor, fresh or not, some camphor, hair
saffron, and one drop of balsam oil. Take the string by which the hazelnuts are
held by your hand, and when the smoke rises, say,
O God of the
sky and earth, God of the elements and natural things. O God of matter and
classes, God of the species and all individuals, God of what is seen and unseen!
O Sun, the great bright one! He is
the light over the light and over all lights! He it is who removes all darkness
and attracts all brightness! I ask of Thee in Thy name, the kept one, the
hidden one, in Thy unending knowledge to hear my prayer, and to save me from
the evil of Saturn, the old chief, the great one, the bright one, the luminous one
and from his killing, mortifying, and torturing my soul, and to keep my life in
my body. Thou lengthenest my life with the soul of what is in Thy presence with
Thy power, with Thy might, with Thy glory, and with Thy majesty! O God of life,
Thou who keepest the souls in everyone alive, my life, my power, my soul, and
lengthenest my life by what is in Thy presence, and makest me to live with thy
power, and makest these hazelnuts of gold and silver the oath of thee to me in
salvation and redemption from death, O, God of life! O whose life is endless! O
who lengthenest life. O old one who passest not away, hear[] me! Amen, Amen,
Amen!
“Repeat this charm until the smoke stops.
If the incense is consumed, renew it until this sacred charm has been uttered
three times. Then place it by the string upon your neck until it reaches your
breast, and play the castanets. If you like, leave it on your neck permanently
providing it is easy for you do to so; otherwise remove it from your neck and
place it in a scent box which contains perfume.”
Description of Another Operation
Which Kills by the Sound When It Is Heard
This is even much more convoluted
than the previous recipe, but simply put, it involves the creation of a drum
and stick.
“Then take the stick with your left
hand such that the outside of your hand with the stick and drum agree with Mars” (whatever that means) “, and say,
O God, the
powerful, who makes one thirst violently, the arrogant, the killer of all, who
flings factions and disturbances among people! O God who delights in shedding
blood and [spreading] death, the high position of the peace is thine now and for
all time in regard to me and thy slaves. Kill[] with this drum who hears it
sound quickly, immediately! O the destroyer, the arrogant, the killer, the
cruel, the bloodthirsty, the troublous to manking who impairs their health,
reason, and action, kill with this drum everyone who hears its voice!
“Repeat your word,
Kill
with this drum everyone who hears its voice!,
“eight times, then say,
O God of death,
God of fire, God of heat, the destroyer and strength and power, who sends
everyone death and killing and the corruption of life to everyone who hears the
sound of this drum. That is this drum.”
“Repeat your words,
It
is this drum
“forty times. Then, in a censer,
smoke seed of laurel, seed of mustard, and storax. When the smoke begins to
appear, stand upon your feet and make the stick agree with Mars.
Then say,
Hear me O God
of the sky, earth, and blue, brown, and green eyes. Thou must hear me and kill
everyone who hears this drum except the one who protected himself from thee,
and from sound with the power of Jupiter opposing you, and whichever way he is
afraid of thee, O God of evils, of glory of evils, and that strengthens evils
day and night. Now, I stand before thee in the darkness of this night. I fear
thee, and hope from thee, and ask of thee, and understand thee that when thy
names are used in prayer, then thou hearest when it is asked on them. Thou
givest. O God, the powerful, the violent, hear[] my prayer! Amen, amen, amen!
“Then set down the drum and stick
before Mars until it sets and until morning breaks, until you see that the sky
is quite bright. Then take the drum and the stick with which you strike the
drum. If you wish to kill one, strike the drum with it when the moon is
associated with Saturn, while it confronts it from every direction except the
opposite one. The situation of the opposite direction is not appropriate for
this. Sing while you strike it with the words which praise Mars. Whoever hears
this voice dies either on the same day or after three hours following the darkness
of night have passed.”
Description of the Cure of Whoever
Makes This Deadly Drum
“Look [at the sky] when the moon is in
conjunction with Jupiter while they are in a masculine zodiacal sign,
especially in Areis, Leo, and Sagittarius. Take some white silk in a sufficient
quantity to be twisted into a thread of medium thickness. Then take three
stones of white ruby, three beads of pure rock crystal, and one bead whose size
must be equal to that of the six. [The latter] is molded of silver in the form of
a small walnut. It may be either hollow or solid; do not pay attention. All of
them, I mean the seven beads, must be bored. Arrange them on the circular silk
thread so that the silver is in the middle and three of the beads are on one
side and the rest on the other side. Then knot the thread with the beads on it
and hang it on sandalwood. Perfume it with the bark of the camphor tree,
sandalwood, and in a species of Cakile wood, especially by these three, in the
amount of two and one-fourth dirhams each. The time of perfuming must be when
the moon faces Jupiter. Then after the perfuming wrap up the thread together with
what is on it in a clean rag. When night comes, take ten dirhams each of
aloeswood, sandalwood, wood of the cucumber plant, and seeds of the poppy. Then
sit down facing Jupiter and put some of the incense on the embers. Take the
thread, which you arranged, in your hand. Beckon to Jupiter, saying,
O God of
life, permanence, happiness, joy, and goodness: I ask of thee by thy stored and
hidden name that with which Mercury prayed to thee and thou cheerest him in
what he asked of you. And with thy called name God, Sun, it is the name which
effects consent so that thou causest those who wear this necklace to die, and
all dangerous harm and fearful danger. O God of the world! O Jupiter, the
auspicious! Thou art a God of which one hopes, a God whose power is perfect and
whose act is penetrating. [Thou art one] who subdues Mars and steerest him, and
is high over him. Thou are more great, grand, and bigger than he, and more
strong and violent. With the two names which I use to implore [thee], thou behaves
to hear my prayer and to prevent whoever wears this necklace from all harms and
fears, and to lengthen his life, forget his dying, repel death from him, and
increase his power of life. Thou makest this necklace an oath of thee for thou
makest him to live, repellest death from him, sendest all artifices from him,
lengthenest his good life, repellest perishableness from him to a distant
limbo! O the powerful, the overpowering! O who allows one to live! O the
sympathetic! O the all-wise, the just, the generous! O doer of all goodness and
who repels all dangers and fears! Thou repellest all dangers from the wearer of
this thread, lengthenest his life, repellest death from him, overcomes Mars and
Saturn for thou art able to overcome them and they cannot overpower thee. Thou
canst overcome them and they cannot overpower thee with thy two names which I
mentioned earlier. I ask of thee by them [that thou] repellest all dangers,
evils, death and perishableness from whoever wears this thread! O powerful one
whose power is the power of the thousand gods! Listen[], hear[], and have[]
sympathy for who puts on this thread, and repel[] death always from him if thou
willst; if not, it is possible for thee to overcome thy opponents! Amen, amen,
amen!
“This incantation is repeated until
the incense is consumed. Repeat it once again after the incense has been
consumed. Then hang the thread as it is on sandalwood. Leave it in the censer
until morning. When the sun is about to rise, draw back the thread with the
sandalwood and the censer. Throw the censer with its contents into running
water and hang the necklace on the wood. When you wish to kill one with this
drum hang the thread on your neck. It must be when the moon is with Jupiter. If
it faces Mars, it is the best. Take some sandalwood which can be burned in a
censer and strike the drum. Indeed, one whose constitution is hot and dry, dies
after four hours. Or, it may be late at night and one’s constitution may be
contrary to that one, then when three hours have passed, he also will die.”
Description of the Manufacture of
the Drum Which When Struck and the Sound is Heard, Mice Die if They Are Standing.
If They Escape, They Are Saved
This drum is made of a cat’s skin (for
obvious reasons), again prepared in an elaborate series of operations, several
of them under specific astrological conditions, until “it is placed in front of
Saturn for three nights.”
In the next step, “a stick for
striking the drum is obtained. It is straight, slender, and without any crookedness
in it. It is placed with the drum in front of Saturn. When the third night
comes, whoever performs this operation must obtain a censer with embers in it.
On the fire are thrown seven dirhams each of black cumin, yellow pottery,
asafetida, seeds of the onion, and leaf of the garlic.” (Onion and garlic are
associated with Saturn in the later Picatrix,
as well.)
“Then with the olive-tree stick, it
is turned toward Saturn, and he says
with an audible voice,
O God, the
great, the violent, the powerful, the luminous, the killer of all who have been
killed, and who brought all the dead their deaths. Thou art always obedient to
thy God, the Sun, for by the Sun thou killst all mice, whether rat or weasel,
mole or field rat, whatever dwells in the earth, and homes. [This occurs] when
they hear the sound of this skin when it is struck with this stick. The emitted
sound kills them quickly. Thou makest them perish and separatest their souls
and bodies and makest them perish so that they become soil and ash. O God, the
violent, the worshiped, the God of danger who causes death, who annihilates,
who destroys the mice and rats in quick death in the earth or homes without
delay. O God, the powerful, the old, the wise, the mighty, whose act is
penetrating, whose power is perfect, whose cunning is violent, whose artifice
is power. All cunning things are thine! The artifices are all thine! Who is it
who can rise against thee or could endure thy cunning and power which is
penetrating and quick, and the penetration of thy action. When thou willst its
penetration, thou sendest thy cunning, thy source, thy sagacity, and thy
artifice so that thou destroyest their destroying whenever thou willst and annihilates
their perishableness whenever thou wishest. Thou canst destroy all of what thou
willst. There is no one who could interfere in thy action and could rise
against thy power and might. Makest thy power to penetrate in order to destroy
the mice and rats, small or large, strong or weak, and causest not one to
remain. With thy glory and power, amen, amen, amen.
“He says this prayer while the
incense is smoking. When the smoke is no more, read this charm and pray once
again. Then throw the censer in a ruin or in a river left void, or in a conduit
of a bathing place. Then you abandon the drum and stick until the end of the
night. When it is light, take and keep them. When you wish to destroy the mice
with them, strike the drum with the stick as it is a skin placed on a wash tub.
The moon must face Saturn or be in his house, at the time. Indeed, the mice and
rats, small or large, die if they remain in their places. If they go as far as
possible to escape this sound, then they become ill and die. Further, all of
the rats and mice which smell the odor of the dead ones, also die.”
Apart from the prayers in Aramaic
which Levey does not give, this is all of the addresses to the planet gods in
the book. In closing, I want to append another piece of Mesopotamiana:
The story of scammony
Tales of discussions between plants
or animals and the like were an important genre of cuneiform literatures. And
so it was still for the Kasdānians, as this passage shows. Only the
astrological opening and the openly aporetic closing situate it clearly in the context
of late antiquity:
Our friends
have some fine tales which they tell about scammony but I (Yārbūqā) do not know
them. I have heard mention of one of these stories. They say that one of the
old women of the people Jarāmiqa was crossing a desert in which tere was
scammony. The sun was at the point of scorpion and the plant spoke in the
language of al-Khābūtāy in which the chief men of Jarāmiqa speak. They assert
that the star, Mercury, suggested this language to them thousands of years ago.
The old woman
spoke to the scammony, “I see that you are pale while this season is spring for
you and for other plants.”
The scammony
said to her, “I am so because of my anger toward you, O community of mankind!
How do you live after you see me while your eyes are filled with me!”
The old woman
said, “Would you like us all to die so that only you would remain?”
The scammony said,
“Yes! If I would remain alone, then I could cover the world with my roots and
branches and leaves.”
And so it went,
the humorous talks, of whose reality I am not certain. It may or may not have a
meaning; I do not know.
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