TheCyranides (Greek:Κυρανίδες; alsoKyranides orKiranides) is a compilation ofancient Greek works onmagic andmedicine first put together in the 4th century.[1]Latin andArabic translations also exist. It has been described as a "farrago" and atexte vivant,[2] owing to the complexities of itstransmission: 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 ofamulets;[3] it also contains material pertinent to the history of westernalchemy,[4] and toNew Testament studies, particularly in illuminating meanings of words andmagico-religious practices.[5] As a medical text, theCyranides was held in relatively low esteem even inantiquity and theMiddle Ages because of its use ofvernacular language and reliance onlore rather thanHippocratic orGalenic medical theory.[6]
In thePseudodoxia Epidemica,Thomas Browne described theCyranides as "a collection out ofHarpocration the Greek and sundryArabick writers delivering not only the Naturall but Magicall propriety of things."[7] Although theCyranides was considered "dangerous and disreputable" in the Middle Ages, it was translated into Latin byPascalis Romanus, aclergyman with medical expertise who was the Latin interpreter for EmperorManuel I Komnenos. The 14th-centuryclericDemetrios Chloros was put on trial because he transcribed magical texts, including what was referred to as theCoeranis.[8]
The original 4th-centuryCyranides comprised three books, to which aredactor added a fourth. The original first book of theCyranides, theKyranis (Κυρανίς), was the second component of a two-part work, the first part of which was theArchaikê (Ἀρχαϊκἠ). Books 2–4 are abestiary. Theedition of Kaimakis (see below) contains a fifth and sixth book which were not transmitted under the nameCyranides but which were included with the work in a limited number of manuscripts. A medievalArabic translation of the first book exists, and portions of it are "reflected" in theOld French workLe livre des secrez de nature (The Book of Nature's Secrets).
TheCyranides begins by instructing the reader to keep its contents secret, and with a fictional narrative of how the work was discovered.[9] In one 15th-century manuscript, the author of the work is said to be Kyranos (Κοίρανος), king ofPersia.[10]
TheCyranides devotes a chapter to the healing powers of the water snake; itsbezoar is used to curedropsy.[11] Fishgall is recommended for healing white spots in the eye; fish liver is supposed to cure blindness.[12] For a "large and pleasurable"erection, a mixture ofarugula, spices, and honey is recommended, as is carrying the tail of a lizard or the rightmolar of askink.[13] The fumigation or wearing ofbear hair turns away evil spirits and fever.[14]
Daniel Ogden, a specialist in magic and the supernatural in antiquity, has gathered several references from theCyranides on the use of gemstones and amulets.[15] The collection offers spells to avert the child-harming demonGello, who was blamed formiscarriages andinfant mortality, and says thataetite can be worn as an amulet against miscarriage.[16]
Olympidorus provides a summary of a passage from the work, not part of the abridged version now extant, that hascosmological as well as alchemical implications:
The mole: once a man, and cursed for revealing the secrets of the sun, according to theCyranides
Again inKyranisHermes, speaking riddlingly of the egg, said that it is properly the substance of gold-solder and the moon. For the egg challenges the golden-haired cosmos: thecockerel, Hermes says, was once a man, cursed by the sun. This he says in the book calledAncient (archaike). In it he also makes mention of themole, saying that it too was once a man. It was cursed by god for revealing the secrets of the sun. And the sun made it blind and if it happens to be observed by the sun, the earth does not receive it till evening. He says '<the sun made it blind> as it knew as well what was the shape of the sun.' He exiled it in themelanitis land [black earth?],[17] as a law-breaker and divulger of his secret to the human race.[18]
In the extant version, theCyranides contains a description of theheliodromus, aphoenix-like bird fromIndia which, upon hatching, flies to the rising sun and then goes west when the sun passes thezenith. It lives only a year, and, according to some interpretations of an unreliable text, leaves behind anandrogynous progeny.[19]
Delatte, Louis (1942).Textes latins et vieux français relatifs aux Cyranides. Paris: Droz.OCLC901714095. The Latin translation.
Kaimakis, Dimitris (1976).Die Kyraniden. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain.ISBN9783445013347. (NB: Kaimakis did not consult the Latin text while making this edition).
Ruelle, M. Ch.-Ém. (1898).Les lapidaires de l'antiquité et du moyen-âge 2. Les lapidaires grecs, Tome 2, Fascicule 1. Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Partial Greek text.
Toral-Niehoff, Isabel (2004).Kitab Giranis. Die arabische Übersetzung der ersten Kyranis des Hermes Trismegistos und die griechischen Parallelen. München: Herbert Utz.ISBN3-8316-0413-4. Arabic translation and partial Greek text; Greek text contains many typographical errors.
Waegeman, Maryse (1987).Amulet and Alphabet: Magical Amulets in the First Book ofCyranides. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben.ISBN90-70265-80-X.OCLC17009220. English translation and commentary on select passages from Book 1.
Bain, David. "Μελανῖτις γῆ in theCyranides and Related Texts: New Evidence for the Origins and Etymology of Alchemy." InMagic in the Biblical World: From theRod of Aaron to theRing of Solomon. T&T Clark International, 2003, pp. 191–218. Limited previewonline.
Bain, David. "περιγίνεσθαι as a Medical Term and a Conjecture in theCyranides." InEthics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, pp. 281–286. Limited previewonline.
Faraone, Christopher A.Ancient Greek Love Magic. Harvard University Press, 2001. Limited previewonline.
Mavroudi, Maria. "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research." University of California, Berkeley. Full textdownloadable. Also published inThe Occult Sciences in Byzantium (La Pomme d'or, 2006), limited previewonline.
^David Bain, "περιγίνεσθαι as a Medical Term and a Conjecture in theCyranides," inEthics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 283online.Christopher A. Faraone,Ancient Greek Love Magic p. 121, dates the work to the 1st century.
^French, "living text"; that is, an "open" document or text undergoing continuing revision by multiple hands and existing in no one authoritative form; seeWikipedia.
^Faraone,Ancient Greek Love Magic, pp. 11 and 121.
^David Bain, "Μελανῖτις γῆ in theCyranides and Related Texts: New Evidence for the Origins and Etymology of Alchemy," inMagic in the Biblical World: From theRod of Aaron to theRing of Solomon (T&T Clark International, 2003), pp. 209–210, especially note 64.
^Jeffrey B. Gibson,Temptations of Jesus in Early Christianity (Continuum International Publishing, 2004), p. 246online; used as a source by James A. Kelhoffer,The Diet ofJohn the Baptist: "Locusts and Wild Honey" in Synoptic and Patristic Interpretation (Mohr Siebeck, 2005),passim.
^Maria Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research," University of California, Berkeley, p. 84, full textdownloadable.[dead link]
^Bain, "Μελανῖτις γῆ," p. 208, note 61; Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium," p. 84.
^Bain, "Μελανῖτις γῆ," pp. 195online, 203 and 209; "περιγίνεσθαι as a Medical Term," p. 283; "Some Textual and Lexical Notes onCyranides 'Books Five and Six',"Classica et Mediaevalia 47 (1996), pp. 151–168online.
^Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium," p. 74.
^Erich S. Gruen,Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans (Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 319online.
^Faraone,Ancient Greek Love Magic, p. 21, note 93. The possession of a molar by a skink seems not to be questioned; one wonders whether the translation is accurate.
^Mavroudi, "Occult Science and Society in Byzantium," p. 84, note 137.
^Daniel Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, 2002),passim, limited previewonline.
^Sarah Iles Johnston,Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (University of California Press, 1999), pp. 166–167online.
^Based on the Latin translation and a poor text of the Greek,E.H.F. Meyer thought that μελανῖτις γῆ referred to southernSyria; others have thoughtEthiopia;Egypt is now the standard view.
^R. van den Broek,The Myth of the Phoenix According to Classical and Early Christian Traditions (Brill, N.D.), pp. 286–287online.. On the sex of the phoenix, see F. Lecocq, «‘Le sexe incertain du phénix’: de la zoologie à la théologie»,Le phénix et son autre: poétique d'un mythe des origines au XVIe s., ed. L. Gosserez, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013, p. 177-199, (ISBN978-2-7535-2735-5)
