Loading...
Le Serpent Rouge
#1
[1 Aquarius]
How strange are the manuscripts of this friend, great traveller of the unknown. They come together as white light but for one who knows separately, they are the colours of the rainbow; for the artist these six colours unite like magic in his palette and form black.

[2 Pisces]
This friend, how would you know him? His name is a mystery but his number is that of a famous seal. How can one describe him? Maybe like the pilot of the everlasting Ark of Noah, impassive like a pillar on his white rock looking beyond the black rock towards the south.

[3 Aries]
In my arduous search I was trying to hack a way with my sword through the dense vegetation of the woods. I wanted to reach the place of the 'Sleeping BEAUTY' in which some poets can see the QUEEN of a lost kingdom. Desperate to find the way I was aided by the parchments of my friend, they were for me like the thread of ARIADNE.

[4 Taurus]
Thanks to him, from now on with a watchful eye I could make steady progress. I can find the 64 scattered stones of the perfect cube which the Brothers of the BEAUTY of the black wood had scattered when they fled from the white fort while they were being persued by the usurpers.

[5 Gemini]
Reassemble the scattered stones and, working with square and compass, put them back in order; find the line of the meridian in going from East to West, then looking from South to the North and finally in all directions to find the looked-for solution. Station yourself in front of the fourteen stones making a cross. The circle is the ring and crown and the crown forms the diadem of the Queen of the Castle.

[6 Cancer]
The Mosaic tiles of this sacred place alternate black or white and JESUS, like ASMODEUS observes their alignments. I seem incapable of seeing the summit of the secret place of the Sleeping Beauty. Not being HERCULES with magical power how do I solve the mysterious symbols engraved by the witnesses of the past. In the sanctuary however, is the font, fountain of love, of those who believe reminding us of these words 'BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER'.

[7 Leo]
I am aware of the scent of the perfume which impregnates the sepulchre of the one I must release. Long ago her name was ISIS, Queen of the benevolent springs, COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO LABOUR AND ARE HEAVY LADEN AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Others knew her as MAGDALENE with the celebrated vase full of healing balm. The initiates know her to be NOTRE DAME DES CROSS.

[8 Virgo]
I was like the shepherds of the celebrated painter POUSSIN puzzled by the enigma of 'ET IN ARCADIA EGO'. Would the voice of the blood form an image of our ancestral past. Yes, a light of inspiration floods my mind; now I understand. I know now the fabulous secret and what is more amazing is that when the four knights moved, one of the horses left four hoofprints in the rock. Here is the sign which DELACROIX has given in one of the three paintings in the Chapel of Angels. There is the seventh sentence which a hand has traced: 'DELIVER ME OUT OF THE MIRE, AND LET ME NOT SINK. Two times I.S. embalming and embalmed. Miraculous vessel of the eternal White Lady of Legends.

[9 Libra]
I began my journey in shadows and completed it in the light. At the window of the ruined house I look across the trees denuded by Autumn. At the summit of the mountain, the cross stood out from the crest of the midday sun. It was the fourteenth and highest of all with 35cm. Here, then, is my knight's tower on the circuit of the divine horseman of the abyss.

[10 Scorpio]
There is a celestial vision for the one who recalls the four tasks of EM. SIGNOL around the line of the meridian; the same Choir (heart) of the sanctuary from which radiates the source of love for one another. I turn looking at the rose of P then to that of the S. Then from the S to the P until my mind is dizzy. The spiral in my mind becomes like a monstrous octopus expelling its ink, the shadows absorb the light. I put my hand to my mouth, biting my palm, maybe like OLIER in his coffin. Curses, I know the truth, HE HAS PASSED, in doing GOOD as did HE of the flowery tomb. But how many have pillaged the HOUSE, leaving only embalmed corpses and a number of metal things they could not carry? What strange mystery is concealed in the new Temple of SOLOMON, built by the children of ST. VINCENT?

[11 Ophiuchus]
Cursing the profane in their ashes and those who follow their ways; returning from the darkness while making the gesture of horror at the abyss into which I had plunged. Here is the proof that I knew the secret of the Seal of SOLOMON and I had visited the secret places of this QUEEN. Take Heed my friend, do not add or take away one iota; think and think again, the base lead of my words may contain the purest gold.

[12 Sagittarius]
Returning again to the white hill, the sky opens its floodgates. Close to me a presence, its feet in the water, like one who has just received the mark of baptism, I turn away again to the east, facing me I see unwinding endlessly by his coils, the enormous RED SERPENT mentioned in the documents, rigid and bitter, the huge, unleashed beast at the foot of the white mountain beast becomes scarlet with anger.

[13 Capricorn]
My emotions are elated, DELIVER ME OUT OF THE MIRE, immediately I woke up, my dream is over. I meant to tell you that it was a dream I had on this 17th JANUARY, the day of Saint SULPICE, but the nightmare persisted. On reflection, I wish I had told it to you as a fairytale by PERRAULT. In the pages which follow, dear reader, are the results of a dream which nursed me from the bizarre to the unknown. LET HE WHO HAS THE UNDERSTANDING USE IT WITH WISDOM.

Translation by David Wood.
Reply
#2
Le Serpent Rouge is a poem of 13 verses and is part of a much larger 13 page document that has the subtitle 'Notes on Saint Germaine des Pres and Saint Sulpice of Paris'. Saint Germaine des Pres and Saint Sulpice are 2 churches close to each other in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Thus the 'Red Serpent' is associated in some way with these 2 churches. Why?

Other pages detail plans of these 2 churches, their histories and details regarding meridians which the poem associates with them. This seems to be continually highlighted by the author. There is a section devoted to the Gnomen found at Saint Sulpice. A page shows a genealogy of various Merovingian kings along with 2 maps of Gaul in the year 511AD and the year ca. 620AD. In later versions of these maps meridians have been added and labelled. For example one meridian is labelled MC and would seem to relate to an earlier MC meridian drawn and added to a diagram of the area of the faubourg of Saint Germaine.

The question is how and why is a Red Serpent related to these churches in Paris? And why does the poem clearly relate the Red Serpent to Rennes-le-Chateau and Rennes-les-Bains? Is the term 'Red Serpent' used symbolically to represent an important meridian and if so what type of meridian exactly, an astronomical meridian or a geographical meridian?
Reply
  

Loading...