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John
Dee's Conversations With Angels |
"I most humbly beseech thee consider these promises thus to me propounded. If they be true and from thee, confirm them. If they be illusions and not from thee, disprove them. For hardly in my judgment they do or can agree with our former precepts and order taken by thee."
And again, in an agony:
"O Lord, I doubt of these promises of ease, wealth, and honour: I suspect the whole apparition of the eleven to be an illusion. O confirm my judgment or disprove it."
So he seeks for a revelation of guidance, writes letters to Laski, and waits. Soon he perceives these temptations to have come from "a very foolish devil." He decides that they will continue to throw in their lot with Laski, who rejoined them in Lubeck. He left again to visit the Duke of Mecklenburg, they meanwhile going by Wismar to Rostock and Stettin, which place they reached at ten o'clock on Christmas morning. Laski joined them in a fortnight. They passed on by Stayard to Posen, where Dee adds an antiquarian note that the cathedral church was founded in 1025, and that the tomb of Wenceslaus, the Christian king, is of one huge stone. It was here that Dee began to enter curous notes about Kelly in the Liber Peregrinationis, written in Greek characters, but the words are Latin words, or more frequently English. The supposition is that Kelly was unacquainted even with the Greek alphabet. Dee kept his other foreign diary, written in an Ephemerides Coelestium (printed in Venice, 1582), secret from his partner, for Kelly had obtained possession of an earlier one kept in England and had written in it unfavourable comments, as well as erased things, about himself. Dee had the last word, and has added above Kelly's "shameful lye," "This is Mr. Talbot's, his own writing in my boke, very unduely as he came by it." The various diaries sound, perhaps, confusing to the reader, but are really quite simple. By the private diary is meant the scraps in the Bodleian Almanacs, edited by Halliwell for the Camden Society, in which he seldom alludes to psychic affairs. The Book of Mysteries is the diary in which he relates all the history of the crystal gazing. The printed version (True Relation) begins with Laski's visit to Mortlake on May 28, 1583.
Winter had now set in with unwonted rigour, and one is amazed at the celerity with which this great caravanserai of people and goods pushed on from place to place. From Stettin to Posen, for instance, is more than 200 miles, and it ws accomplished within four days and apparently with only one stop. Then southwards into the watery district between the Oder and the Warthe, where the country was so icebound that they had to employ five-and-twenty men to cut the ice for their coaches for a distance as long as two English miles. On February 3 they reached Lask, on the Prince's own property, and at last were comfortably housed in the Provost's "fair house by the Church." Here Dee was ill with ague, but the table was set up, and a new spirit called Nalvage appeared in teh globe. Nalvage's "pysiognomy was like the picture of King Edward the Sixth. His hair hangeth downa quarter of the length of the cap, somewhat curling, yellow." Dee, of course, had seen the young King when he presented his books, so this is a first-hand reminiscence. Nalvage stood upon a round table of mother-of-pearl, and revealed to them many cabalistic mysteries, tables of letters and names. There was a terrible vision of Mrs. Dee lying dead, with her face all battered in, and of the maid Mary being pulled our of a pool of water half drowned. But it seems to portent no more than did another piece of ill news conveyed at the same time: "Sir Harry Sidney died upon Wednesday last. A privy enemy of yours." Dee says, "I ever took him for one of my chief friends," and adds, with unconscious humour:
"Note. At Prague, Aug. 24, I understood that Sir H. Sidney was not dead in February nor March, no, not in May last. Therefore this must be considered. Doctor Hagek, his son, told me."
This note makes us realise for a moment how slowly news travelled from England to the Continent in this year of grace 1584.
The informant, Madimi, "a little wench in white," told Dee that she had been in England at his house, and all there were well. The Queen said she was sorry she had lost her philosopher. But the Lord Treasurer answered, "He will come home shortly a begging to you." "Truly," adds Madimi, "none can turn the Queen's heart from you." Then, recurring to Mortlake, she says: "I could not come into your study. The Queen hath caused it to be sealed." This no doubt after the breaking in of the rioters. Dee was counselled to go and live at Cracow. He would like to be led step by step, and begs to know what house "is in God's determination for me and mine." Madimi answers, "As wise as I am, I cannot yet tell what to say." Dee demurs to the expense, and reproaches her for not telling them sooner. Needless cost would have been saved, and he does not know if Laski will have enough money for yet another move. He had rather Kesmark had been redeemed before Laski went to Cracow. Perhaps then his credit with the people would be greater.
Laski had heavily mortgaged his estates in Poland; he was in debt, and he had apparently raised a loan on his Kesmark property for a large sum of money. The bond was to expire on St. George's Day, April 23 next, and without the Emperor's help Dee did not see how it could be met. Kelly recurs to the Danish treasure he had found in England, hidden in ten places, which they would fain have transported to Poland now, very speedily, for Laski's use. Dee is anxious to kow from Madimi whether his rents are being duly received in England by his deputy or not, "whether Her Majesty or the Council do intend to send for me again or no." They ask instructions from Gabriel about Kelly's red powder, and how they shall use it. Dee seeks for information about the Prince's wife, whom they have not yet seen, but they doubt she is not their sound friend. He begs for medicine for his ague. And again, shall he take the pedestal, being made in Lask for the holy table, on to Cracow when they go, "rather than make a new one there, both to save time and to have our doings the more secret"? This pedestal was for the crystal to rest in upon the table. Three iron hasps and padlocks were also made at Lask for the table. If any answer to these questions was vouchsafed by the spirits, it was in the usual enigmas.
Part of Dee's baggage, a chest left at Toon on their way out, not having arrived, they did not immediately obey the injunction to move on to Cracow, but after about five weeks in Lask, they again journeyed forward.
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