VMs: Re: Tuba Veneris

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

I never really enjoyed Latin at school, so it wasn't a huge surprise to 
find that - 20 years later - I still don't enjoy it much. :-|  Still, 
here's a very rough translation of the start of the introduction to Tuba 
Veneris.

Note that it is dated London, 9th June 1580 in the text: as Dee only met up 
with Kelly in 1582, it would therefore be highly unlikely that it would 
have been written specifically for him - but Dee's giving it as a wedding 
gift seems perfectly plausible (with Venus' associations with love?).

IIRC, Dee also made his copy of Steganographia in Antwerp in 1562, so the 
timeline with that is consistent as well - though perhaps waiting 18 years 
to experiment with Trithemius' ideas might seem a little slow, even by 
Dee's standards. :-/

Certainly, in June 1580 Dee was probably in London, waiting for The Next 
Big Thing: he started his first attempts at Angel Magic (though not 
intially with Kelly) in 1581.

However, by 1576, Dee had engaged in successfully getting references to him 
as a conjurer and nigromancer removed from John Foxe's "Actes And 
Monuments": so I have to say that a document dated 1580 where the author 
addresses the reader specifically from the point of view of a nigromancer 
seems a little, well, unlikely (if not inconsistent)?

I also can't see any obvious places in the transcription where 
steganography could have been used. For instance, the spells seem fairly 
unpromising, as they repeat the name of each spirit to be summoned three 
times both at the beginning and at the end. However, maybe that's the point 
of steganography. :-)

ATM, my vote would go for pseudoepigraphy, probably concocted for gain 
after Dee's death when collectors were hunting round for Dee-related stuff. 
:-|  Does anyone know the Tuba Veneris' provenance?

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

                                * * * * * * *

        She is Venus on high, given me a name in the stars
        Inhabitant of the [mox?] Styx, she is near while the trumpet plays
        Subordinate to the Demon by the power of talismen [..."gemiscit"?]
        The spirits of the gods return triumphant from their enemy.

The Trumpet of Venus

This is to summon or call the six spirits under Venus' rule, whereby the 
method is taught to construct Venus' Talisman, her Trumpet, her Magic 
Circle, her [Compositio?], the particular names of her spirits, their 
summoning and talismen with the methods of preparation. The spirits may be 
dispelled by many other methods to be found within this work.

None of the various Black Arts either by definition, or by division, or by 
type, or even by the same multifarious practices have been [properly] 
written down: our aim and scope in this small book is [to describe] many of 
these, about which many authors - though few of them clear and true - have 
written many difficult books without captivating you [the reader]. But this 
Trumpet we sing of to you, dear reader, through whose sound the six spirit 
subjects of Venus' rule can be woken and set in motion in dance, in the 
same standard and defined way that I have often practised myself.