Mythic History of the Fleur-de-Lis

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CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

MYTHIC HISTORY OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS

THE maypole is a phallos. The ribbons depending from the discus, or ring, through which the maypole pierces, should be of the seven prismatic colours--those of the rainbow (or Règne-beau). According to the Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Modern, a work by the Rev. C. W. King, M.A., published in 1864, Horapollo has preserved a talisman, or Gnostic gem, in yellow jasper, which presents the engraved figure of a 'Cynocephalus, crowned, with bâton erect, adoring the first appearance of the new moon'.

The phallic worship prevailed, at one time, all over India. It constitutes, as Mr. Sellon asserts, to this day one of the chief, if not the leading, dogma of the Hindoo religion. Incontestable evidence could be adduced to prove this--however strange and impossible it seems--the key of all worship the world over; and highest in esteem in the most highly civilized nations. Though it has degenerated into gross and sensual superstition, it was originally intended as the worship of the creative principle in Nature. Innumerable curious particulars lie scattered up and down, in all countries of the world, relating to this worship; mad as it seems--bad as, in its grossness, it is. It is only in modern times that sensuality, and not sublimity, has been actively associated with this worship, however. There was a time when the rites connected with it were grand and solemn enough. The general diffusion of these notions regarding the

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[paragraph continues] Phalli and the Ioni, and of the sacred mystic suggestions implied in both, as well as the inflections in design of these unlikely, repulsive figures for serious worship, prove that there was something very extraordinary, and quite beyond belief to the moderns in the origin of them. The religion of the Phallos (and of its twin emblem) is to be traced all over the East. It appears to be the earliest worship practised by man. It prevailed not only amongst the Hindoos, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mexicans, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans in ancient times, but it still forms an integral part of the worship of India, Thibet, China, Siam, Japan, and Africa. We cannot, therefore, afford, to ignore this grand scheme of ritual, when we discover it to be a religion so widely spread, and reappearing so unexpectedly, not only in the countries with which we are contemporaneously acquainted, but also in those old countries of which we in reality know very little, or nothing at all; for all history reads doubtfully, being written for popular purposes.

In the Temple-Herren of Nicolai there is an account of a Gnostic gem, or talisman, which represents a 'Cynocephalus', with a lunar disc on his head, standing in the act of adoration, with sceptrum displayed, before a column engraved with letters, and supporting a triangle. This latter architectural figure is, in fact, an obelisk. All the Egyptian obelisks were Phalli. The triangle symbolizes one of the Pillars of Hermes (Hercules). The Cynocephalus was sacred to him. The Pillars of Hermes have been Judaised into Solomon's 'Jachin and Boaz'. So says Herz, in regard to 'Masonic Insignia'. We will explain fully, later in our book, of these interesting sexual images, set up for adoration so strangely and from the meaning of which we foolishly but determinedly avert.

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We now propose to deduce a very original and a very elaborate genealogy, or descent, of the famous arms of France, the Fleurs-de-Lis, 'Lucifera', Lisses, Luces, 'Lucies', Bees, Scarabs, Scara-bees, or Imperial 'Bees' of Charlemagne, and of Napoleon the First and Napoleon the Third, from a very extraordinary and (we will, in the fullest assurance, add) the most unexpected point of view. The real beginning of these inexpressibly sublime arms (or this 'badge'), although in itself, and apart from its purpose, it is the most refined, but mysteriously grand, in the world, contradictory as it may seem, is also the most ignoble. It has been the crux of the antiquaries and of the heralds for centuries! We would rather be excused the mentioning of the peculiar item which has thus been held up to the highest honour (heraldically) throughout the world. It will be sufficient to say that mystically, in its theological Gnostic allusion, it is the grandest device and most stupendous hint that armory ever saw; and those who are qualified to apprehend our hidden meaning will perhaps read correctly and perceive our end by the time that they have terminated this strange section of our history of Rosicrucianism--for to it it refers particularly.

Scarabæi, Lucifera ('Light-bringers'), Luce, Fleur-de-Lis, Lily, Lucia, Lucy, Lux, Lu( + )x.

The Luce is the old-fashioned name for the 'pike' or jack--a fish famous for the profuse generation of a certain insect, as some fishermen know full well. This once (incredible as it may seem) formed an object of worship, for the sake of the inexpressibly sublime things which it symbolized. Although so mean in itself, and although so far off, this implied the beginning of all sublunary things.

The bees of Charlemagne, the bees of the Empire

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in France, are 'scarabs', or figures of the same affinity as the Bourbon 'lilies'. They deduce from a common ancestor. Now, the colour heraldic on which they are always emblazoned is azure, or blue--which is the colour of the sea, which is salt. In an anagram it may be expressed as 'C'. Following on this allusion, we may say that 'Ventre-saint-gris!' is a very ancient French barbarous expletive, or oath. Literally (which, in the occult sense, is always obscurely), it is the 'Sacred blue (or grey) womb'--which is absurd. Now, the reference and the meaning of this we will confidently commit to the penetration of those among our readers who can felicitously privately surmise it; and also the apparently circuitous deductions, which are yet to come, to be made by us.

Blue is the colour of the 'Virgin Maria'. Maria, Mary, mare, mar, mara, means the 'bitterness' or the 'saltness' of the sea. Blue is expressive of the Hellenic, Isidian, Ionian, Yonian (Yoni-Indian) Watery, Female, and Moonlike Principle in the universal theogony. It runs through all the mythologies.

The 'Lady-Bird' or 'Lady-Cow' (there is no resemblance between a bird and a cow, it may be remarked, en passant, except in this strangely occult, almost ridiculous, affinity), and the rustic rhyme among the children concerning it, may be here remembered:

Lady-Bird, Lady-Bird, fly away home!
Your House is on fire--your children at home!

[paragraph continues] Such may be heard in all parts of England when a lady-bird is seen by the children. Myths are inextricably embodied--like specks and straws and flies in amber--amidst the sayings and rhymes of the common people in all countries; and they are there preserved for very many generations, reappearing

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to recognition after the lapse sometimes of centuries. Now, how do we explain and re-render the above rude couplet? The 'Lady-Bird' is the 'Virgin Maria', Isis, the 'Mother and Producer of Nature'; the 'House' is the 'Ecliptic'--it is figuratively 'on fire', or 'of fire', in the path of the sun; and the 'children at home' are the 'months' produced in the house of the sun, or the solar year, or the 'signs of the Zodiac'--which were originally 'ten', and not twelve' ¹, each sign answering to one of the letters of the primeval alphabet, which were in number 'ten'. Thus, re-read, the lines run:

Lady-Bird, Lady-Bird (Columba, or Dove), fly away home!
Your House is of Fire--your children are Ten!

[paragraph continues] The name of the flying insect called in England 'Lady-Bird' is Bête-à-Dieu in French, which means 'God-creature' or 'God’s creature'. The Napoleonic green is the mythic, magic green of Venus. The Emerald is the Smaragdus, or Smaragd. The name of the insect Barnabee, Barnbee, 'Burning Fire-Fly', whose house is of fire, whose children are ten, is Red Chafer, Rother-Kaefer, Sonnen-Kaefer, Unser-Frauen Kohlein, in German; it is 'Sun-Chafer', 'Our Lady's Little Cow', Isis, or Io, or C--ow, in English. The children Tenne (Tin, or Tien, is fire in some languages) are the earliest 'Ten Signs' in the Zodiacal Heavens

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[paragraph continues] --each 'Sign' with its Ten Decans, or Decumens, or 'Leaders of Hosts'. They are also astronomically called 'Stalls', or 'Stables'. We may here refer to Porphyry, Horapollo, and Chifflet's Gnostic Gems. The Speckled Beetle was flung into hot water to avert storms (Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. xxxvii, ch. x). The antiquary Pignorius has a beetle 'crowned with the sun and encircled with the serpent'. Amongst the Gnostic illustrations published by Abraham Gorlæus is that of a talisman of the more abstruse Gnostics--an onyx carved with a 'beetle which threatens to gnaw at a thunderbolt'. See Notes and Queries: 'Bee Mythology'.

The 'Lilies' are said not to have appeared in the French arms until the time of Philip Augustus. See Montfauçon's Monumens de la Monarchie Française, Paris, 1729. Also Jean-Jacques Chifflet, Anastasis de Childeric, 1655. See also Notes and Queries, 1856, London, 2d Series, for some learned papers on the 'Fleur-de-lis'. In the early armorial bearings of the Frankish kings, the 'lilies' are represented as 'insects', seméed (seeded), or spotted, on the blue field. These are, in their origin, the scarabæi of the Orientals; they were dignified by the Egyptians as the emblems of the 'Enlightened'. If the reader examines carefully the sculpture in the British Museum representing the Mithraic Sacrifice of the Bull, with its mystic accompaniments (No. 14, Grand Central Saloon), he will perceive the scarabæus, or crab, playing a peculiar part in the particulars of the grand rite so strangely typified, and also so remotely. The motto placed under the 'lilies', which are the arms of France, runs as follows: 'Lilia non laborant, neque nent'. This is also (as all know) the legend, or motto, accompanying the royal order of knighthood denominated that of the 'Saint-Esprit' in France. We are immediately

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now recalled to those exceedingly obscure, but very significant, words of our Saviour, which have always seemed very erroneously interpreted, on account of their obvious contradictions: 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin' ¹. Now, in regard to this part of the text, what does the judicious speculator think of the following Rosicrucian gloss, or explanation? Lilia non laborant (like bees); neque nent, 'neither do they spin' (like spiders). Now of the 'lisses', as we shall elect to call, them. They toil not like 'bees' (scarabæi); neither do they spin like 'spiders' (arachnidæ).

To be wise is to be enlightened. Lux is the Logos by whom all things were made; and the Logos is Rasit--R.s.t.: ′ρ.′σ.′τ = 600; and Lux makes Lucis; then LX, ξ′ς = 666. Again, L = 50, ‏ו‎ v = 6, ‏ש‎ s = 300, ‏י‎ i = 10, ‏ש‎ s = 300 = 666.

The Fleur-de-lis is the Lotus (water-rose), the flower sacred to the Lux, or the Sul, or the Sun. The 'Auriflamme' (the flame of fire, or fire of gold) was the earliest standard of France. It was afterwards called Oriflamme. It was the sacred flag of France, and its colour was red--the heraldic, or 'Rosicrucian red, signifying gold. The three 'Lotuses', or 'Lisses', were the coat of arms--emblems of the Trimurti, the three persons of the triple generative power, or of the Sun, or 'Lux'. ‏שלה‎, sle, 'Shilo', is probably ‏שיל‎, sil =360, or χ = 600, λ = 50 = 10, ‏ו‎ = 6 = 666. This is Silo, or Selo. 'I have no doubt it was the invocation in the Psalms called "Selah", ‏שלה‎(‏ס‎)'.

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[paragraph continues] Thus asserts the learned and judicious Godfrey Higgins.

'The Holie Church of Rome herself doth compare the incomprehensible generation of the Sonne of God from His Father, together with His birth out of the pure and undefiled Virgine Marie, unto the Bees--which were in verie deede a great blasphemie, if the bees were not of so great valour and virtue' (value and dignity).--'Beehive of the Romish Church': Hone's Ancient Mysteries Described, p. 283.

In the second edition of Nineveh and its Palaces, by Bonomi (London, Ingram, 1853), p. 138, the headdress of the divinity Ilus is an egg-shaped cap terminating at the top in a fleur-de-lis; at p. 149, the Dagon of Scripture has the same; at p. 201, fig. 98, the same ornament appears; at p. 202, fig. 99, a bearded figure has the usual 'fleur-de-lis'. In the same page, the tiaras of two bearded figures are surmounted with fleurs-de-lis. At p. 322, fig. 211, the Assyrian helmet is surmounted with a fleur-de-lis; at p. 334, fig. 217, the head-dress of the figure in the Assyrian standard has a fleur-de-lis; at p. 340, fig. 245, the bronze resembles a fleur-de-lis; at p. 350, fig. 254, an Egyptian example of the god Nilus, as on the thrones of Pharaoh-Necho, exhibits the fleur-de-lis.

Vert, or green, and azure, or blue (feminine tinctures), are the colours on which respectively the golden 'bees', or the silver 'lisses', are emblazoned. The Egyptian Scarabæi are frequently cut in stone, generally in green-coloured basalt, or verdantique. Some have hieroglyphics on them, which are more rare; others are quite plain. In the tombs of Thebes, Belzoni found scarabæi with human heads. There is hardly any symbolical figure which recurs so often in Egyptian sculpture or painting as the scarabæus, or beetle, and perhaps scarcely any one which it is so

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difficult to explain. He is often represented with a ball between his forelegs, which some take for a symbol of the world, or the sun. He may be an emblem of fertility. The 'crab' on the Denderah Zodiac is by some supposed to be a 'beetle' (Egyptian Antiquities). It is for some of the preceding reasons that one of the mystic names of Lucifer, or the Devil, is the 'Lord of Flies', for which strange appellation all antiquaries, and other learned decipherers, have found it impossible to account.

Of the figure of the Fleur-de-Luce, Fleur-de-Lis, or Flower-de-Luce (Lus, Luz, Loose), the following may be remarked. On its sublime, abstract side, it is the symbol of the mighty self-producing, self-begetting Generative Power deified in many myths. We may make a question, in the lower sense, in this regard, of the word 'loose', namely, wanton, and the word 'Lech', or 'leche', and 'lecher', etc. Consider, also, in the solemn and terrible sense, the name Crom-Lech, or 'crown', or 'arched entry', or 'gate', of death. The Druidical stones were generally called cromlechs when placed in groups of two ¹, with a coping or capstone over, similarly to the form of the Greek letter pi (Π, π), which was imitated from that temple of stones which we call a cromlech:

Cromlechs were the altars of the Druids, and were so called from a Hebrew word signifying 'to bow'. There is a Druidic temple at Toulouse, in France, exhibiting many of these curious Druidical stones. There is a large, flat stone, ten feet long, six feet wide, one foot thick, at St. David’s, Pembrokeshire. It is called in Cymric 'Lêch Lagar, the speaking stone'. We may speculate upon the word 'Lich, Lych, Lech'

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in this connexion, and the terms 'Lich-gate', or 'Lech-gate', as also the name of 'Lich-field'. There is a porch or gateway, mostly at the entrance of old-fashioned churchyards, which is called the 'Lyke-Porch', or 'Litch-Porch'. Lüg, or Lük, is a word in the Danish signifying the same as Lyk in the Dutch, and Leiche, in the German. Thus comes the word 'Lich-gate'. Lich in the Anglo-Saxon means a 'dead body'. See Notes and Queries, vol. ii. p. 4. The 'Lich-gates' were as a sort of triumphal arches (Propylæa) placed before the church, as the outwork called the 'Propylon', or 'Propylæum', was advanced before the Egyptian and the Grecian temples. They are found, in the form of separate arches, before the gates even of Chinese cities, and they are there generally called 'triumphal arches'.

Propylæa is a name of Hecate, Dis, Chronos, or the Π, to which sinister deity the Propylon or Propylæum (as also, properly, the Lych-gate) is dedicated. Hence its ominous import, Pro, or 'before', the Pylon or passage. Every Egyptian temple has its Propylon. The Pyramid also in Nubia has one. We refer to the ground plans of the Temples of Denderah, Upper Egypt; the Temple of Luxor, Thebes; the Temple of Edfou, Upper Egypt; the Temple of Carnac (or Karnak), Thebes.

Colonel (afterwards General) Vallancey, in the fourth volume, p. 80, of his General Works, cited in the Celtic Druids, p. 223 (a valuable book by Godfrey Higgins), says: 'In Cornwall they call it' (i.e. the rocking-stone) 'the Logan-Stone.' Borlase, in his History of Cornish Antiquities, declares that he does not understand the meaning of this term Logan, as applied to the Druidical stones. 'Had Dr. Borlase been acquainted with the Irish MSS', significantly, adds Colonel Vallancey, 'he would have found that

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the Druidical oracular stone called Loghan, which yet retains its name in Cornwall, is the Irish Logh-oun, or stone into which the Druids pretended that the Logh, or divine essence, descended when they consulted it as an oracle.' Logh in Celtic is the same as Logos in the Greek'; both terms mean the Logos ('Word') or the Holy Ghost.

Sanchoniathon, the Phœnician, says that Ouranus contrived, in Bœtulia, 'stones that moved as having life'. Stukeley's Abury, p. 97, may be here referred to for further proofs of the mystic origin of these stones, and also the Celtic Druids of Godfrey Higgins, in contradiction to those who would infer that these 'poised stones' simply mark burial-places, or foolish conclusions of shallow and incompetent antiquaries.

The Basilidans were called by the orthodox Docetæ, or Illusionists. The Deity of the Gnostics was called 'Abraxas' in Latin, and 'Abrasax' in Greek. Their last state, or condition for rescued sensitive entities, as they termed souls, was the 'Pleroma', or 'Fullness of Light'. This agrees precisely with the doctrines of the Buddhists or Bhuddists. The regulating, presiding genius was the Pantheus. The Pythagorean record quoted by Porphyry (Vit. Pythag.) states that the 'numerals of Pythagoras were hieroglyphical symbols by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things'. That these symbols were ten in number, the ten original signs of the zodiac, and the ten letters of the primeval, alphabet, appears from Aristotle (Met. vii. 7). 'Some philosophers hold', he says, 'that ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to ten in all.' See The Gnostics and their Remains, p. 229.

But to return to the arms of France, which are the 'Fleurs-de-lis', and to the small representative creature (sublime enough, as the farthest-off symbol which

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they are imagined in their greatness to indicate). A Bible presented to Charles the Second, A.D. 869, has a miniature of this monarch and his court. His throne is terminated with three flowers of the form of 'fleurs-de-lis sans pied'. On his head is a crown 'fermée à fleurons d’or, relevez et recourbez d’une manière singulière'. Another miniature in the Book of Prayers shows him on a throne surmounted by a sort of 'fleurs-de-lis sans pied'. His crown is of 'fleurs comme de lis', and the robe is fastened with a rose, 'd’où sortent trois pistils en forme de fleurs-de-lis'. His sceptre terminates in a fleur-de-lis.--Notes and Queries.

Sylvanus Morgan, an old-fashioned herald abounding in suggestive disclosures, has the following: 'Sir William Wise having lent to the king, Henry VIII, his signet to seal a letter, who having powdered' (seméed, or spotted) 'eremites' (they were emmets--ants) 'engray’d in the seale, the king paused and lookit thereat, considering'. We may here query whether the field of the coat of arms of Sir William Wise was not 'ermine'; for several of the families of Wise bear this fur, and it is not unlikely that he did so also.

'"Why, how now, Wise!" quoth the king. "What! hast thou lice here?" "An’, if it like your majestie", quoth Sir William, "a louse is a rich coat;" for by giving the louse I part arms with the French king, in that he giveth the flour-de-lice." Whereat the king heartily laugh’d, to hear how prettily so byting a taunt (namely, proceeding froth a prince) was so suddenly turned to so pleasaunte a conceit.'--Stanihurst's History of Ireland, in Holinshed's Chron. Nares thinks that Shakespeare, who is known to have been a reader of Holinshed, took his conceit of the 'white lowses which do become an old coat well', in

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[paragraph continues] The Merry Wives of Windsor, from this anecdote. See Heraldic Anomalies, vol. i. p. 204; also Lower's Curiosities of Heraldry, p. 82 (1845). It may here be mentioned, that the mark signifying the royal property (as it is used in France), similarly to the token, or symbol, or 'brand', denoting the royal domain, the property, or the sign upon royal chattels (the 'broad arrow'), as used in England, is the 'Lis', or the 'Fleur-de-Lis'. The mark by which criminals are 'branded' in France is called the 'Lis--Fleur-de-lis'.

The English 'broad-arrow', the mark or sign of the royal property, is variously depicted, similarly to the following marks:

Click to enlarge
Figures 1-5

[paragraph continues] These are the Three Nails of the Passion. In figs. 1 and 2 they are unmistakably so, with the points downwards. Figs. 3 and 4 have the significant horizontal mark which, in the first centuries of Christianity, stood for the Second (with feminine meanings) Person of the Trinity; but the points of the spikes (spicæ, or thorns) are gathered upwards in the centre. In fig. 5 there are still the three nails; but a suggestive similarity to be 'remarked in this figure is a disposition resembling the crux-ansata--an incessant symbol, always reappearing in Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphics. There is also a likeness to the mysterious letter 'Tau'. The whole first chapter of Genesis is' said to be contained in this latter-emblem--this magnificent, all-including 'Tau'.

Three bent spikes, or nails, are unmistakably the

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Click to enlarge
Figures 6, 7

same symbol that Belus often holds in his extended hand on the Babylonian cylinders, afterwards discovered by the Jewish cabalists in the points of the letter 'Shin', and by the mediæval mystics in the 'Three Nails of the Cross'.--The Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Mediæval, p. 208.

This figure, which is clearly a nail, has also characteristics, which will use remarked in its upper portion, which suggest a likeness to the obelisk, pin, spike, upright or phallus.

The Hebrew letter 'Shin', or 'Sin', counts for 300 in the Hebraic numeration. Each spica, or spike, may be taken to signify 100, or ten tens. We have strong hints here of the origin of the decimal system, which reigns through the universal laws of computation as a natural substratum, basis, or principle. This powerful symbol, also, is full of secret important meanings. It will be remarked as the symbol or figure assigned in the formal zodiacs of all countries, whether original zodiacs, or whether produced in figure-imitations by recognizing tradition. The marks or symbols of the zodiacal signs, 'Virgo-Scorpio', are closely similar to each other, with certain differences, which we recommend to the judicious consideration of close and experienced observers.

Fig. 8 is the symbol, or hook, of Saturn, the colour

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Click to enlarge
Fig. 8, 9
The Templar Banner: the famous 'Beauséant'

of whom, in the heraldic configuration, is sab., sable, or black, divided, party per pale, with the opening light of the first crescent moon of the post-diluvian world ¹. Fig. 9 is the same grandly mystic banner, denominated Beauséant ('Beau-Séant'), revealing a whole occult theosophy to the initiate, which the leaders of the Templars undoubtedly were. The difference between these two figures, fig. 8 and fig. 9, is, that the 'fly' of the ensign marked fig. 9 is bifurcated (or cloven) in the 'lighted' part.

We subjoin the representation of the wondrous banner of the 'Poor soldiers of the Temple as depicted abundantly 'on the spandrels of the arches of the  Temple Church, London.

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Von Hammer's Mystery of Baphomet Revealed contains much suggestive matter relative to these mysterious

Click to enlarge
Figs. 10 and 11

supposed dreadful Templars. The Parisian 'Templiers' assert that there is a connexion between the recent Niskhi letter and the 'Cufic' characters, and that the origin of the secrets of the order of the Temple is contemporary with the prevalence of the latter alphabet. We here refer to the work entitled Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum; seu, Fratres Militiæ Templi, qua Gnostici et quidem Ophiani, apostasiæ, idololatriæ, et quidem impuritatis convicti per ipsa eorum monumenta, published in the Mines’ de l’Orient, vol. vi. This treatise is illustrated with numerous admirably executed copper-plates of magical statuettes, architectural ornaments, mystical inscriptions, vases, and coins. Amidst these there is a bearded, yet female, figure, 'Mete' (magna, or maxima), whom Von Hammer, following Theodosius and others, makes the same as the 'Sophia' of the Ophites. Some particulars to these subjects are contained in The Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Mediæval; although there is an evident betraying of total ignorance on the part of the author, throughout his book, as to the purpose, meaning, and reality of the, whole of these remote and mysterious subjects to which he is, however, blindly constantly referring, without the merit of even feeling his way. It is well

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known that the preservation of Gnostic symbols by Freemasons was, and remains so to this day, exceedingly sedulous.

We will terminate this part of our long dissertation, which commenced with the explanation of the descent, or the genealogy, or the generation of the famous 'fleurs-de-lis' of France--the noblest and sublimest symbol, in its occult or mysterious meaning, which the 'monarch sun' ever saw displayed to it, inexpressibly mean and repellant as the 'Lis' seems: we will finish, we say, thus far, by commenting in a very original and unexpected, but strictly corroborative, manner upon some words of Shakespeare which have hitherto been passed wholly without remark or explanation.

We may premise by recalling that the luce is a pike (pic), or Jack: Jac, Iacc (B and I are complementary in this mythic sense), Bacc, Bacche, Bacchus. Shakespeare's well-known lampoon, or satirical ballad, upon the name of 'Lucy' may be cited as illustrative proof on this side of the subject:

Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it.

[paragraph continues] The Zodiacal sign for February is the 'fishes'. Now, the observances of St. Valentine's Day, which point to courtship and to sexual love, or to loving invitation, bear direct reference to the 'fishes', in a certain sense. The arms of the Lucys--as they are at present to be seen, and where we not long since saw them, beautifully restored upon the great entrance-gates of Charlecote Hall, or Place, near Stratford-upon-Avon--are 'three luces or pikes, hauriant, argent'.

'The dozen white luces' are observed upon with intense family pride by Shallow (Lucy), in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

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‘Shallow. It is an old coat.

‘Evans. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well’. The significant part of the passage follows to this effect, though deeply hidden in the sly art of our knowing, but reticent, Shakespeare: 'I agrees well passant' (we would here read passim, 'everywhere', which makes clear sense). 'It is a familiar beast to Man, and signifies--love' (the generative act).--Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 1.

We commend the above history of the 'Fleur-de-Lis' to the thoughtful attention of our reader, because he will find under it the whole explanation of the arms of France. And yet, although the above is all-essentially 'feminine', this is the country that imported amidst its Frankish or Saxon progenitors (Clodio, the 'long-haired', to the example, who first passed the Rhine and brought his female 'ultramarine' to supersede and replace, in blazon, the martial, manly 'carmine' or 'gules' of the Gauls)--this is the country that adopted and maintains 'la Loi Salique'.

Footnotes

49:1

Lady-Cow, Lady-Cow,
  Fly away home!
Thy house is on fire,
  Thy Children are flown.

All but a Little One
  Under a 'Stone':
Fly thee home, Lady-Cow,
  Ere it be gone.

The 'Lady-Bird', or 'Cow', is the Virgin Mary, the 'Little One' under the 'Stone', or the 'Mystic Human Possibility', is the 'Infant Saviour' born in the mysterious 'Month of the Propitiation', or the mystical Astrological and Astronomical 'Escaped Month' of the Zodiac; and the 'Stone' is the 'Philosopher's Stone'.

51:1 The full quotation is the following: 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon' (here steps in some of the lore of the Masonic order) 'in all his glory was not arrayed' (or exalted, or dignified, as it is more correctly rendered out of the original) 'like one of these' (St. Matt. vi. 28).

53:1 The whole forming a 'capital', 'chapter', 'chapitre', 'chapel', cancel', or 'chancel'--hence our word, and the sublime judicial office of 'Chancellor', and 'Chancery'.

59:1 The Shining Star as the Harbinger in the Moon's Embrace. Meaning the Divine Post-diluvian Remission and Reconciliation. Thus the sublime Mahometan mythic device or cognisance--the Crescent of the New Moon (lying on her back), and the Shining Star in this display: