Worst Kept Secrets

..and we’re back.

[Recap: Moved back to America got married got a dog loved my job got extremely into web design finished a semester of grad school dog got savagely mauled by another dog then got better learned a lot of Spanish got a new job signed up for Chinese classes with tuition discount from said new job had one year anniversary currently adore my spouse my house my pets currently abhor August ants cat-victim-mice]

I’m working in cataloging now in an assistant position. I mostly work on theses and dissertations, but I’m also handling the weird miscellanea floating around that no one else has time for. For example, right now I’m dealing with a free electronic version of the absolutely charmingly titled Secretum Secretorum (Secret of Secrets). Here’s the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article:

Secretum secretorum is a medieval treatise also known as Secret of Secrets, or The Book of the Secret of Secrets, or in Arabic Kitab sirr al-asrar, or the Book of the science of government: on the good ordering of statecraft. It is a mid-12th century Latin translation of a 10th century Arabic encyclopedic treatise on a wide range of topics, including statecraft, ethics, physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, magic and medicine. It was influential in Europe during the High Middle Ages.  (link)

YES for medieval magical treatises first thing in the morning! For heavens’ sake, the selected image on the Wikipedia page is a chart that’ll tell you whether or not a person is about to die based on the numerology of his/her name!

Of course, this narrative would be a lot stronger if I’d been cleaning out my desk, or maybe shuffling around some cabinet looking for the paperwork from the December 1995 dissertation ProQuest shipment when I happened upon a crumbling manuscript lost to time and OCLC. I would have found myself strangely drawn to it, and taken it home and painstakingly translated it in total secrecy late at night, and then either descended into the depths of Lovecraftian insanity or developed awesome magical powers that resulted in wacky adventures with heartwarming conclusions and probably involving imperiled baby otters and flying. Or I could have become the 2010 version of Alexander the Great with my newfound knowledge of magical statecraft (more thematically relevant to the source material).

As it is, though, it’s online for free if you would prefer gold bars to paperclips or need to palpate someone’s noggin to assess whether or not he/she is a real team player or just saying that because it’s a job interview and it’s what you say.

Presenting… Secretum Secretorum!

[also, can you just humor me and pretend this isn't something plenty of people are already aware of and most Medieval lit students study, complete with a Wikipedia article and several scanned versions freely available online? Come on, it's ALCHEMY.]