Cantus Circaeus
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Cantus Circaeus (1582, The Incantation of Circe) is a text by Giordano Bruno. Ouroboros Press published the first English translation, rendered from the original Latin by Darius Klein.
- [it] was the fourth work on memory and the association of ideas by him to be published in 1582. It contains a series of poetic dialogues, in the first of which, after a long series of incantations to the seven planets of the Hermetic tradition, most humans appear changed into different creatures in the scrying bowl. The sorceress Circe is then asked by her handmaiden Moeris about the type of behaviour with which each is associated. According to Circe, for instance, fireflies ‘are the learned, wise, and illustrious amidst idiots, asses, and obscure men’ (Question 32). In later sections different characters discuss the use of images in the imagination in order to facilitate use of the art of memory, which is the real aim of the work.
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