The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, short version.

       Originally published in German in 1616. This edition derives from an English translation published in
    1690. No part of this document is copyrighted or copyrightable in any domain.

    Adobe Acrobat edition prepared by Benjamin Rowe, October, 2000. Typeset in Bembo.

    Page 9

   “ By us the Bridegroom offers you a choice between four ways, all of which, if you do not sink
    down in the way, can bring you to his royal court.

   1.  The first is short but dangerous, and one which will lead you into rocky places, through
    which it will scarcely be possible to pass.

   2.  The second is longer, and takes you circuitously; it is plain and easy, if by the help of
    the Magnet you turn neither to left nor right.

   3.  The third is that truly royal way which through various pleasures and pageants of our King,
  affords you a joyful journey; but this so far has scarcely been allotted to one in a thousand.

   4.  By the fourth no man shall reach the place, because it is a consuming way, practicable only
  for incorruptible bodies. Choose now which one you will of the three, and persevere constantly
  therein, for know whichever you will enter, that is the one destined for you by immutable Fate,
  nor can you go back in it save at great peril to life.

  These are the things which we would have you know. But, ho, beware! you know not with how much danger
  you commit yourself to this way, for if you know yourself to be obnoxious by the smallest fault to the
  laws of our King, I beseech you, while it is still possible, to return swiftly to your house by the way you
  came. ”

  As soon as I read this writing all my joy nearly vanished again, and I who before sang merrily, began now
  inwardly to lament. For although I saw all the three ways before me, and understood that henceforward it
  was vouchsafed to me to choose one of them, yet it troubled me that if I went the stony and rocky way, I
  might get a miserable and deadly fall, or if I took the long one, I might wander out of it through byways,
  or be in other ways detained in the great journey. Neither could I hope that I amongst thousands should be
  the very one who should choose the royal way. I saw like-wise the fourth before me, but it was so environed
  with fire and exaltations, that I did not dare draw near it by much, and therefore again and again considered
  whether I should turn back, or take any of the ways before me. I considered well my own unworthiness, but
  the dream still comforted me that I was delivered out of the tower; and yet I did not dare confidently rely
  upon a dream; whereupon I was so perplexed in various ways, that very great weariness, hunger and
  thirst seized me.

Originally published in German in 1616. This edition derives from an English translation published in
  1690. No part of this document is copyrighted or copyrightable in any domain.

Full content of The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, 88 pages.

Reposted under: U.S. Fair Use and Canadian Fair Dealing 29.1 and 29.2