Carl Jung Mercurius

[thedarkeidolon]

Hello!

I am new to this forum, so please let me know if there is anything I need to better elaborate on.
I am a stone carver needing a translation for a commission I am currently making. The phrase comes from Jung's Psychology and Alchemy (1944):

"As dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again the lapis."

Here is the full quote for your reference, he is referring to Mercury:
Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Michael Zwingli]

Hi, @thedarkeidolon, welcome. I cannot even attempt this kind of translation. If you will wait until the morning (I am assuming that you are in the Americas), you may get an answer from Pacifica, who is the best translator to Latin that I've seen, on this. It is in the early morning hours where she is. A fellow named Bitmap might also provide a good translation, as he is very competent in Latin and speaks German, and so might be able to translate to Latin from Jung's original text, but he is in Europe as well.

 

[thedarkeidolon]

@Michael Zwingli Thank you so much for the warm welcome and response! That being said, I am in no rush and highly appreciative of any help or interpretation.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

I'll do the lot.

Mercurius adstat initio finique operis; is prima materia, caput corvi, nigredo est; is draco sese vorat, dracoque moritur dum (modo) oriatur in lapide.

Temporal significance is inherent in the particle dum, so that the subtext would be: 'as dragon [he] dies, if only to arise (at a later time) in the lapis.'
If you don't like that, you may supply the word ut in its place for general use of aim or purpose.

Edit: the word is could easily be misconstrued as purely a (demonstrative) adjective, as in 'this dragon'. To avoid this possibility, you may prefer: is sese vorat draco, which is something like 'He devours himself, (being) a dragon.'

 

[Michael Zwingli]

I'll do the lot...

Your usual thorough approach.

 

[Michael Zwingli]

I have a long and abiding interest in psychology, and have read many of Jung's writings, including the instant work. Jung's work in general subsumes much of the work of the other great psychological theorists: Freud, Adler and Frankl; his theory of archetypes draws together and unifies their individual work on prime motives into a whole. I view Carl Jung as having been a magnificent brain with something of a body attached. Psychology and Alchemy, as its name suggests, is a study of the historical phenomenon af alchemy and what it tells us about the nature of the human mind. It is, in a word, phenomenal, but difficult reading...this is academic psychology, not popular psychology. Jung was so widely read and interdisciplinary in his approach, that this work seems as if Freud, Adler, and Frankl, along with Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade, all collaborated together on the subject. Because of my fondness for Jung's work, I would be interested to see if anyone on here can translate this passage from the original German text. Ultimately, a translation of a translation tends toward inferiority as compared with a translation from the original, a fact of which Biblical scolars, among others, will be acutely aware.