LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 227I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am bride and groom,
and my husband produced me.
I am the mother of my father
and sister of my husband,
and he is my offspring.
I am a slave of him who prepared me
and ruler of my offspring.
He produced me earlier yet on my birthday.
He is my offspring to come,
and from him is my power.
I am the staff of his power in his youth
and he the rod of my old age,
and whatever he wants happens to me.^5
I am a silence incomprehensible
and an idea remembered often.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.
Why do you who hate me love me
and hate those who love me?
You who deny me confess me,
and you who confess me deny me.
You who tell the truth about me lie about me,
and you who lie tell the truth.
You who know me,
be ignorant of me, and those who have not known me,
let them know me.
I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and fearlessness.
I am shameless and ashamed.
I am strength and fear.
I am war and peace.
Hear what I say.
I am the disgraced and the grand being.
- These paradoxical lines are paralleled in On the Origin of the World.