(^562) MANDAEAN LITERATURE
SONGS FROM THE
MANDAEAN LITURGY
1
Song of the Poor Man
A POOR MAN TAKEN FAR
I am a poor man from the fruit.
They took me from far away. I am far.
I am a poor man whom life spoke to.
I am far. The light beings took me away.
They carried me here from the good
to where the wicked live.
They installed me in the world of the wicked
where all is malice and fire.
I didn't ask for it. I didn't want to come
to this awful place.
By my strength and light I suffer through
this misery. By illumination and praise.
I remain a stranger in their world.
I stand among the wicked like a child without a father.
Like a fatherless child, an untended fruit.
I hear the voice of the seven planets.
They whisper. They say among themselves,
"Where does this alien come from?
He doesn't speak like us."
I didn't listen to their speech raging against me.
THE KINDLY LIGHT BEING
Life heard my cry and sent an angel,
a kindly light being who was prepared for me.
i. Songs from the Mandaean Liturgy; translated by Kurt Rudolph, ("Mandaean Sources" in
Foerster, ed., Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts, vol. 2, pp. 121-319); revised in verse by Willis
Barnstone.
elliott
(Elliott)
#1