From the book
The Sophic Hydrolith, Water Stone of the Wise
Anonymous and companion authors · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe 'middle' or 'mediating word' belongs to a riddle, not to an independently identified ingredient.
- In the Sophic HydrolithPart II: matter and the work · unit 6 begins with a good divided into three yet remaining one.
- In this editionThe edition's note 43 acknowledges both 'middle' and 'mediating' as possible English access senses and explicitly avoids an invented ingredient.
- A place to readRecognition together with the middle or mediating word brings riches here and there.
Meaning
The 'middle' or 'mediating word' belongs to a riddle, not to an independently identified ingredient. Its compound can indicate something intermediate or mediating, but the local text does not expand it into a named substance, a password or a complete doctrinal formula. The English 'mediating word' makes one aspect of that relation audible while leaving the riddle unresolved.
Recognition and possession are paired in the poem's ending: the person who knows the thing and has the word can become rich 'here and there'. A lexicon should preserve that pairing rather than substitute material ownership alone. The poem's knowledge is not exhausted by seeing or handling what lies nearby.
Use in the book
Part II: matter and the work · unit 6 begins with a good divided into three yet remaining one. It then emphasizes the world's failure of valuation: the thing is before people's eyes and often at hand, but blindness keeps them from knowing it. Some even walk over what the poem calls the earth's greatest treasure. The mediating word appears only after this contrast between availability and understanding has been established.
The ending does not give a procedure for obtaining the word. It presents right knowledge as the decisive reversal of misrecognition and contempt. The richness promised 'here and there' leaves room for the work's material and spiritual registers without explicitly labelling each adverb. To declare confidently that one means gold and the other heaven would make the editor's inference look like a source definition.
The word's usefulness to the reader is therefore hermeneutic: it points to the unresolved means of understanding or access within the poem. Its place at the close concentrates the riddle's movement from three-in-one, through apparent insignificance, to concealed worth. The text offers this relation, not a recoverable formula that can safely be supplied from another passage.
Places to read
- Part II: matter and the work · unit 6Recognition together with the middle or mediating word brings riches here and there.
Translation
The edition's note 43 acknowledges both 'middle' and 'mediating' as possible English access senses and explicitly avoids an invented ingredient. That caution agrees with the complete aligned poem, which never names the word's referent. The phrase 'here and there' is likewise retained rather than silently expanded. The present family label uses the historical phrase itself to keep the unresolved expression retrievable.
Attested forms
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