Threefold is the Nature of Love, Eagle, Serpent, and Scorpion. And of these the Scorpion is he that, having no Lion of Light and of Courage within him, seemeth to himself encircled by Fire, and, driving his Sting into himself, he dieth. Such are the Black Brothers, that cry: I am I; they that deny Love, restricting it to their own Nature. But the Serpent is the secret Nature of Man, that is Life and Death, and maketh his Way through the Generations in Silence. And the Eagle is that Might of Love which is the Key of Magick, uplifting the Body and its Appurtenance unto high Ecstasy upon his Wings. It is by Virtue thereof that the Sphinx beholdeth the Sun unwinking, and confronteth the Pyramid without Shame. Our Dragon, therefore, combining the Natures of the Eagle and the Serpent, is our Love, the Organon of our Will, by whose Virtue we perform the Work and Miracle of the One Substance, as saith thine Ancestor Hermes Trismegistus, in his Tablet of Smaragda. And this Dragon is called thy Silence, because in the Hour of his Operation that within thee which saith "I" is abolished in its Conjunction with the Beloved. For this Cause also is its Letter Nun, which in our Rota is the Trump Death; and Nun hath the value of Fifty, the Number of the Gates of Understanding.
