Alicerçando Palavras # 11- Da tabuinha órfica de Petelia (British Museum)

Petelia tablet, from the 4th-3rd Century BCE, which was found in excavations of a tomb near Petelia in southern Italy, and is now in the British Museum. It was written in Greek on a sheet of thin gold, rolled up and placed in a hexagonal cylinder on a delicate gold chain, and worn as an amulet by the deceased, to give protection and direction in the underworld.


Thou shalt find on the left of the House of Hades a Well-spring,
And by the side thereof standing a white cypress.
To this well-spring approach not near.
But thou shalt find another by the Lake of Memory,
Cold water flowing forth, and there are Guardians before it.
Say: "I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven (alone). This ye know yourselves.
And lo, I am parched with thirst and I perish. Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory."
And of themselves they will give thee to drink from the holy well-spring,
And thereafter among the other heroes thou shalt have lordship....