The third flame of the Seventeenth Call carries a sharper English image than the Sixteenth: thornlike wings, vexation, and thousands of living lamps precede a plea to hear.
- Number
- Seventeenth of the numbered Calls
- 1912 text
- The Equinox I:8, p. 123
- 1912 assignment
- Water of Fire
A flame preceded by living lamps
The printed English Seventeenth addresses a third flame. Its wings are likened to thorns that stir vexation, while 7,336 living lamps precede it. A divine title associates it with wrath and anger, and the address asks it to ready itself and listen. The text is noticeably terse. It does not describe the spacious justice house or many-footed walk of the Sixteenth, nor the light and truth imagery of the Eighteenth.
Because the sequence uses first, second, and third flame language, it is tempting to treat these pages as repetitions of one formula with new numbers. The Seventeenth’s thorned wings and forward-moving lamps are its own combination. The shared request to appear and reveal belongs to the broader style of the numbered Keys, but it is not the whole meaning of this entry. The number is documented as printed imagery, not a practical count or evidence of a literal procession.
Water inside a Fire-tablet grouping
The 1912 bracket places the Seventeenth in the Water angle of the Fire tablet. Air of Fire is printed after the Sixteenth, and Earth of Fire will follow the Eighteenth; Fire of Fire was placed with the Sixth. Together these four labels form the later Fire-tablet row. Water of Fire may seem unexpected after the repeated word “flame,” but the source explicitly uses a two-level assignment rather than assigning one elemental word to every noun.
The caption beneath the bracket gives a throne title associated with flames. This is part of the printed ceremonial apparatus, while thorned wings, lamps, and the appeal to listen belong to the English rendering. The table is useful for locating the Call among sixteen elemental positions, but it cannot prove that Dee wrote a Water of Fire label in his 1584 manuscript. The 1584 manuscript and the later printed table are separate historical witnesses.
A complete Key on page 123
The original 1912 issue puts the Seventeenth’s Angelical paragraph, English rendering, and Water of Fire bracket on printed page 123. It appears after the conclusion of the Sixteenth and before the Angelical start of the Eighteenth. This compact layout is an advantage for checking a claim about the number or assignment, provided the reader follows the headings and does not attach the next Call’s description to the wrong bracket.
The British Library identifies the earlier forty-eight Keys as a group in Sloane MS 3191 at folios 1r–13r, received across spring and summer 1584. Its catalogue summary is a manuscript locator, not a transcription of the Seventeenth or a list of its later angle assignments. The English motifs and elemental relation in this guide therefore point to the printed 1912 page; the manuscript and critical editions may preserve different Angelical variants.
Sources and witness notes
- British Library, Sloane MS 3191 catalogue ↗Autograph volume, forty-eight Keys at folios 1r–13r, dated 13 April–13 July 1584.
- The Equinox, volume I, number 8 (1912), The Forty-Eight Calls or Keys ↗Original-issue article on printed pages 99–127; the Calls begin on page 103 and the Aethyr Call ends on page 127. Its English renderings and later elemental assignments supply the summary table.
- 100th Monkey Press, The Equinox I:8 original-issue scan and bibliography ↗Bibliographic record links a scan of the original September 1912 issue. Calls 1–18 span printed pages 103–124; the Aethyr Call spans 125–127. These printed numbers differ from PDF page indexes.
- Christopher L. Whitby, John Dee’s Actions with Spirits, vol. 1 ↗Scholarly analysis of the manuscript books, Calls, thirty Aethyrs, and ninety-one earthly parts.