The ascent begins — the self given back, part by part
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Εὖ με πάντα, ἔφην, ὡς ἐβουλόμην, ἐδίδαξας, ὦ νοῦς. ἔτι δέ μοι εἰπὲ περὶ τῆς ἀνόδου τῆς γινομένης. Πρὸς ταῦτα ὁ Ποιμάνδρης εἷπε, Πρῶτον μὲν ἐν τῇ ἀναλύσει τοῦ σώματος τοῦ ὑλικοῦ παραδίδωσιν αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα εἰς ἀλλοίωσιν, καὶ τὸ εἶδος ὃ εἶχες, ἀφανὲς γίνεται. καὶ τὸ ἦθος τῷ δαίμονι ἀνενέργητον παραδίδωσι, καὶ αἱ αἰσθήσεις τοῦ σώματος εἰς τὰς ἑαυτῶν πηγὰς ἐπανέρχονται μέρη γινόμεναι, καὶ πάλιν συνιστάμεναι εἰς τὰς ἐνεργείας. καὶ ὁ θυμὸς καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία εἰς τὴν ἄλογον φύσιν χωρεῖ.
You have taught me all well, as I wished, O Nous. But tell me still about the ascent that comes to be. To this Poimandres said: First, in the dissolution of the material body, one hands over the body itself to alteration, and the form you had becomes invisible; and the character, now inactive, is handed over to the daimon; and the senses of the body return into their own springs, becoming parts, and combining again into the energies. And the spirited part and desire go into the irrational nature.
Hermes asks about 'the ascent that comes to be' — the soul's return journey. Poimandres describes death as disassembly: the material body is given up to alteration, the form becomes invisible, the character is handed inactive to the daimon, the bodily senses go back to their own springs and recombine into the energies, and the spirited part and desire pass into the irrational nature. The climb through the spheres (I.25) follows.
Hermes turns to the question the whole book has been climbing toward — the ἄνοδος, the ascent. And Poimandres describes dying as a disassembly, the descent of I.14-17 run in reverse. Each borrowed thing is given back: the material body to alteration and decay, the visible form to invisibility, the settled character (ἦθος) — now 'inactive' — to the daimon; the senses drain back into their own springs; and the two lower parts of the soul, the spirited (θυμός) and the appetitive (ἐπιθυμία), dissolve into the irrational nature they came from.
The undercurrent is that death, for the Hermetist, is subtraction. What ascends is not carried up whole; it is what remains after everything on loan has been returned to its source. The interlinear can show the vocabulary of return — springs (πηγαί), giving-back (παραδίδωσι), going-home — so the reader feels that the climb through the spheres to come (I.25) is less a journey taken than a shedding, the self undressing layer by layer until only what is truly its own is left to rise.
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Corpus Hermeticum CH1.24 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/hermetica/CH1.24/