ALCHEMY OF THE SONG OF SONGS OF SOLOMON

By Jean Vauquelin from Yveteaux
Norman alchemist (1651-1716)


1.2 That he kisses me with kisses from his mouth. Your loves are more delicious than wine;

This term which signifies Kiss, is expressed in the plural in the Hebrew, which indicates kisses repeated and without number, so that this bride can say as it is said in Psalm 119v; 131. I opened my mouth and drew the spirit into me, so that we were one.

It therefore takes a quantity of volatile spirit in proportion to the fixed spouse, and that it gives more than one kiss, so that the body becomes one with it, and is spiritualized by these kisses which unite them.

The fixed is therefore this virgin bride who asks for the pure kiss, which she wants to receive from the volatile all spirits that heaven sends her.

They are all two substances of the same root, brother and sister, husband and wife, children of the nature which produces them, raw water and boiled water which derive their origin from water.

But it does not belong to a defiled wife to receive the kiss from the mouth of such a pure husband; beforehand, she must be cleansed and purged of her hand, and disposed to receive this kiss by a state which renders her free from stain, finds in a mortification and annihilation of herself, that by the dryness and deprivation of all other adhering thing there is only her unique and ardent craving which can attract to her the refreshment after which she sighs, to quench her thirst with a water so spiritual and heavenly.

The object of his desire being uniquely spiritual, for union entirely spiritual, it cannot result from it and be produced in nature, no more in proportion than from the kiss of grace, than a beneficent light and anointing. For this kiss gives spirit and life, by spiritualizing matter in the natural work, and by deifying, so to speak, the soul in the spiritual work of salvation by the union of the soul with God through Jesus Christ, likewise that the elementary body is made celestial and spiritual by the vehicle of light, that agent of the Lord by which it perfects all kinds of matter.

The Hebrew word for love means breasts, metaphorically. And this husband's milk which the wife desires and with which she is ready to get drunk, is called virgin's milk by naturalist philosophers.

It is said to be better than wine, for if wine has its sweetness, and rejoices the heart of man, these pleasures are not lasting, nor so advantageous as that which the milk of wisdom procures, of which she nourishes and strengthens her children, who are those of the Magi. He is the vehicle of this precious and celestial beauty, the smell of which enchants and lifts his charming wife towards him.

This is why in physical sublimation the body is volatilized after its purification and its separation from consumable superfluities.

This separation of superfluous combustibles is made by calcination in the furnace of the test, the heat of which spares only the incombustible, after which this true incombustible appeals to the celestial husband of his nature, and demands the kisses that he she savors like a milk more delicious than wine.


1.3 the aroma of your perfumes is exquisite; your name is an oil that pours out, that's why young girls love you.

The effusion of this beauty is penetrating, and the disposition that the wife (although soiled and disfigured in appearance) has to be perfumed by it, is another perfume that she possesses, and which was given to her by the omnipotence of the father, from whom she takes, and who gave birth to him in her. It is what she spreads like fisting the Madelene at the feet of the husband or on his head, and what makes her run after that of the husband, of which she is herself in this the magnet, and the object of his tenderness.

It asks to be trained, and indeed it is, because the body without the spirit cannot be elevated, and Saint Paul did not say: “Who will deliver me from this body of death? » and David, psalm 141, exclaims : « Bring my soul out of its prison ». It is said in St. John, "without me you can do nothing," and philosophers of a more rampant stille say that the hen needs the cock, and that the crud spirit extracts the digestible spirit, not only in dissolution ; but the spirit exalts and sublimates the body, the volatile fixes it and raises it to its perfection "ut fiat filius philosophorum."

These young girls, these companions of the bride, of this virgin, are the other less perfect parts of the same subject which accompany it.

One could hear it from minerals, vegetables and animals, which, following its example, run to the scent of the perfumes of this universal husband. But this wife alone asks to be trained, whatever violence she seems to receive; and although this husband faces her, whether by embracing her, burning her and tormenting her, she does not want him to leave her alone, she needs the hand of the husband to go to him, so that it raises it to a state of purity.

Here we can apply the magnet of the philosophers and their steel, for they mean by that nothing else than this husband and this wife. This is why it says in the following verse:

1.4 Follow me in your footsteps, let's run! The King has introduced me into his apartments; you will be our joy and joy. We will celebrate your loves more than wine; how right we are to love you!

The wife asks to be introduced into the cellar, reservoir of the most delicious wine, so that she can taste the best, and that she can get drunk with it at her ease. This best is the husband himself, to the exclusion of any other. It is the husband's milk, the price and reward of the ardent love that the wife has for him, she whose heart is upright and elevated towards him, who comes from above and raises him there.

1.5 I am black and yet beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the pavilions of Salmah.

The philosophers call black all that is not luminous and which hides the light it contains, and the wife addresses herself to the daughters of Jerusalem to make them pay this attention.

Jerusalem was founded by Melchizedec, but the celestial Jerusalem was founded by the high priest, whom the Scripture says is according to his order. Jebus is the name that this city bore before that of Salem, from which came the name of Jebuseen, which Saint Jeross says could not have been driven out by the Jews. It is the promised land that must be conquered.

This Jerusalem therefore indicates both the celeste and the sruceleste, where all must be beatified, situated on the mountains with its temple full of the majesty of God: a place chosen by the Lord, so that his name may be there forever.

One does not ascend to this high place if one is not deprived of ignorance and sins, indicated by the blind and the lame who will not enter it.

Pay attention therefore to the three temples of the Lord, of which the Jews boasted of being in possession in Jerusalem, when it is said in Jeremiah: "Templum domini templum domini, templum domini est" This temple of Jerusalem was built on the model of the of the ark and of the tabernacle, images of that which is not made with the hand of man, of which the apostle speaks by saying: “Tabernaculum non manufactum et c. “Temples where the glory of God is visibly manifested and from which is drawn his virtue which he has deposited there. Because he is the author of nature as well as of grace.

The tents of Kedar are those of the Arabs, black on the outside and woven with the hair of dead goats, burnt and scorched by the sun, exposed to the ravages of time. However, their princes lodge in them, and they love to dwell there. The husband also loves his wife's dwelling as much as if it were as superb and dazzling as the finery and ornament itself.

This wife is black with the elemental and worldly smoke, blamed for the residence she makes there, and by her own misery with which she is enveloped. But she becomes beautiful and purified by the spirit of her husband.

Aaron and his sister Mary muttered that Moses (who seemed so reasoning with light) had taken an Ethiopian woman for his wife.

The queen of Sheba came to see and returned all illuminated with the glory of Solomon. These are the highest praises that can be given to a wife who derives all her luster from her husband, who by her union and frequent visits whitens and illuminates the virgin earth which before was under a dirty, deformed, dark and so blackened with the smoke and the action of the fire which had prepared it.

Fire is the sun of the philosopher, vicar of the celestial, whose exterior excitation does not fail to ignite and animate the interior fire of matter, which is here regarded as the blackened spouse in whose sun it has been laid bare. in its greatest ardour.

1.6 Don't mind my swarthy complexion: it was the sun that burned me. My mother's sons got angry with me, they put me to watch the vines. My own vine, I hadn't kept it!

It is the subject of art or the second matter of philosophers exposed to the ardor of the sun from its youth, because in its origin and in its unmixed purity it was not black. But having been embodied, she was burned by the sun. Because the seed fallen among the stones of which it is spoken in the Gospel was burned and calcined by the sun, which prevented it from bearing fruit for lack of humidity.

Her enemies have established her to keep their vines (for she can call enemies those who do not employ her for the use where wisdom has destined her): she has not kept her vine, the fruit of the earthly paradise, which accuses of this has not come to maturity, that is to say, to its perfection. The fire or sun which is its principle is the power of the father, who delivered his own son to the persecutors. This sun has darkened the bride in the different and specified matters, and in the less determined she appears black in the presence of her sun whose splendor eclipses her luminosity.

The vineyard is the place where the vine grows. The world is the vineyard, of which we are the oaths of this vine through the trunk of which we must bear fruit, remaining attached to it. Noah, little experienced in the use of the wine that this vine produces, got drunk on it. Noah, after the purgation and destruction made by water of the cursed race, accuses of the sin of the first father and the fraticide, discovered his shame, which caused his son Ham (calor) to laugh at it, and bound him or cut off the genitalia. But Noah pretending to make children exempt from punishment when they perch, and pretending that canaham would be of this nature, he accuses him that he had been occasion of this thought, and so that he was corrected and amended by this submission to his brothers to which he subjects him. This gave the Ægiptians to say that Tiphon had dismembered Osiris and thrown his genitals into the Nile. For the water purges the excremental sulphurity which the fire causes to appear in the calcination. This water by the beauty of its virtue covers and hides this shameful ugliness. The water full of efficacious repairs the filthiness produced by the fire of calcination.

1.7 Tell me then, you whom my heart loves: Where will you lead the herd to graze, where will you rest it at noon? So that I no longer wander as a vagabond, near the herds of your companions.

The form is the husband who feeds his flocks in the pastures of science and wisdom, where the midy reigns, that is to say the sun shines and illuminates in the greatest splendor of its glory to know the truth. But since there is a false light as well as there is a real one, take care not to let yourself be dazzled by the brilliance of the false light of particular things, and to avoid it go to the source of the real one. .

Mercury, called quicksilver, vulgar gold have their light, which at first dazzles novices in this art; but it is false as well as that of all the material beings specified. It is in the darkness that we must seek the true light; it shines there under an abject and despicable appearance, for it does not leap into the eyes of everyone, being there absorbed, bound and held back too strongly.

This midday can also be considered for the heat of the fire which makes this husband rest at midday by fixing him; and this fire is that of nature, which acts in this encounter as well and more strongly than that of art. And the wandering herds, which are the vegetables and minerals, nourished and maintained by the running waters, are under the guidance of the companions of this celestial and spiritual water, after which only the wife sighs, and of which she is so eager to quench her thirst. , to unite with it intimately accuses of the virtue or light it contains.

1.8 If you ignore it, O fairest of women, follow the tracks of the herd, and lead your kids to graze near the shepherds' dwelling.

The wife is warned to reflect on herself and to be attentive to knowing herself and to feed the young spiritual herds, were they less pure and dirtier than the goats. The wise man orders them to be pastured with lambs and sheep, so that they become accustomed to their meekness and face themselves worthy of being received with the righteousness of the Lord. Because it is necessary to struggle to purge what is impure so that it becomes pure and can unite with the purity of the spouse. What is done neither by violence nor suddenly but little by little and gently, the elevation of the fixed and the reunion of the homogeneous parts of the volatile being done only one after the other, which is done only by a very soft and very slow movement and with a long time.

1.9 To my mare, hitched to the chariot of Pharaoh, I compare you, my beloved.

This is the interpretation of the Fathers; but according to the text, this word "of assimilation" seems to say: I have made you like and worthy of being compared to the chavaus and to the crew of Solomon's chariot. And so it can be said that the comparison is more for speed, volatility, than for beauty.

We noticed at the beginning of this treatise that the naturalists claim that in this verse is understood the subject of art, in the state that it is the raw material of the philosophers, their naked Diana, the daughter of Pluto, the mercury of the philosophers.

The Arabs value cavalry more than horses, because they find them softer and more fatigued, and they endure hunger and thirst more easily and longer; that they are even more vistes, and that they shoot more equally. They love them even better and caress them more than their wives.

Scholars know what the horse means in chemical or magical fiction, and what was understood by the philosophical horses of Laomedon, ceus of the sun, ceus of Pluto, Diomede Etc...And the difference between the horse and the asne , which denotes the fixed, is mysterious to denote the volatile; and the sorty mule of eus indicates a middle nature formed of the deus. We have explained this detail elsewhere very amply.

These horses or cavalry are harnessed to the chariot of Pharaoh, which they carry away, and the chariot and the horses of this wisdom which triumph therein are but one compound of the raw material of the Magi. These horses lift the bride in this chariot to her husband, and this chariot is the one described by Esechiel, on which we must pass through the muddy waters of the world, in which we must take care not to be submerged. , as the Egyptian was: that is why they must be passed without falling asleep.

It is here that the union of the fixed with the volatile is expressed, after which the whole becomes and is called the raw material, mercury of the philosophers. After which they say: "est in mercurio quidquid querant sapientes, ignis et azot sufficiunt", the operation of which is no more than child's play and a woman's work.

1.10 Your cheeks remain beautiful, between the pendants, and your neck in the necklaces

Besides the varied beauty of the dove full of uniform sweetness, and the charming colors of her collar, she is the symbol of chastity, fidelity and loneliness. The blushing of the cheeks of the wife is compared to the modesty of the dove whose collar needs no ornament, so graceful is it and adorned with light and brilliant pearls.

In fact, the icy whiteness of this mercury of the philosophers or sulfur of nature resembles the throat of a dove or a dove, which has caused the philosophers to compare it to the tail of a peacock or to the iris, so much do we see there shining different colors, it is the aes philosophorum.

1.11 We will make you pendants of gold and globules of silver.

The philosopher who will have put his hand properly on the thing, will understand this expression enough to make an application of it to its real material, which becomes gilded and silvered like a work of marquetry, by the action of the agent on the patient and the operation of the husband on the wife, from which results this appearance of silver nails expressed in the Hebrew, or better said of silver sinuosity "vermiculatas argento".

1.12 While the king is in his enclosure, my nard gives off its fragrance.

We have said that the volatile is philosophical gold. It is the chemical king; and it is when he loses his volatility and his coagulation begins, that he tastes the magnet of the virgin his wife with which she retains him, and this is what makes him say in the following verse:

1.13 My beloved is a sachet of myrrh, which rests between my breasts.

Indeed there will be such a close union of the two, that it will be only one, and this is what happens when the fixed stops and fixes the volatile. For if one describes itself as nard and gives the other the name of bouquet of mirrh, it is because their sympathy is so mutual and reciprocal that you cannot discern at the moment of the conjunction which of this vapor or of this exhalation has more eagerness to unite with each other. For in physics it is the magnet, and philosophical steel.

1.14 My beloved is a cluster of cypress in the vineyards of En-Gaddi.

The cypress grape was the most exquisite, and the soil of Engaddi the best for the soil of a good vineyard. So there is no soil that is better suited to the metal tree than virgin soil. Under the name of a vegetable is always understood the volatile. This is why, when cypri were a shrub bearing perfume, as some claim, the application would nevertheless be to do with the Saturnian vegetable.

The Hebrew word "copher" signifies myrrh rather than cluster, and it is said that in Cypress as well as in Engaddi, a town of the tribe of Judah, all the hedges are only bushes of myrrh. And this land was so fertile in balsam and palm trees, that it was from there that Queen Cleopatra transported them to Egypt, where they are still cultivated in Greater Cairo.

1.15 How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are doves.

This beauty of the wife is only noticed on the outside after she has received it from him. The husband had announced it to her in the 8th verse, and here he made her pay attention to the change from blackness to sparkling whiteness, which he had procured for her by his union and first kiss.

Chastity and simplicity have always been attributed to the dove, and the eye is the mirror of the soul; thus this brilliant and pure eye is the mark of the simplicity of our pure virgin, only wanting to begin with her only husband, whose first touch made her so beautiful.

1.16 How beautiful you are, my beloved, how delicious! Our bed is only greenery.

This wife brings back to her husband and to the union with which he has honored her, all this beauty on which he has just exclaimed, recognizing that it comes entirely from him, who is entirely charged with this beauty which he has drawn in the sky and in the source of lights, and which he deposited in the bosom of his wife, after having converted her darkness into the whiteness of snow, and having made her all brilliant by his union.

The wife invites the husband to rest, pointing out that their bed is already covered with flowers. This is the start of coagulation. Philosophorum filius nascitur in aere. It is the surface, and it is necessary to wait for the fruits that these flowers produce, by the repose of the spouse, that is to say its coagulation and fixation. Hermes calls this light coagulation fleur de l'or.

1.17 The beams of our house are of cedar, our paneling of cypress.

The mountain covered with flowers, where this mysterious union of the natural agent and patient takes place, has only materials incorruptible and of good smell, such as the cedars, firs, cypresses always green, and which are not subject to only to the stirring of the winds. The variegated paneling which is for simple decoration, but the solidity consists in its beams and joists less exposed, but firm and incorruptible, by the union of the fixed and the volatile which become thereby of eternal duration, by their union inseparable.

2.1 I am the narcissus of Sharon, the lily of the valleys.

This field, as the Hebrew explains, is that of saron, that is to say that we must sing its praises, and the flower is the rose of this field. We have said elsewhere what the philosophers understand by the rose and the fleur de sel. This rose here is white.

And although by the lily of the valleys some want to mean the flower of the iris attributed to the good smell of its deep root, to which depth they relate the word convallium, others interpret it as the lily of the valley, from smell so charming, and which comes naturally in the brush among the brambles and thorns in the woods.

Others want the author to have wanted to speak here of the ordinary lily; but to take it well in the physical sense, we must understand here only the lily of art, the physical subject, of which Paracelsus says that the upper part is the white lily, the glue of the eagle, and the lower part is the red lily, laton, red lion and its blood, the Beia and the Gabritius of the sages, of whose union is made the first matter of the metaus.

Lilium convallium alienis spinis circumceptum ut et philosophicum partibus heterogeneis. Lilium ceruleum is iris in quem Aiax conversus, which insanus ad Troiam intervenes.

It is of these lilies of which Cortalasseus spoke so much in his treatise of Arca arcani and his Lilium inter spinas, the lily of the manual of Paracelsus, and of his tincture of physicists.

This flower can be said of the fields, because it comes there by itself and naturally, without the manual operation of the artist, and the lily of the valleys shows its simplicity and its purity. Sapientia est humi moravi, say the philosophers, et simplicitas veritatis sigillum.

This rose of saron, mortuis aeternae vitae munus exhalans, this lily of which it is said that by the arousal of salutary waters, it will germinate like the lily of the valleys.

2.2 Like the lily between thistles, like my beloved between young women.

What we have said of the subject of the preceding verse would suffice for the physical explanation of this one.

It is this lily that the sages surrounded with hedges of thorns and brambles with their fictions, enigmas, fables and hyeroglyphs. It is this lily whose thorns can also be taken for the calcinations, through which it must pass in the preparation, just as the soul of man in the tribulations, where it is tested like gold. in the furnace; and yet it emerges pure as the philosophical; or the wife who does nothing but purify herself there, and where she is taken alone pure and incombustible, which would not happen to any of her companions if they were put to such a trial. This virgin is this argentum igne examinatum probatum terae, purgatum septuplum, and the daughters here named are the combustible parts of the same subject, or the other created beings which make up the family of minerals, vegetables and animals,

2.3 As the apple tree among the trees of an orchard, so my beloved among young men. In its desired shade I sit, and its fruit is sweet to my palate.

We know enough that the apple tree and the apple it bears have been used by scholars for the symbol of the subject of the sages, the metal tree, the apples of the Hesperides and c... but here the wife wants to do see the difference from her to her husband, she who receives her perfection only from him, who is like this tree of life of holy Jerusalem, or the one that David says is planted near the stream of waters, which will give its fruit in his time.

Of all the trees in the forest of the wise, it is the apple tree that they cultivate with attention, whose leaves are to heal the nations, and the fruits to fill them with sweets and pleasures, prerogatives that the fruits have in the above the flowers: however beautiful they appear, they can only charm the sight and the smell, but the fruit is savory to the taste, useful for food, and charms the ears by all that one hears published, principally that of that apple tree beside which all the other trees are fruitless in comparison and therefore worthy of contempt and the ax to which their sterility has condemned them to serve as food for the fire, which they cannot resist like the apple tree. incombustible referred to here.

The wife rested under the shadow of the one she had desired. This shadow alone can protect it, put it under cover, and protect it from the ardor of the agitations to which the continuation of the philosophical process exposes it. It is this one spouse, this one spirit who fills her, who restores tranquility to her and gives her new strength to sublimate herself and rise to a perpetual fixed permanent clarification; and as we have already said, we must not forget that by everything which bears the name of vegetable is meant the volatile, or the humid spirit.

The fruit of this tree is sweet to the mouth of the bride, and quenches and nourishes her like a spiritual manna of celestial dew, ros hermon, whose dryness is moistened, her ardor refreshed and her thirst quenched; she fills her with an admirable sweetness which makes her despise all the others, and just as the soul does not live on bread alone, when she is sated with the bread of the angels, so this bride no longer knows any other pasture. that suits her, than the fruit of this tree, and the gentleness of her husband.

2.4 He led me to the cellar, and the banner he raises over me is love.

We said before that in this verse was denoted the preparation, or separation of the pure from the impure.

Love intoxicates just as well as wine, and we have spoken enough elsewhere of the wine which expresses itself from the philosophical bunch, carried by the vine of the same nature. Because the work of the philosophers has its progress, like the way of making wine and making it drinkable.

But what are we to hear here about our work? It is the dissolution by which the wife, having been penetrated by the spirit of her husband, which insinuates itself into his center, draws from it what is of his same nature and what he himself has formed, this which was concentrated, enveloped and deeply bound. And in this extraction the homogeneous parts come together, seek each other out and set apart the heterogeneous and excremental, so that there is a purification of them from which results the union of those of the same nature, after which this spouse intoxicated with the tenderness of her husband, that is to say with what is most spiritual, she lives only by his life, no longer acts except by the movement she receives from him, and ceases in some way of being itself and becoming a state of no longer being what it was. This is why the Text says that after this drunkenness she abandons to her husband the entire conduct of all that she has most tender for him, and even of herself, forgetting herself completely in this state to follow only the rule that this spouse imposes on him, which rule must always be conducted with discretion, so that each part of this compound attaching itself to performing its function, the impetuosity of the spirit does not push them into a harmful confusion, which could prevent this required separation of the pure from the impure. This is called fermentation, from which clarification results. which rule must always be conducted with discretion, so that each part of this compound attaching itself to performing its function, the impetuosity of the spirit does not push them into a harmful confusion, which could prevent this separation required from the pure from the with the impure. This is called fermentation, from which clarification results. which rule must always be conducted with discretion, so that each part of this compound attaching itself to performing its function, the impetuosity of the spirit does not push them into a harmful confusion, which could prevent this separation required from the pure from the with the impure. This is called fermentation, from which clarification results.

Charitas is vexillum amoris, the standard of love, which is the spouse to be followed, either morally or physically. In a word, the virgin earth is here spiritualized, she has abandoned her body, which makes her say what is in the following verse.

The volatile raises the fixed by its own virtue after having dissolved its mass, and separating the pure from the impure produces the first matter of mercury and child of the philosophers.

2.5 Sustain me with flowers, revive me with fruits, for I am sick with love.

The wife has no sooner made the transfusion herself than, feeling forced to abandon her imperfect body to form a new one with the spirit of her husband, she is right to say that the access of her love makes her fall in languor; she prays that she be supported with flowers, whose scent she breathes more than anything, and that she be supported by fruits, after whose sweetness she was so eager to run; for she no longer knows anything but this lily of the valleys, this apple tree of the forest, from which and by which she lives, and without which she can no longer subsist, having abandoned her former body for the spiritual which she takes from him.

These companions to whom she addresses herself are the watery parts, which keep her company as well as the washed and whitened earthly ones, from whom she hopes for help, until she has recovered from her fainting, that is to say for the support of his soul which abstained from his old body.

2.6 He puts his left hand under my head, and hugs me with his right.

We know, according to the Egyptian emblems, that the left hand, heavier and less active, is more suitable for supporting, guarding and conserving what is worthwhile, and what can be used for some purpose; that is why she was the symbol of avarice. We also know that the right hand, more agile, is what gives action and vigor, to relieve the laziness of the late left; aussy is she, as we have said speaking of the Druids, the mark of power. Therefore wisdom says, "The length of days is on his right hand, and on his left are riches and glory," for that which is embraced is the glory of him who embraces it after he has it. glorified.

One hardly dares to mix here the spiritual and moral sense with the temporal or the physical. However, the spiritual is the one that would charm me more; for what use are these worldly advantages which are only for a short time, and too short to deserve the others, if the grace of Jesus Christ did not supply this defect? great God what it would be of us!

Thus the left supports only temporal goods and passing glory and righteousness which embraces us all, can raise us higher, and only embraces us for this effect. This is what we are indebted to eternal wisdom, which is the divine word, which wishes to surround us with its righteousness while supporting us with its left in this fragile and miserable life. But ineffable delights are found where this righteousness takes us away.

This is why the beloved spouse makes us understand that she is embraced by it, in the confidence that she has that this uprightness will raise her to her beatitude and to her state of perfection.

These two hands can also be heard from the fixed part which is under the volatilla and capital, or the head of the wife, because the red lily which is below will first be embraced by the white lily which hides it within.

2.7 Daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you by the roe deer and by the stags of the field, not to wake her whom I love, and not to rouse her from her rest, until she herself awakes.

Roe deer and gaselles in eastern countries, and deer are very timid and flee men and their trade. They are always climbed on top of hills and mountains. Thus they can designate the volatile parts the least retained and the least disposed to coagulation or fixation. These deer pierce the thickest forests and bushes or brush. They are enemies of snakes, against which they make war.

Thus the daughters of Jerusalem will be taken for the rest of the interior of our virgin, who is conjured by the volatile parts which must please them so much not to awaken or disturb the tranquility of the bride, who begins to unite and to unite all the parts are sufficiently brought together and in a large enough quantity to form a body apart, annealed enough and firm enough to become visible and appear in the light.

It is here that the regime of fire so required is expressed, as well as by the golden age of the ancient poets, as we have said in our keys to the sciences.

2.8 I hear the voice of my beloved. The voicy that comes jumping over the mountains, going over the hills.

This is the description of what happens in the circulation of the volatile, which made the prophet king say, "we have seen the same things that we have heard". The bridegroom passed from the height of heaven into the womb of the virgin, from this womb into a stable, from this stable into the Jordan to be baptized there, from the Jordan to the Calvary of the cross, from the cross to the tomb in the sky. He returns to what is crawling on the earth, not to what is buried, but to the mountains. That is to say the parts released from the depths of matter and earthiness.

It seems that the interpretation differs from a translator, who translated this passage thus adapting to our work: “ecce iste venit incedens contra montes, prosiliens adversus colles. The voicy that comes marching against the mountains and jumping against the hills”.

The sparkle and the sensitive movement that one perceives during the union of the spiritual spouse with the bride prepared to receive him, shows this spectacle in this operation. However then the union is not yet made. This is why I stick to the first interpretation. For in this operation the spirits operate one after the other, and it takes a long time to act before completing the batural operation.

Let us therefore leave this second interpretation to apply it to dissolution, and let us apply it to the first imbibition of the first matter extracted and formed.

2.9 My beloved is like a deer, and the doe fan. Here is the one who stands behind our wall, who looks through the windows and casts his sight through the bars.

Water and earth are the philosophical vessels. The roe deer always graze on the high places; and the deer, besides its speed, has a singular virtue against serpents. It is also said that these animals, seeing themselves pushed to the limit by the hunters, sometimes join the riders who want to give in to the traps they have set for them.

He who looks through the windows closed with bars or lattices and jalousies, is partly seen, and partly hidden; and this is only imperfectly perceived.

But this one will soon break the wall to unite perfectly with the wife, and reign with her purity where corruption reigns, and heavy corporeity.

The earth is the vessel, and the watery spirit knows how to penetrate it. She is also the wall.

2.10 Here is my beloved who speaks to me and says to me: get up, raise you, my beloved, my dove, my only beauty, and come.

The Holy Spirit was kind enough to appear under the figure of a dove; this husband, taken in the spiritual sense, has filled his wife's church with it. We can say that he has done the same in the natural and physical in proportion, and that he thereby oste him his former deformity, and to think that all the times that in the physical sense, as well as in the spiritual, the husband praises his wife, he looks at her as she must be one day.

Rise, said he said to him, from among the dead in the midst of your bonds, you see how the wall of separation which divided us and which prevented our hearts from uniting by a new union, is overthrown; come to me, you who are weary and burdened with an unclean body; raise you to me, you who are already beautiful with an all-celestial beauty, you who have become a dove full of spirituality; come so that you begin to see me face to face, and no longer through the bars. I gave myself up myself to death for you, after having purified you in the baptism of water, to make you appear spotless and full of glory.

He commands that which is lying down to rise and come, he gives her the strength to do so, he volatilizes the fixed. As long as one is in a mortal body, one can only receive the rays of the sun through very small openings, because this body casts shadow and is like an old wall.Ideo tolle a radio umbram suam.

2.11 The winter has already passed, the rains have dissipated, and ceased entirely.

Putrefaction is the philosophical winter, the year of which is accomplished by the 4 seasons, which follow each other consecutively. If the time of rigor is winter, which is that of the unconsciousness of the wife, or of her sleep, during which she had the preceding visions; spring is the time of deliverance. Attachment to gross matter, and to corporeal things which aggravate by their heavy mass, is the winter of idolatry in the spiritual and of corporeal prison in the physical. The breath of the solar spirit by a midday wind melts the ice of the heart of our spouse. What was petrified has become water, but water that will rise to life.

2.12 The flowers have begun to appear in our land, the time for pruning has come; the voice of the dove was heard in our land.

It seems that spring only begins from the embodiment of the spirit, by which the rains cease. Because the cold rains prevent the flowers from growing. But are they dissipated, the heat causes the flowers to take the place of the intrenchments of what would be barren; and the dove having found a nest for herself in the tree, raised her voice, finding there purity; it is then that the husband calls the wife to come and work in the vineyard. (Superflua deme), say the philosophers.

The voice of the dove according to some is only a groan after the husband, who says to her calling her: (quae srsum sunt quærite), and this groan in the singular is that of the spirit who penetrated, which is fixed there and which tends to rise.

The dove comes from a foreign country to inhabit a new land. (From the hour that the sinner mourns for his sin, I will remember no more), Saint Luke 15.

2.13 The fig tree has begun to grow its first figs. The vines are in bloom, and you can smell the good smell coming out of them. Get up, my beloved and my unique beauty, and come.

Este is the citrinity, or color of lemon, which we have said this verse designates.

It is true that the fig tree, the wisest or at least the latest of all fruit trees, only begins to grow from the last, when the heat makes itself felt at the beginning of summer. The temper which this tree draws from the earth is abundant, and this abundance causes it to first draw some of the impure juice from the earth with the pure, so that its first fruits sometimes do not come to a pleasant maturity because they are formed from this impurity. But when the heat of the season increases, this tree has the strength to attract the purest of the earth, by which and with which the fruits nourished by it become eccellent. We have discussed the fig tree extensively in our works.

But it is on this vine that we must base ourselves, the flower of which is very resistant to frost and cold. We must hope for delicious fruits; they must be since Jesus Christ compared himself to the tree that bears them, of which he declared his father to be the vine grower.

These fruits do not die until autumn, which is redness.

2.14 My dove is in the holes of stones, and in the hollows of matter; show me your face, let your voice be heard in my ears, for your voice is sweet, and your face is pleasant.

How instructive and enlightening is the simplicity of this expression. This spouse, this dove, is in the holes of the stones she inhabits, in the caverns of matter. It is in these hollows of the rocks that she rests and makes her nest, however pure and simple she may be. This is her retreat, where as in an uncultivated and unhaunted solitude, she shelters her virginity from insult and where her modesty, even though the insult of the times, makes her take shelter against the rigors of winter. . Now that this rigor has passed, the husband begs her to show him her face. It is in the caves and the hollows of the earthly or physical stone that the spouse was formed, as the spiritual spouse is celestial was it in the holes and the places of the divine stone, this cornerstone from which came this precious beauty for the remedy and the salvation of the nations. (Ex cavernis vitriolicis).

This is apparently the time when this voice must be heard, and this hitherto hidden face must be seen. Her face is the purity of her heart, of her substance, of her center, which is only what the husband has deposited therein of spirits and incorruptible, as well as incombustible, who is fixed there and which is similar to it (Cum pura puram petuerit intueri veritatem, tunc faciem ipsius sponsus videre cupiet, consequenter et voce meus audire). Her voice is that groan which always makes her sigh after her husband, and which will animate her and inflame her so strongly in the end that the blush will rise to her face, although because of her purity her modesty does not. don't blush yet.

2.15 Take from us the little foxes who destroy the vines, for our vineyard is in bloom.

The clever foxes, subtle and always on the lookout, hide in their lairs from which they find it difficult to come out and from which they only come out to degrade or gnaw the bark of the vine which is more tender and easier to gaster when it is only in flower, are the raw and indigestible, corroding parts, which are therefore qualified as little foxes, whether you take them for the still impure sulphurities or for the caustic humiditys. We must take these little foxes, that is to say destroy them, or fix them, and prevent them from running by their further cooking or disgestion, they will become useful to us, and will be put out of a state to harm our work and to spoil the flower of our pruned vine.

2.16 My beloved is mine, and I am his, and he feeds among the lilies.

My beloved is mine, since I possess him. He is for me, he procured my deliverance; I am his, he lifts me up, he disposes of me, and I will not be with anyone else and I will go everywhere with him: my body is spiritualized and able to follow him...

It nourishes itself among the lilies, whose characteristic is whiteness and purity. This lily is the bridegroom and the bride together, and in the heart you visited it during the night, you made me pass through the fire, and you found no malice in me.

2.17 Until the day begins to appear, and the shadows gradually dissipate, return my beloved, and be like the roe deer and the fan of stags, which runs on the mountains of Bether.

Others want it to read Bethel instead of Bether, and Bethel means house of God. End of Jacob's vision.

The stags and roe deer whose intestines were permitted to be eaten in the old law, where their skins were used to cover the Tabernacle, were considered pure animals, having the virtue of destroying serpents and the mountains they run through are the figure of the height of the virtues on which they take their pasture. Thus they represent to us spiritually the tribunals of grace and justice. It is these stags and roe deer which run through mons and vaus, but which always climb and cling to this mountain of Bethel, following the example of which this chste wife conjures her husband to return to complete the dissipation little by little of these shadows and these darknesses which still prevent the total clarity of this luminous day which begins to appear.

For we shall see that the husband flees more than once by the desiccation or calcination of matter, which after that would not be perfected without its prompt return, as it does more and more with each visit that her husband makes to it. returns: which must return, to perfect more and more his dear wife.

3.1 I have searched in my bed during the nights for him whom my soul loves, I have searched for him and have not found him.

The spiritual interpreters of the Song of Songs want us to look at everything the wife has said so far as a vision that she had had in her fainting, from which having now recovered a little, her vision does not cease to continue. and to make her imagine that she is doing, without however leaving the state in which she is confined, all that she would have done if she had been free.

The bed of the physical wife is her earthly body, in which she is enveloped and in which she sleeps. It is during this slumber that she has these dreams and these visions.

She must leave, to find this husband for whom she is burnt with the ardor that the power of the Father has kindled in her: God the Father is a god of rigor, his power exercises his justice; this is why it is said (Justum).

Even when that happens, his disguise will prevent him from being recognized, until he has deserved by his sufferings the brilliance of glory which will surround him for the time being, and which will make him known for what he truly is. , after he comes out of the putrefaction expressed as we have said in this verse. And until then his state of light will not be seen.

3.2 I will arise, I will go around the city, and I will seek in the streets and in the public squares the one who is the beloved of my soul; I looked for him, and I did not find him.

Whatever effort the physical wife faces to leave her bed, whatever search she faces for her husband in all the quarters of Jerusalem, this land of promise, and in its empty places, she does not find him there.

3.3 The sentinels who guard the city met me, and I said to them: Have you not seen him whom my soul loves?

These guards who watch over the safety of this Jerusalem, are the hard parts which make the safety of this city, and which were posed to prevent it from leaving it. She finds herself mixed up with them, but they do not even know her beloved, and if the ardor with which she is animated did not cause her to go beyond it, she would hold nothing. (Imne siccum appetit humidum.

3.4 When I had passed even a little beyond them, I found him whom my soul loves; I have stopped him, and I will not let him go, until I see him enter my mother's house, and the chamber of her who begot me.

The wife therefore coming to the surface, and even, if it can be said, beyond that, by her ardor which is exhaled, she finds the one whom her soul loves, she seizes him, seizes him so strongly that 'she does not let him go: not that she forces him or that she confronts him with violence, because he was the first to seek her. And so that they may find each other comfortably, they both enter the house and the bedroom of the mother, who has given birth to this chaste and pure virgin bride.

This mother is the earth, according to me, and although one can say that it is nature, the name that the philosophers have given to water (for this chaste virgin is only boiled water, she has the water for mother, who gave birth to her); but I claim that the house and the bedroom of this mother are the earth, like a natural vessel into which this wife introduces her husband. And there in freedom they unite together.

The water of the philosophers is more convenient for this union, and is also a vase of nature, and can be said to be the house of the mother of our wife, meaning then nature for mother, or water for nature.

(Sunt duo pisces in mari nostro), say the Magi, for in any other house they could not be free to seek each other, to find each other and to unite together. But it seems to me that it is a question here not of seeking this spouse, but of retaining him after having found him. Reflected like me above. But as all this succeeds only by imbibition, the water will always pretend that it is she who must be heard by the mother's room.

3.5 Daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you by the deer and by the stags of the field, not to wake up her who is beloved, and not to rouse her from her rest, until she awakes herself. same.

It is a question here by this repetition of taking care not to give too much agitation to the matter or compost, until by repeated imbibition, the union is made. This is coagulation or freezing.

3.6 Who is she who rises from the desert like smoke rising from the perfumes of myrrh, frankincense and all sorts of powdered scents?

After the union of the wife with the husband in the house or room of her mother, either water or earth, seeing what this union procures for her the action of the heat provided, which is that which rises from the desert? That is to say of this dry, depopulated and deserted land, charged with earthiness, above which we see it appear. Because in fact this land did not deserve to possess such a great treasure. Only the earthly paradise was worthy of it. But having come into the world to save material creatures by the annihilation of his own life, that is to say by his death, it was necessary that the light, agent of the Lord who executes its will in and on matter, purified this same matter to make it worthy to exhale the perfume that the Creator put there, to make it suitable for his presence. This perfume rises from myrrh, which is used to embalm the bodies of the dead, and from incense, which is the spouse or the very spirit, of an infinite price, destined, to which only he agrees. But these perfumes of the fixed and the volatile do not burn unless they are put into the fire. One comes from the fixed, the other from the volatile, and they rise by the spirit of fire into a compound of the two. But incense cannot be pleasant without the myrrh of the dead body, by which it is preserved from corruption, and by the incense which is mixed therein are made those powders of all kinds of scents which make sublimation. One comes from the fixed, the other from the volatile, and they rise by the spirit of fire into a compound of the two. But incense cannot be pleasant without the myrrh of the dead body, by which it is preserved from corruption, and by the incense which is mixed therein are made those powders of all kinds of scents which make sublimation. One comes from the fixed, the other from the volatile, and they rise by the spirit of fire into a compound of the two. But incense cannot be pleasant without the myrrh of the dead body, by which it is preserved from corruption, and by the incense which is mixed therein are made those powders of all kinds of scents which make sublimation.

The Hebrew means that like the palms of perfume, which widens as it rises, the smoke which rose from the golden altar represented a horn, without (so the rabbis say) ever being agitated, so much the air the respected.

It is claimed to induce that Solomon meant to speak of other than himself when speaking of this unique wife, since he had several. The bridegroom is the universal and unique pastor. But this unique wife is different from that of Solomon. It is our physical virgin who engenders the natural savior she conceived after having received her repeated kiss.

3.7 Behold Solomon's bed surrounded by sixty of the mightiest of the strongholds of Israel,

The virgin is the bed of Solomon, who is the figure of the physical and divine bridegroom.

These many brave ones who guard it (aquae multae populi multi). This water is ditte (acetum acerrimum), its steel makes it incisive. And this number sixty is misterieus: 6 times 10 or 10 times 6.

Angels watch over us and the Holy Spirit inspires us at all times.

3.8 who all carry swords, and who are very experienced in wars. The sword of each of them is at his side on his thigh, accusing surprises that one can fear during the night.

The thigh, as we have said elsewhere, is the symbol of power and fidelity, and this sword protects this virgin bride, bed of the spiritual husband, against the ardor and the attacks of the evil one, of the serpent, who is fire, or of any other who would like to undertake against it.

3.9 King Solomon made himself a litter of wood from Lebanon.

The wood of Lebanon was incorruptible, whether one understands by that the cedars, or that tree which bore the beauty.

3.10 He made it the pillars of silver and the backrest of gold, the seat of purple, and he adorned the middle with everything that is most precious, for the daughters of Jerusalem.

These silver columns are of this silver of which it is said: (argentum igne examinatum in vast terreo purgatum septies). These are the promises to use the race of woman to break the serpent's head. The golden file is this oreity which serves as a repository, and gives it empire. The seat covered with purple is this tincture of blood, which gives it this degree of glory and power, the environment adorned with this fire perfecting everything, (ignem veni mittere in terrem et quid volo nisi ut accendatur), this fulminating and destroying thunderbolt. the imperfection of all bodies in favor of all material creatures. These are the effects of the earthly stone in its chariot of glory which has worked so many miracles on the daughters of Jesrusalem less perfect than the bride, whether metaus or other material beings,

3.11 Come out, daughters of Zion, and come and see King Solomon, with the diadem with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day, on the day when his heart was filled with joy.

The daughters of Zion, fortress of Jerusalem, can be taken for the companions of the bride. This Solomon is the royal husband of wisdom, whose diadem is formed of precious stones that his mother has provided him with, to adorn him with on the day of his union with this dear wife, who fills him with joy; for it is all the satisfaction he has of communicating his power and his glory.

The matter becoming clearer and more and more illuminating, makes these jewels of the crown of Solomon, peaceful king, or of that (Schelo-monis) of which we spoke in the tiltre shine.

4.01 How beautiful you are, o my friend, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are like those of doves, without what is hidden within; your hair is like herds of goats, which have come up to the mountains of Gilead.

Cecy is a description and a eulogy of the state where the bridegroom carried the bride. These dove eyes are seen in the holes of rocks and stones, they shine there; but there is still something in it which is hidden, and better than what appears.

These hairs are those of the Virgin Paschal, whose whiteness surpasses those silks, so fine, so white, and so long, of the goats which ordinarily appear on Mount Gallad, a mountain so full of beauties eccelent for the healing of evils.

4.02 Your teeth are like flocks of shorn sheep, which have come out of the washhouse, and which all bear double fruit, without there being any sterile ones among them.

The teeth begin the qio incision disposes to the solution and digestion of food. (Dura comminuunt, ne vitalia incuriosa edacitate suffocate). These teeth are whiter than the milk by their purity, by which one compares them to ewes shorn, and taken out of the wash-house, of the baptism which whitens them and strips them of all your defilement; these teeth prepare food for the young, chewing it to make them swallow better.

They bear a double fruit, the fixed and the volatile, the white and the red, and each imprinting itself with what suits it, none of them is sterile. The pressed and well arranged teeth are used for the articulation of the words, as for the first digestion, and for the approval of the beauty; thus they indicate wisdom, strength and good grace. Washing them every morning with water, the tears of penance make them fertile in virtues.

4.03 Your lips are like a strip of scarlet, and your words are pleasant. Your cheeks are like a part of a pomegranate, without what is hidden inside.

Never are ruddy lips more pleasant than after we have discovered beautiful teeth. Pleasant words come out of it, and cheeks were never better adorned than with the coloring which modesty and modesty inspire in them, evidence of the inner purity of her who has such them.

(In cocco species ignis, et crucis sanguis irrutilat)

Rahab tied to her window in Jerico a strip or cord of scarlet, as a sign of her redemption. In the divine sense, it is the blood of Jesus Christ. But in the physical sense, it is the capillary and red circle which succeeds the whiteness, or the tint of the terrestrial stone. And as for what is hidden within, you know that the color of the bark of a pomegranate is reddening, and that it contains several grains that are even more brilliant, but above all much more eccellent. This is what is hidden within.

4.04 Your neck is like the tower of David, which is built with towers; a thousand shields are suspended there, and all the weapons of the most valiant.

The neck is the communication channel from the head to the other limbs, and through which food is distributed from the mouth to the stomach and other parts of the body. It is the tower of David (homo fortis) destined to bear the yoke, to resist attacks; this is why it is surrounded by spiritual arms with which the spirit of life is distributed through the neck, the part closest to the head, and which unites the rest of the members to it.

The stone, whether divine or earthly, is that tower of David, where our bride is secure against the insult of enemies, the impregnable refuge, the storehouse of the strongest weapons, and the treasury of philosophers, as well as of Christians.

4.05 Your two udders are like two little twins of a goat, which graze among the lilies.

The interpreters of the spiritual sense mean by these two little twins of a goat the Jews and the Gentiles, whom the wife also nourishes from her breasts, that they also interpret the Old and the New Testament, from which the milk comes. with which this goat (which is the Church) nourishes them with her double milk, which is the love of God and of neighbour.

The interpreters of the physical meaning refer us to the emblem of Amalthea, nurse of Jupiter, or of the she-wolf who nursed Remus and Romulus, and we could say that these two twins are the white stone and the red stone, which feed from the milk of these two breasts, fixed and volatile, whence issues that virgin's milk, whiter than the lilies, which will last until day begins to appear, by sunrise, preceded by dawn, which sun will in the end remove the shadows.

4.06 Until the day breaks out, and the shadows retire, I will stay on the mountain of myrrh, and on the hill of frankincense.

The mountain of myrrh is where this bouquet is picked up, to whose scent the wife ran with so much eagerness, and the hill of incense is less high.

Frankincense is to incense the gods, myrrh to embalm mortals; one signifies death, which is myrrh, and sufferings cause its bitterness, but its gum is green and makes dead bodies incorruptible; the incense whose vapor rises above indicates the resurrection, which must be done in an incorruptible state procured by the mirrh.

4.07 You are quite beautiful, o my friend, and there is no stain in you.

It is therefore after the death and the resurrection of the husband, that he made his wife all beautiful and without blemish, by uniting with her, who abandoned her own body to make only one whole. spirits with the husband. Who has found death in this union by the coagulation of which he will resurrect glorieus in body and soul, etc.

4.08 Come from Lebanon my wife, come from Lebanon; come, necks serés crowned with the point of the mount of Amana, from the top of the mounts of Sanir, and of Hermon, from the caves of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards.

(Lebanon interpretatur candidatureio). Lebanon also means a tree that bears male and female frankincense. Thus dicitur libanum is said to be olibanum.

By Lebanon is also understood Jerusalem, any bastion of cedars which had come from the time of Solomon.

By Hermon, mountain beyond the Jordan (interpreted: lignum exaltatum) is meant the sky. For by (Ros Hermon (anathema meroris), Tal, vagina divini nominis), accused of the parity of their numbers, is the fertilizing grace sent from heaven, as well as the sweet rain of which it is said (de rore caeli etc.. )

Come from Lebanon therefore means come out of Jerusalem out of the body, renounced yourselves for me, leave the height of the mountains, which are the retreat of lions and leopards. (Leo Rubeus est in montium cavernis)... And the speckled leopard was harnessed to the chariot of Bacchus, to triage it. But the physical virgin must leave the abode where only spotted monsters can dwell, since she must be purified and spotless.

Solomon had a pleasure-house near Jerusalem, the situation and surroundings of which emanated and were practiced on the model of the mountain of Lebanon, shortened as we see the castle of Madrit in the Bois de Boulogne near Paris. And this place of Solomon's pleasure was called the park of Lebanon. It is spoken of in the 3rd book of Kings, 7.

At the foot of the cedars of Jerusalem were three living springs, which formed the fountain of Solomon's pleasure garden, separated in a triangle, and flowed through vaulted canals 2 fathoms high and 400 paces long. And these waters were going to fall into pools carved on the rox. This fountain was sealed, and destined for the table of Solomon, as the water of the Hydaspes is, in its imitation, for the table of the kings of Persia. It was at the foot of these pools that Solomon's gardens of delights lay, enclosed by three mountains, to the east, to the north, and to the west gave them the name.

4.09 You have wounded my heart, my sister my wife, you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes, and with a hair of your neck.

This husband, seeing his image which he has placed in this wife, which makes her shine as in a clear mirror, or pure water, is charmed by it. His heart is wounded by one of his wife's eyes, by that eye of a dove, for she is still partly veiled, like the new wives of Eastern countries when they are married, or if she is no longer so, these two eyes are one, she is all eyes for him, or has eyes only for him.

Hebrew instead of hair, says necklace. But whatever it is, the wife in this state of lucidity has no difficulty in binding her husband, the slightest hair suffices for that, and the slightest ornament of his neck charms and retains him close to her.

4.10 How beautiful your breasts are my sister, my wife, your breasts are more beautiful than wine, and the smell of your perfumes exceeds that of all aromatics.

After the union of the husband with the wife, she acquires all her perfections, since he has communicated them to her, and since the two are no longer but one. Thus the breasts of the wife have become, as those of the husband were at the beginning, more beautiful than wine, which is customary for the perfectly advanced in age, whereas milk is only for those who are still young. weak.

She is sister as well as wife, for husband and wife are two substances of the same root (as Trevisan says) and her still brother and sister of the same regeneration, made by water and fire.

One can also regard them as having all come out of the philosophical mercury or rebis raw material of the philosophers, which by their union become inseparable either in the volatile or the fixed, the liquid or the dry, etc.

4.11 Your lips, O bride, are a reason that distils honey; honey and milk are under your tongue and the smell of your garments is like the smell of incense.

As the wife has no other spirit than that of the husband, nothing comes out of her that does not resemble her, and the honey is not sweeter than the doctrine of wisdom, of which this wife then instructs the philosopher. For it must not be communicated either to madmen, who despised it, or to the wicked, who would make bad use of it. For sin is a bitter root, which prevents one from tasting the sweetness of truth. The letter is like the wax that encloses the spirit, which is the honey that is hidden there. The philosopher has plucked it from the flowers, has hidden it in the reasons of his expressions, and the true disciple draws it out for nourishment, and finds it sweet when he draws it. This milk and this honey are under their tongue, and the true scavengers are always ready to distribute it, or one or the other, according to the reach of those who can and will taste it,

The celestial husband is himself the vestment of the bride, she is clothed with it, and keeps this vestment for fear of appearing naked, and that one does not see her shame. It is this nuptial robe, without which one cannot please the husband; this is why the vestments of the wife are like the smell of incense, which designates the husband himself, all celestial and all divine, (Ruach Elohim, vapor divinae potentiae), like the vapor of the world are all their boasts and alliciating voluptuous chimeras that brush the delicate vine of human nature.

4.12 My sister my wife is a closed garden, and a sealed fountain.

The fountain of the waters destined for the temple was sealed with the royal seal of Solomon; its overflow was received in the reservoirs called swimming pools, in order to serve to water the garden enclosed by walls at the bottom of the valley, of which Solomon had made himself a place of pleasure.

Virginity is a garden full of sweet-smelling fruits; it is closed, for chastity serves as its wall; it is a sealed fountain, source of purity, sealed with integrity, and the image of God shines in the water of this fountain. This garden is surrounded by the spirit which puts it in safety: it must be closed to all foreign things, being intended only for the only husband, and the spiritual pleasures of the true Solomon king of wisdom. A fountain sealed with the seal of the husband, of which all the waters are intended for the temple, and for him whose character it bears (cuius est imago, and cuius imagine sigillata).

The ancient vine which the lord brought from Egypt, was plundered and destroyed by those who passed by when its wall was destroyed, and the boar of the forest ruined it, as that of Mars slew Adonis, and the wild beast devoured it. But the bridegroom surrounds that one, and keeps this fountain sealed, because its waters are only for those who are worthy of them. This water quenches for ever those who drink it.

In this verse is expressed the seal of Hermes, (quo sol vel ignis mctiones, quartet in hyeme, et tres in vere).

4.13 Your productions are a paradise of pomegranates, with fruits of the apple tree, of cypress with nard.

The pomegranate armed with prickles and points, under a hard and bitter bark, bears red fruits, and return at pleasure, which under the same envelope which retains them, profit and strengthen themselves in ardent charity. They sustain each other, and adorn their fruit.

We have already spoken of cypri: it is said to be warm and fragrant, and the oil that comes out of it has the same quality.

4.14 The nard and the saffron, the cane and the cinamomum, with all the trees of Lebanon, as well as the myrrh and the aloes, and all the most eccellent perfumes.

The spikenard is warm and healthy. Saffron is refreshing, and disposes to joy, by dilating the heart. Cinamome, it is said, cools boiling water, and kills all vermin engendered by corruption, and it is still given this property, that being put in the mouth of a sleeping person, it causes it to respond without waking up to the demands that are made of it. Cinnamon has a lovely smell.

The tabernacle was rubbed with two incense by order of Moses.

The aloes, called (officinarum), from which we get the purgative gum, restores health and strengthens the stomach. But the wood of aloes called (agallocum), is of a charming odor, more than citrine sandalwood, nor punwood, and its infusion and its tincture more medicinal and salutary. And I do not doubt that its gum or its balsam (for this wood is resinous and oily) was that precious aloes of which Joseph of Arimatia had provision for embalming the body of Jesus Christ.

Finally, all these precious aromatics and beaumes are to designate the salutary and pleasant incorruptibility of the subject brought to the state it has just been described.

4.15 The fountain of the gardens and the well of living waters, which flow with impetuosity from Lebanon

There were indeed abundant and rapid springs which issued from Mount Lebanon. The river Oronthe issued from it, of which it is said:

Aut quid Oronthea crine perfundere myrrha

A river gladdens the City of God with the abundance of its waters. These are the waters of the fountains of the Saviour, according to Isaiah, of which this celestial stone says (if anyone thirsts, let him come to me, and drink), be at the well at the bottom of which the truth was hidden from time of Heraclitus, or at the fountain whose living water springs up into eternal life. It is this water that draws from the hardest rocks of the children of Abraham, softening them. Let us therefore never abandon this cornerstone, from which issues this fountain of living water, and the water is the mercy which washes, and the oil the divinity which is effective.

4.16 Arise you Aquilon, and come wind from the midy (auster); blown from all sides in my garden, and that the perfumes flow from it.

The Aquilon wind is cold, it hardens and tightens. Celuy de midy is hot, it expands and liquefies. It is this breath of the ardent spirit which is necessary here, to make flow the perfumes of the wife, by softening the hardness with which Aquilon held her back.

The wind of the Lord will blow, says the king prophet, and the waters will flow. This is the old language which is no longer in season, for the old river was nothing but water; that is of perfumes, which the ardent spirit makes flow with its breath.

We first warned that in this verse is indicated the regime of fire, as well as in the 7th verse of the 2nd chapter.

The north wind agrees here with that of midy, in favor of the wife, and the caves of the lions had been changed into flowery hills.

Each of these winds carries the pleasant odor of the bride from different coasts, to attract the bridegroom.

5.01 The wife:

Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat of the fruit of his trees.

We have already said, and we still protest, that we wish in no way to depart from the sentiment of the Fathers of the Church, of which we are a member by the grace of Jesus Christ. So we believe in the spiritual meaning they gave to this canticle, we admire it and are penetrated by it, and pray to the Lord that we may worthily enjoy it, in accordance with the intention of those to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed its meaning. discovery. But that does not prevent us from being persuaded that under these same holy and mysterious expressions, the secret of universal medicine, or stone of the philosophers, is not also hidden, and that one cannot seek it there and discover. On what I make the adepts judge, who alone can pass an enlightened and decisive judgment on it.

This chapter, which seems to indicate a new imbibition, should not surprise you by its repetitions, since it is only a reiteration of the first operation, and this reiterated description of the dreams and visions, which are described as present, may well be only a warning of what to see, and a guide to the way and process to follow and hold.

The husband is indicated here as justly titled for the master of this garden, since it is he who gave him the estre, and these trees bear fruit only by watering.

5.01 The spouse:

I came to my garden, my sister my wife; I have collected my myrrh with my perfumes; I ate the raion with the honey. I drank my wine with the milk. Eat my friends and drink, drunk you, you are my dear ones.

We have spoken elsewhere of the progress of the cultivation of the vine, and of its use. The Lord created it, that is to say planted it. This God-given vine has its vines, which must bear fruit, and the care taken of it causes it to bear fruit more or less. It is not only a question, as we have been warned, of pruning it to cut off the superfluous; it must after that be preserved from the cold, when it begins to flower, for it is a plant very susceptible to frost. But after all these cares, in order for its fruit to be nourished, it must be watered, for heat and humidity without frost is what suits it best. When this fruit has come, coarse and ripened as desired, it is a matter of picking it, harvesting it, and then having put it in the press, fermenting it, and making it into excellent wine, which is used in its time.

Wine is the wisdom of inferior things, which makes Solomon say in Ecclesiastes (Cogitavi in ​​corde meo abstrahere a vino carnem mean ut animum meum tranferrem ad sapientiam divinam de qua dicitur ab initio meliora sunt ubera tua vino). I thought in my heart of withdrawing my flesh from the wine, in order to transfer my spirit, my thought, to divine wisdom, of which it is said from the beginning of this canticle, (your breasts are better than wine). Milk is the beginning of wisdom, from the best part of which butter is made, which is not tasted until after the death of the kiss. That's why she said give me a kiss from your mouth, because the wine that comes from a vegetable, or a plant is worth less than the milk that comes from an animal, of a nobler kind. . Wine intoxicates, and milk does not, but he insinuates a quiet sleep, though they both feed. Pure wine is not easily corrupted; but the milk out of the breasts, like the blood out of the veins, is corrupted, if it is not squeezed and beaten, and cooked with the fire of charity. But it is said: bought wine and milk, but without changing them, nor mixing them, because they are corrupted when they are mixed together. Which made Solomon say (I drank my wine with my milk, and he didn't take me well). He therefore who wishes to attain supreme wisdom must necessarily strip himself of the wisdom of inferior things. and lest it be cooked with the fire of charity. But it is said: bought wine and milk, but without changing them, nor mixing them, because they are corrupted when they are mixed together. Which made Solomon say (I drank my wine with my milk, and he didn't take me well). He therefore who wishes to attain supreme wisdom must necessarily strip himself of the wisdom of inferior things. and lest it be cooked with the fire of charity. But it is said: bought wine and milk, but without changing them, nor mixing them, because they are corrupted when they are mixed together. Which made Solomon say (I drank my wine with my milk, and he didn't take me well). He therefore who wishes to attain supreme wisdom must necessarily strip himself of the wisdom of inferior things.

5.01 The spouse:

I came to my garden, my sister my wife; I have collected my myrrh with my perfumes; I ate the raion with the honey. I drank my wine with the maict. Eat my friends and drink, drunk you, you are my dear ones. Following...

I confess that they must not be confused together; but as all the two are good, when they are not mixed or confused, it is important to distinguish them in this Song of Songs, and to disentangle them, to apply each to their use. Let us therefore not imagine that under the expression of the one only the other has been understood, and that under the rules of the divine only the temporal and the terrestrial have been given; but let us not separate them either in such a way that we would wish that under the same expression which marks the divine and the spiritual, the temporal should be absolutely suppressed, since it is said that each apart has its eccellence and its utility.

This supposed, I in no way pretend, as I have already said more than once, when I pay attention, and when I physically interpret the mysterious expression of the Holy Scriptures, and when I apply it to the temporal science, to diminish in any way, to in no way impair the spiritual and divine, which I revere as the principle of the other, just as God is the author of the nature he has created, which only executes his divine wills over the creatures that are subject to him.

Let us therefore enter into matters without scandal and without scruple, and let us say that the husband invites us to enter his garden which he has made fruitful, which garden is his very wife, to whom he cannot and must not refuse anything. Sleep ahead, he gives him an account of what he has done.

(I have collected my myrrh, with my perfumes). My myrrh marks suffering by its bitterness, and death by the use to which it was employed to embalm dead bodies, and prevent them from becoming corrupt. We have said that the tree which bears this gum is a shrub full of thorns; the rough leaves as well as the bark resemble those of the elm, and the sap which distils from it (especially young ones without incision) is that precious beaume, to which one gave the name of stacte, which it still bears, but which it is now difficult to recover in this state, in which the ancients said it was green; but at present we only see it in fairly hard rubber, where white veins are seen, which make it called ungulate, the rest being yellow verging on red.

5.01 The spouse:

I came to my garden, my sister my wife; I have collected my myrrh with my perfumes; I ate the raion with the honey. I drank my wine with the maict. Eat my friends and drink, drunk you, you are my dear ones. End of the verse.

As for the incense, some claim that the storax is the incense of the Jews, red and of a very pleasant smell, gum which distills from the bark of a tree which has leaves like the quince tree, a little smaller, and the fruits like filberts. Others say that frankincense is what comes from the shrub named oliban, the vray (Libanum) of Mount Lebanon, of which we have spoken; that we have always believed, and that we still believe so strongly destined to incense the gods, that it is even said that only those of family and holy reputation are employed today in to collect it, in great white tears, which flow from the incisions which they make in this tree, whose leaves piled up in tufts at the end of the branches, and is red, as we said.

This incense intended to incense the gods, from whatever tree it is produced, signifies the spirituality and the divinity, to which it is intended, because its vapor rises by the fire, and Pliny says that these two odors of the myrrh and frankincense are not felt except by the action of fire when it burns.

Thus the husband who tells his wife that he harvested his myrrh with his spices, can make her understand that he died and rose again in the philosophical work, that is to say that he is sublimated and emerged philosophical putrefaction.

As to what he says, that he ate the raion with the honey, and drank his wine with his milk, this honey which we have elsewhere said signifies in Latin by this term (MEL) ((M)ercurius (E )lementorum (L)igamen, accuse of the first three letters of these three words), we have said the reason elsewhere and we will content ourselves with repeating here, that the cabalists interpret it for the symbol of sweetness and sweetness from taste, from which it is said that this land of promise flowed as well as from milk. Which land is that named (jebi) by daniel (gloriosa, inclita, fortitudinis vel jucunda by others) and which the Lord certifies to be more fertile than that of Egypt, less extensive and more hilly or full of steep and rough rocks than the others, but more pleasant, more favored by the celestial influence, where the Savior was conceived, born, brought up in his youth, did all his miracles, suffered, and rose again, and from whence he drew honey and milk, from which he fed his own , and provided them with a great abundance of it, to communicate it to every creature. Milk is for food and honey for enjoyment.

This mixture of wine and milk, which the husband tells us he made while drinking each other, authorizes me to maintain that I am right to seek in the Holy Scriptures, and especially in the Song of Songs. , one and the other wisdom, expressed under these two liqueurs which he wants to make his friends taste, and to intoxicate his dear ones.

5.02 The wife:

I sleep and my body watches, I hear the voice of my beloved knocking.

The husband:

Worked for me, my sister, my friend, my dove, you are spotless, because my head is full of dew and my hair is full of raindrops from the night.

The body of the bride seems to rest, but the heart of her center burns with ardor, which makes her so eager and eager. This is her concern for her husband, which keeps her awake.

The husband has no less eagerness to refresh her than his ardor gives him eagerness to be. He therefore says to her who is his sister, as we have explained, to his friend, for they are united in affection and sympathy (like magnet and steel), to do the same work to his dove , which he has made so pure and so clear: Worked for me, here is what to quench your thirst in the ardor that inflames you, my test my spirit part brings you an abundant dew, I have gathered it for you, and the my eagerness to join you means that I did not wait for daylight. My test is full of drops of water, it is the sweat of suffering that causes it. These sufferings come from the fact that I cannot stay with you and unite myself to them as much as I would like. These drops of water will be beneficial to you, and this dew is a dew of light, which falling on the drought of your land will dissipate its darkness, and by refreshing you it will illuminate you. These drops come freely from the sky, incomprehensible in their principle and in their effect.

5.03 The wife:

I stripped myself of my dress, how do I re-dress it? I have washed my feet, how can I resoil them?

Matter dried up and whitened by the first visit of the spirit, seems to have difficulty in resolving to return by the first visit of the spirit, seems to have difficulty in resolving to return to this first state of dissolution and defilement, from which this first putrefaction ensued, from the quagmire from which it emerged, and she apprehends in this second visit to fall back into a similar failure as the first, where having lost and finding herself completely separated from her old body, and knowing the advantage of having left it and separated from it, she finds it difficult to allow that light, that whiteness, with which she had seemed so charming to her husband, to be obscured again.

She had washed her feet in the first bath of the renovation, this first bath had helped her to extricate herself from the muddy mire in which her prison held her captive, and had purified her.

The feet are the attachment and the affection to low and earthly things, they are washed in baptism, and in the tears of penance.

5.04 My beloved put his hand through the opening, and my stomach quivered at his touch.

The hand is the symbol of work and operation. It is also power. (Manus Dei est spiritus Dei, per quem tanquam per artificem omnia opera operantur). The hand of God is her spirit, by which all things are operated spiritually in her, and made his wife quite shaken by the emotion that this operation caused her in her womb and the deepest of her bowels and her center, and even in its most intimate parts (per minima).

This emotion so intimate could also come, as we have already touched, from the idea of ​​a new separation from this spiritualized body which she had acquired and which remained to her alone, and which she held from this husband. , in the soiled place that she had stripped, the first time she fainted.

And this opening where the bridegroom had passed his hand, can indicate either that of the natural vase, that is to say of the purified matter and subject, or that of the artificial vase, that is to say the neck of the matrass or egg. philosophical, (collum vasis).

To better understand the metaphor or allegory of this whole chapter, which has been composed, as well as the rest of this canticle, in relation to the usage of Eastern countries, it is necessary to know that the courtyards of the houses of the cities of these countries , overlook the streets, and that these courtyards are situated between the street and the manable house, where one sleeps. You enter from inside, but you can easily open it when you're in the street, passing your hand through a hole made on purpose in the door and always open. At night this door is closed with some other machine or bolt, beyond the reach of this hole, so that only those who are in the yard can unlock this door from the yard, which opens onto the street. . These streets and courtyards are usually very dirty, dusty in the drought, and muddy in the wet. The house where you sleep, and where you go after crossing the courtyard, has its own fence, for the safety of those who lodge there. That said, let's move on to the next verse.

5.05 I rose to open to my beloved, my hands were all dripping with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the most precious myrrh.

The earthly virgin, our physical bride, so susceptible to the volatile perfumes of her husband's hand, rises to go and open to him and receive him; and the effect of the touch of her husband's hand on this hole in the street door was so sudden that the hands of the wife, which designate her operation, her virtue, her passive power, in were all dripping with myrrh, and her fingers, which denoted even the smallest parts of her passive operations, were full of the most precious myrrh, with which was embellished her husband, so spirited and so volatile, who had passed his hand through the hole in the first door in the street, believing perhaps that it was only locked by the bolt of daylight. The volatility of this husband was so subtle and penetrating on this return, so fragrant, so subtle, so spiritualized and so penetrating, that his wife immediately felt the effect. This hermetically sealed wife could only hear the voice of her husband, who could not reach her and visit her until this seal was lifted, and until she herself left the room where she was confined. But this husband had no sooner touched the bolt and passed his hand through the opening of the first door, which is the artificial vase, or hermetically sealed glass, than he disappeared and flew away, which makes him say the bride what is in the next verse.

5.06 I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved, but he had already passed elsewhere and retired. My soul went out as if melted at the sound of his voice, I looked for him, and I did not find him, I called him, and he did not answer me.

It seems that it is necessary here to suppose two closed doors, one from the street, which will be the fence of the artificial vase, and the other from the room where the wife was lying, the bolt of which is the natural seal of the vases. of nature. It is now easy to understand what the wife meant: I have washed my feet, how can you go and open the street door across the yard without dirtying them again? However, the husband had passed his hand through the hole in this street door, and either opened it and entered the yard, or simply put his hand through the hole in the outside door, its spirituous odor had so strongly perfumed either the courtyard, or the bolt and the hole of the first door, which the wife went to open after having opened that of her bedroom,

But the wife no longer found her husband, he had already passed on; She called him in vain, but he did not answer her.

The matter having been suddenly imbued with this anointing, the spirit or the humidity vanishes, and does not appear any more, and rises to heaven etc...

The word which is interpreted myrrh is (heber) in Hebrew, (myrrha transiens), in French good or passable; in the spiritual it is taken for charity.

5.07 The guards who go around the city met me, they hit me and injured me. Those who guard the walls have taken away my cloak.

There seems to be a difference here between the first guards, whom our wife had met, who did not know her husband, and the latter who are not sentries and stable like the first, but fluid and itinerant like the patrol. . And this is noticeable because these are said to go around the city, designating the watery and dissolving parts, as appears from the bad treatment our wife receives from them.

Our virgin bride therefore once again abandons her bed where she rested, and her room, in search of her husband. For the voice of her husband inflames her again, and makes her abandon the place where she was in safety, to join him at the peril of her own person.

In this search she is mistreated, injured. The solution of continuity is implemented by those who go around the city, and those who guard the walls take away her coat, her mantle, in a word, strip her. Let us examine the nature of those who guard the city. Vulcan is the outer guard. The philosophical fire or dunghill is the guard who makes the rounds. And why do we not include among these guards the magus, the wise philosopher, the great priest of nature, who is dying to see the naked Diana, this virgin in all her grace and her natural charm? But this modest virgin does not resent it, she does not complain about it, for she knows very well that it is only to make her purity and her beauty shine brighter. That's why it says what you are going to read in the next verse.

5.08 I conjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved to tell him that I am pining for love.

Here is the same language as in the first dissolution. Our wife, our virgin, strives with all her strength to find her husband, and the desire she has to unite with him makes her cringe. But this languor itself produces in her an increase in perfection, she melts and dissolves wounded in the heart stripped of everything, she prays to everyone she meets to help her find what she loves.

The companions.

5.09 Who is your beloved of all beloved, o fairest of all women? What is your beloved among all the others, about whom you have thus conjured us?

We can say of the earthly stone as of the celestial, about the bridegroom, what Saint John said about the bridegroom of the church, that the light having him in the darkness, this darkness does not nevertheless had not understood it; that when he came to his house, his family had refused to receive him. It is those who make a profession of scholars, to whom only the discovery of this light is suitable, who, seeing it shine in their eyes, do not want to admit it. They erect an altar to the unknown God, and yet they treat as a new and unknown doctrine that which makes him known to them. Others make fun of it and very few believe in it, because they are almost all deaf to such language, and one can say that he who makes all the delights of nature, his mother and his wife, is unknown to them. to this portrait that the wife made of them. Gold is the god of misers, they know no other, far from knowing philosophical gold under a city appearance. Fortune is the god of the ambitious, far from stooping to the simplicity of nature, and to the ineffable mystery of light, when it unites with matter; by which union this blessed stone contains all the glory and power of nature, with all the apparent inactions of matter.

(Decet ut plene noveris quem diligis, atque orare in eo et spiritualitates celestis, et assumptae misterium incorporationis agnoscas.) This is what the bride undertakes to do by the words of the following verse.

the wife

5.10 My beloved white and red is chosen from a thousand.

The wife here puts the whiteness in front of the redness. The whiteness indicates the celestial and luminous origin of the bridegroom, and the redness what he took from the Adamic red earth, to which he united [I] (adam enim rufus)[/I] and c is why someone gave the name red bowl to the philosophical subject. And this redness comes to this husband from having trod the wine of the philosophical bunch, all alone, without any foreign help. And this juice of the bunch only rebounded on its dress, its earthiness, because by its nature it is all luminous, and light itself.

He was chosen among a thousand, for this agent being the first of all creatures (primum creatum), he was raised above all, and one can apply to this servant of nature, this agent of the Lord, this what says Isaiah, cap. 42: (Here is my servant, here is my chosen one, I will take up my mind on him, and he will do justice to the nations), that is to say he will judge the other material creatures with which he has not interfered (because he is a to be indeterminate), he is spotless, and saves and perfects the other material beings by his blood and his tincture.

5.11 His head is very good gold; her hair is like the heads of the palm trees, black as the raven.

The head is what all the rest of the body depends on, this head influences everything else, it is a philosophical gold, pure, lively, incombustible. This is why, recalling here the prudence of this physical serpent, (etiam si omnia membra cecantur, totum uratur corpus incendiis, mergatur profundo, evisceretur a bestiis, hoc tamen capite custodito, vita integra, tuta, est salus.)

Hair and black eyes make in the East the most beautiful ornament of a head, whose face is white and vermilion; but here they are regarded as the bushy branches of a palm tree, of which the head which carries them is the highest part, and the hair of its branches above rising towards the sky, represents this Adam, this philosophical man , named by the wise (arbor inversa), upturned tree, whose roots made the air nourishment, and the air communicates to it that which it brings to it from heaven, in which consists all its strength and vigor, which he can, and which resides in his hair, as in that of red Samson.

This blackness of her hair, as we have heard elsewhere, is the humidity which hides the light, and casts a shadow on it, designated by the crow which by its cry announces the rain. For this palm-tree hair is susceptible to the dew, with which the hair of the husband who asked his wife to open her door for him was all wet. This dew makes this upturned tree bear fruit, the roots of which have become black hair, like the crow, whose head the philosophers nevertheless want to be cut off while bleaching it.

The crow according to the theology of the Hebrews, is among the number of the most considerable birds, (a mensura roboris excelsi proviens, unde Psalm. 146 and Evangelio deus dicitur pascere pullos corvorum invocantes eum). See what we have said of the crow in our other works.

5.12 His eyes are like doves on the water of streams, which have been washed in milk, and stand by a great stream of waters.

Doves, it is said, have brighter eyes near water, where they appear more beautiful because they often wash themselves there, and suffer from the reflection of the light which the water throws on them, so that you would say that their whiteness has been washed away in milk. All this wants to express to us eyes clear, lively and crystalline like water, and soft like milk.

Noah's dove returned to the ark with the olive branch as a mark of God's reconciliation with men, when the waters began to recede from the earth. David asks for the wings of a dove to fly to a peaceful place. The dove in Isaiah moans for help. The doves were the price by which he was redeemed who came to save the universe, and the Holy Spirit in the figure of a dove rested on the Lord Savior emerging from the waters of the Jordan, where Saint John had just baptized him.

We should not be surprised if the eyes of the wife have been compared to a dove, those of the husband are likewise, since they are now only one.

The celestial waters and the spiritual milk are the two eyes of the husband, by which he examines and penetrates the heart of the wife, whom he regards favorably, drawing her out of the prison of her corporeity.

Doves stay near waters to see in them the shadow of birds of prey that could harm them, and they plunge into them to avoid insult. (Serpentes semini faemineo insidiantis).

Milk alone of all liquors does not represent any image by reflection, it receives no impression from foreign bodies, nor is it susceptible to any stain. Such is the eye of the bride, which stands by the waters, to bear fruit by their arousal.

From the beginning of creation, it is said that the spirit of God brooded over the waters, milk, like the bird which animates its eggs by heat while brooding them, to produce creatures renewed by the water and the fiery spirit that softens their hearts.

5.13 Her cheeks are like small beds of aromatic plants, which have been planted by perfumers, her lips are like lilies, which distil pure myrrh.

The color of the cheeks usually expresses the secret disposition of the heart. The cheeks, the outer surface of our subject, indicate the disposition and state of his inner virtue, which can exhale only the excellent perfumes of the trees which vegetate on his surface, and which the philosophers have planted and cultivated there.

(These lips of the bridegroom, which are called lilies, are perhaps those red lilies so magnificently dressed in the East, where they are common in this color, and where they give off an eccellent odor. It is the heavenly father who takes care to adorn so superbly these lilies, which neither work nor spin their adjustments.

This pure myrrh is the total stripping of all foreign things, even to the own abandonment of those closest to him, to subject himself to the only cross, and to the separation from his own body, which is the death indicated by the myrrh.

5.14 Her hands are of gold and made in the wheel, full of hyacinths, her belly is of yvoire enriched with sapphires.

The hands which signify the works are of gold, as well as the head. Gold is incorruptible, purest and best. (Turn around), that is to say perfect, because roundness is the symbol of perfection. Gold is the most beautiful.

Hyacinth is purple in color.

Its belly indicates what is most inferior and corporeal, it is of ivory, a kind of bone, whose parts are all pressed together so tightly that it is incorruptible, and of an unalterable firmness, joined with extraordinary whiteness.

The sapphire represents the color of the sky with which it is adorned. It is the power of the mind. This precious stone indicates the Xth heaven. The stable throne of Esekiel.

5.15 Her thighs are pillars of marble resting on bases of gold, her face is like that of Mount Lebanon. He is elite like the cedars.

The thigh indicates power and these golden bases incorruptible solidity, and unshakable firmness is indicated by the marble on the base, which is the foundation of nature. This marble is the fundamental and inflexible stone, but reflect that its base is golden and perhaps philosophical.

His figure is like that of Mount Lebanon. This mountain is that stone not stone, which having struck the feet of iron and clay of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream, and having broken it and ground it into powder, then itself became a mountain which filled the whole of the earth by the growth of his empire.

Chosen like the cedars, the bridegroom dwells in the high places and only looks at what is lowered. The cedars carry their branches in the clouds and push their roots to the center of the earth, drawing their principle from the sky, their food from the earth moistened with the influence, and bearing fruits raised up to the sky, towards which they tend.

5.16 His throat is very pleasant, and it is all desirable. This is my beloved and he is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.

(Huius du cedenis bonum, si anima gustaverit incredibiliter exestuat). How ineffable are the advantages that one tastes in this husband, he who is the object of all desires, whether one drags him morally or physically, (gustate and videte). He is all lovable, and therefore all desirable.

However, such a husband is loved by only a few people, because there are few virgins, that is to say, people who do not have an attachment for corruptible and dissolute things.

5.17 Where has your beloved gone, the most beautiful of women? where has your beloved retired? and we will pick it up with you.

It is only with the wife that one can find the true husband. Apart from the large transmutation point stone, it must be built on the main corner stone.

The wife will also tell them in the next chapter, because as Saint Augustine says, it is not a small part of science to unite with him who knows all your things. The bride knows what the bridegroom knows, and the daughters of Jerusalem are the companions of the bride, the other daughters of the same city who can become happy like her, when they follow her by imitating her. Or we can also understand by them the disciples of this science, who will be happy enough to follow the bridegroom, after having known him, going everywhere with him. They may be fortunate enough to be led into the wedding hall, to be introduced there when the bridegroom enters there to unite with his beloved, whose knowledge and familiarity they must cultivate, so that they may be suffered as wife's friends,

the wife

6.01/1 My beloved went down to his garden, to the bed of aromatic plants, to eat in his gardens, and to pick the lilies.

It is spoken here of the garden in the singular, where the beloved has descended; it is called the bed of herbs, and then it is said next, (so that it takes nourishment in the gardens) in the plural and that it picks the lily.

It seems by this that there is some distinction to be made of this singular garden where he descended, called parterre des aromatics (which we can interpret as our virgin wife, with whom, being united, we see this parterre forming variety of white and yellow lilies with such a good smell) and in the gardens in the plural, there are paist and ceuille of lilies.

6.01/2 My beloved went down to his garden, to the bed of aromatic plants, to eat in his gardens, and to pick the lilies.

Besides the pure virgin who is the sister of the husband, a different substance, but issuing from the same nature, which united together make one and that in this state the philosophers call their raw material philosophical metas, their mercury of which it is said: (est in mercurio quidquid quaerunt sapientes), it must be known that there is the vase of nature which contains this virgin, and this vase is the retreat of this dove, in the holes of which she hides, which is earth. (Terra is going). There is more, the bridegroom himself has his vestment, for being all light and light itself, he first gives himself up only enveloped in darkness, in damp fog, which thickens in water, hides his shining, and shade it. Which makes Hermes say, (Tolle a radio umbram suam). In a word, water is the other vessel of nature which contains the bridegroom, and it is necessary that the bridegroom and the bride both strip themselves of their coarse vestments, in order to unite perfectly together; however, they always have some veil of modesty left, which only the true philosopher is permitted to lift, and these two vestments under which the virgin and her husband allow themselves to be seen, can be the waters that surround her, or better to say the earth which is cultivated there, and the fruitful spirit which makes it fertile, of which water is the vehicle, and which for this reason can be said to be a vessel of nature as well as the earth, and both can to be aptly named the husband's gardens, where the cultivation of his herbs is done. to unite perfectly together; however, they always have some veil of modesty left, which only the true philosopher is permitted to lift, and these two vestments under which the virgin and her husband allow themselves to be seen, can be the waters that surround her, or better to say the earth which is cultivated there, and the fruitful spirit which makes it fertile, of which water is the vehicle, and which for this reason can be said to be a vessel of nature as well as the earth, and both can to be aptly named the husband's gardens, where the cultivation of his herbs is done. to unite perfectly together; however, they always have some veil of modesty left, which only the true philosopher is permitted to lift, and these two vestments under which the virgin and her husband allow themselves to be seen, can be the waters that surround her, or better to say the earth which is cultivated there, and the fruitful spirit which makes it fertile, of which water is the vehicle, and which for this reason can be said to be a vessel of nature as well as the earth, and both can to be aptly named the husband's gardens, where the cultivation of his herbs is done.

Besides that there is still the artificial vase, the glass egg, and moreover the furnace or athanor, garden of the philosopher artist, in which the whole is contained, and of which it is said:

Philosophers have a garden
Where the sun evening and morning
And day and night, and at all hours,
And incessantly remains there,
With a sweet dew,
by which is well watered
The earth bearing tree and fruit,
Who there are planted and led,
And take two food
By a pleasant pasture.


The trees cultivated there are metellic, according to the chemical idiom, and according to that of the Song of Songs, they are the white and red lilies, of which the husband makes his pasture. (Terra alba and rubea quae nutrix eius).

6.02 I belong to my beloved and my beloved is mine, he who feeds among the lilies.

And how could the wife not belong to her well-beloved, since she stripped herself of everything else to possess only him, ausuel she attached herself and delivered herself only to depend only on him? And she was right to do so, since everything she is, and what she has of good, she holds only from him.

He preferred her to all the universe, made beautiful from the deformed that she was, purified of her rottenness and cured of the ulcers with which she was covered: how could she not belong entirely to such an amiable, useful husband, and by whom she was so loved?

It feeds on lilies, white and red, which it converts into its own substance.

6.03 The husband

You are beautiful my friend, suave and decorated like Jerusalem, formidable like an army arrayed in battle.

The state in which the union of the husband had placed the wife made her agreeable to the taste of those who have it, and adorned to the eyes of those who make use of it. Never was Jerusalem more superb, so magnificent, nor so strong. The union of all its parts, of which each in particular performs its function, in order to tend to the same end, made it terrible by its great power.

6.04 Turn your eyes away from me, for they are the ones that made me fly away. Your hair is like a herd of goats, which show themselves from Mount Gilead.

If one wants to speak of the eyes of the spirit, indeed this spouse is incomprehensible. But as for the eyes of our physical virgin, their sparkling and inflamed brilliance makes the husband so volatile, so eager to unite with her, that he soon escapes sight when the wife wants to stare at him fixedly. She is for him a real basilisk. Immediately the material is dried out. The volatile ceases to be, it is instantaneously killed, fixed, and we lose this bridegroom.

This comparison of the bride's hair is blamed for the exalted and refined whiteness that covers it.

6.05 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes which have come up from the washing place, and which all bear double fruit, without there being any sterile ones among them.

This repetition, similar to what has already been said, warns us of the process and progress similar to that which was made in the preceding imbibition, of which this seems only a reiteration, indicated by the new descent of the husband into its gardens.

6.06 Your skirts are like the peel of a pomegranate, without what is hidden in you

This other repetition shows that if this reiteration of operation began like the preceding one, it also ends in the same way; and that we must hope for the discovery of something more eccellent, which is still hidden, of which the color starting from the exterior cheeks is a sure sign.

6.07 There are sixty queens and eighty concubines (women of the second rank) and the maidens are without number.

We warned from the beginning that this verse indicates multiplication.

When the light, issuing from the power of the Creator in all its energy and vigor, was put into action, it acted freely, and suddenly executed the perfection of the created beings, for whose formation and arrangement it was destined; but since it has been engaged, absorbed and imprisoned in the matter and the mass of the corporeity of the mixed, it is only little by little, and by repeated efforts and repeated progress, that it comes to the end of her operation, to the perfection of which she employs a great deal of time. This means that all the parts of the natural or physical compound do not obtain the same perfection all together, and at the same instant.

These maidens without numbers can point out to us the raw parts of the compost, which though indigestible are nevertheless destined to reach maturity and perfection. The eighty concubines can signify those who have approached the husband more closely than those preceding them, without however being completely incorporated into it, that is to say without being united to it in perpetuity; but the sixty queens indicate to us those who are perfectly united to their husband by inclination, as was that of David, of Saint Paul and of Saint John, and they will become one and the same body and one and the same spirit in all perfection as this number indicates.

6.08 Only one is my dove, my perfect one.

She is unique from her mother, chosen by her who fathered her; the girls saw her, she was published happy by the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

The mother of this dove is the spirit descended from heaven who took this form after baptism, the one who is formed from it is the beloved virgin bride, chosen by the one who begot her. Others want the celestial Jerusalem to be the mother of this bride and chosen dove, exiled in truth from her homeland, but who makes herself worthy of reigning every day (by the progress she makes daily in the process of the great work ) with his mother by spiritualizing himself, because it is from heaven that his origin truly comes. (Aentheus est illi vigor et celestis origo unde fluit nobis haec medicina dei. Entheus, Pythonicus, deo plenus et furore divino affatus).

These praises published by these girls, these concubines and these queen wives, mark the eagerness and the violent desire they have to attain to the perfection of this dove which they have seen, which is the first degree of tincture.

6.09 Who is she who advances like the dawn when she rises, beautiful like the moon, distinguished like the sun, terrible like an army arrayed in battle array?

The dawn is the end of the night, and the beginning of the day it announces. A capillary circle where the whiteness shines, To develop the shadows of the night, Luy gives a taste of the saffron of the dawn.

The moon is the star of night, which shines in the darkness. Which made the Cosmopolitan say: (in nocturnis versatur tenebris, cui sol non lucet in densa umbra est, cui de nocte non apparet luna etc...)

Electra ut sol, chosen to become the sun herself, and from then on she will be in a state not only of no longer fearing her enemies, but she will become terrible to them, destroying and calcining all the impurity that could harm her, and oppose her power. .

6.10 I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the apples of the valleys, and to consider whether the vine had blossomed, and whether the pomegranate apples had sprouted.

This garden of walnuts is undoubtedly one of those of her husband. These nuts could show us the fruits of this garden, enveloped in natural vases, as the walnut is in its different shells, of which the wife would have liked to consider the state either of their flower or of their fruit. The walnut is the symbol of the epousalles by its double envelopes.

These nuts can still hear what makes this garden fruitful and communicates to it the external and artificial heat of a lamp, maintained with the oil produced by the walnut.

However, when I reflect on the expression of Bernard Trevisan, in a little treatise that I have translated formerly, where it is said that one must also put the earth with the fire in a suitable vase, then introduce an inextinguishable fire of nuts, which descending to the earth devours everything with the gum and converts it into its nature, this causes me to renew my attention.

This garden of nuts is the one where the wife descends, to take away the bitterness of those who descend, that is, who fall or sin; and the hardness of the shell is that of the nut of sin, which covers and encloses a pleasant kernel, provided that the grace of the bridegroom removes this bitterness and breaks the kernel. This is what the anointing of grace does in the spiritual, and in the physical bitterness turns to sweetness, and hardness is softened by solution.

6.11 I did not know, and my soul troubled me, accuses of the chariots of Aminadab

The wife could not have known anything about this flower, nor about this maturity of the fruits, because everything happens in the secret furnace of nature.

And his soul was troubled accusing of the chariots of Aminadab. The term quadriga signifies either a cart or a chair or a chariot drawn by four horses, or the very horses which draw it, or a horse destined to be one of the four which serve for this team of four horses. We know that in terms of adepts, which is a very particular idiom, the horse is the dissolving and volatile part; but this term (quadriga) is appropriate and indicates the plurality of these horses, which seem to multiply in the progress of the work, which here appears very advanced. The first of these horses is black, the second is white, the third is citrine and the fourth is red: here is the quadrille of repeated imbibitions which follow one another, and these are the colors or the qualities in which these couriers lead the chariot of the philosophical sun,

Some say that this Aminadab was the name of the one who first entered and crossed the Red Sea.

The philosopher will interpret it for what penetrates matter or the red servant.

6.12 Come back, come back O Shulamite, come back, come back, that we may consider you.

This spirit which resuscitates the dead could well bring back the troubled wife, since it had already rescued her from a greater fainting spell, and that more than once. The god Mercury was destined by learned poets to lead the souls of the dead to hell, and to bring them back. (Mercurius animas ducit and reducit).

Shulamite means peaceful, this is how the wife is called, accusing that after so many troubles suffered, she can finally expect a fixed and permanent peace.

By these four repetitions of return, the wife is recalled four times. Which supposes that she was discouraged, and had been disfigured so many times. Which corresponds to these four horses, these quadrigae, harnessed to this chariot of Aminadab. Which can also indicate the four corners of the philosophical world, from which this virgin dissipated by so many solutions is called back, by way of the four seasons, to unite herself forever with her husband.

But because this dissolving spouse has come to bring the sword, and not peace, to this virgin land, he nevertheless wants her to hope for it by her union, for the mystery of reconciliation has been given to her, and he will reconcile her. with the formidable justice of the father who is the fire, who will no longer be able to harm him; on the contrary, he will beatify her.

It is thus that this virgin purifies herself more and more, and that she becomes more luminous, by the looks of this husband who wants to consider her more and more, finding her more beautiful each time he sees her. washed away with tears, and that he has dried them with the ardor of his love that he procures for her, and which makes this wife so greatly tried more and more beautiful, which makes you want to consider her new.

The wife's companions

7.01 What do you pour into the Shulamite, if not hearts of music in a camp? How beautiful are your steps, o daughters of princes! In your shoes the knuckles of your thighs are like necklaces made by the hand of a worker.

Our virgin being in perpetual combat between the enemies who agitate her, the water and the fire which persecute her, always emerges victorious from these attacks by the help she receives from her husband, who thus puts her to the test. to make sure of it more; and when she has returned to her camp, she sings of victory, delighted to have won it, glorious to have suffered so much for her husband, who desires these trials from her, and who rewards them each time with a new ray of glory.

The steps of our wife are the progress of our matter, which by the force of the spirit which animates it, leaves no part of its subject without communicating it to her.

The shoe prevents one from touching the earth, and is a beginning of separation from it, which raises us above, (in terram foliatam).

This sister, this wife, is here called a prince's daughter, for she takes from him all that she has that is precious, and makes the wealth and ornament of his kingdom; and moreover she was formed and engendered by it, for this amiable virgin is the daughter of her husband, (spiritus incorporatus, et fixatus, ortus a spitu volatile celesti). Eve was indeed formed from Adam, and even from his costa (parte duriore, os ex ossibus).

The neck of that which was honored with triumph is usually adorned with yokes enriched with the most precious ornaments, for it is a question of the joints of the legs and thighs of the wife, which appear like hinges of the last poly and of a worker's hand, even of a master. This worker is the spouse who gives all this grace to the unifying me, from which proceeds all the agility of the progress of this great work, whose two thighs are the white and the red, two sulfurs so desired in the work.

7.02 Your navel is a cup made on the wheel, where there is never a shortage of liquor to drink. Your belly is like a heap of wheat surrounded by lilies.

The navel is the conduit through which the child takes its nourishment from its mother's womb. This mother has two children, the moon and the sun, because it is Latona who gave birth to Apollo and Diana, whom she first nourishes with virginal milk, in their childhood, until they are strong enough. to empty the cup filled with a more perfect beverage, with this wholly spiritual and celestial liquor. It is the navel of our virgin, which is this cup of perfection, made around with accuracy and skilfully formalized, where the fixed and the volatile are mixed, the spirit with the earthly, the celestial with the elementary, the formal. with the material. This conduit is treated as the navel to show that it is cut, and that the menstrual and corrupt food is no longer communicated through it.

It is not enough that the liquor expressed and contained in the cup, the more solid food of the fixed, is designated by this belly, compared to a piece of wheat, all surrounded by lilies. Because this wheat, this philosophical grain, is accompanied by sweetness, beauty, signified by the ordorant lily that surrounds it. (Lilium album, Lilium rubeum continent). This grain of wheat was sown, rotted and died in virgin earth, and having germinated there, produced a heap of wheat by its multiplication which gave it the spirit of fruitfulness, which made it suitable for food, health and rejoicing flavor of all men. Psalm 8. (He fed with the purest wheat flour, and satisfied it with honey from the stone).

(Vallatus liliis), that lily which is the husband, the spirit, the very volatile itself, which is elsewhere called itself the same flower of the fields, lily of the valleys, which serves here as a rampart to this heap of grain, and the surrounded like an island, to defend it from the ardor of the sun, and from all that could spoil it.

7.03 Your two udders are like two little twins of a female deer.

It is a repetition of what was said in another imbibition, which points out that this is still a new one here.

7.04 Your neck is like a tower of ivory, your eyes are like the pools of Hesebon, which are at the gate of the daughter of the multitude, your nose like the tower of Lebanon looking down on Damascus.

The palm has a permanent greenness and its foliage never changes; and the celestial juice having made it grow, it maintains in this state, erect, elevated and august. The crescent palm is slender below, and grows larger as it rises, and the higher it rises the more excellent the fruit it bears. This is why we compare the size of the wife to it. As the cross having been lifted up, prepares for us in the spiritual a celestial and salutary nourishment.

The bunches of grapes want to be pressed to give this intoxicating liquor; it is therefore necessary to squeeze the udders to change the milk into wine.

The fine flower of the white clusters which the palm grows, and which have not yet been touched, is for delicate connoisseurs.

7.05 Your heart is like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your heart is like the king's purple tied to the canals.

The husband is the head of the wife, and the bridegroom with whom the wife is adorned is her head, Mount Carmel of the tribe of Isshar, sitting near Tyre, beautiful, fruitful and adorned with all kinds of fruit: this test is therefore filled with all kinds of good. This head which governs everything receives not only the light from above, but must be watered with the salutary rains which make it fertile: (In Carmelo Elias orans obtinuit pluviam). The hair of the wife's head is like a royal purple, that is to say the line that is dyed in this color is dyed twice before being spun, and is tied in the tuiais to through which flows the blood of that fish or shell called purple.

The author compares the hair of the wife's head to this wool. It is this specious and precious tincture which is the blood of the husband, of which the wife being tainted, and bound to the canals through which it flows, she receives splendor, power; and the diadem; in a word, it is what makes her queen, worthy wife of the powerful king who by her tincture makes so many kings of those to whom he communicates her and who find themselves tinted by it.

7.06 How beautiful you are, full of grace, o you who are my dearest, and the delights of my heart.

It is in this state that the wife is pleasant to consider, for formerly and in the beginning she was full of bitterness, but now she is filled with sweetness. She who was deformed and black has become dazzlingly beautiful and dazzlingly white.