CHRYSOSPAGYRIA

BY FRANCOIS ROSSELLET
DOCTOR DOCTOR

DEDICATED
TO MONSEIGNEUR
THE ILLUSTRATED CARDINAL OF GRANVELLE

IN LYON
BY CHARLES PESNOT
MD LXXXII
WITH PERMISSION


Aries
Zodiac at the Portail Saint-Firmin
Amiens Cathedral

TO MONSEIGNEUR
THE ILLUSTRATED CARDINAL OF GRANVELLE

Monsignor, I take a boldness farther from the shameful way (which accompanies the young years of those who pay homage with their lives to virtue) than the mark of your greatness would allow possible. However, as burning with the same flame of Xenocrates, I deserve excuse, who in love and desirous to know, and somewhat to taste the greatness, the virtue, the favor, of the son of Philip Macedon, suddenly, and according as the virtuous desire impelled him , went to the place where this Monarch sorted out the affairs of everyone. And there presented to him all the little forces that could rest in his tender brain. Service certainly somewhat to be snuffed, considering that the point of a heart born generous moved it to do this. I, then, dressed like that Philosopher, and living in hope of such grace, I address to your Most Illustrious Lordship a short note, which promised me that it would be necessary to make every effort to let you know with what zeal and affection I wish to convey, or rather devote, my most entire and helpful impression to the generous greatness of you and yours. Which really can not bring out other sparks from my heart than a desire to notice those who dress in the mantle of virtue and are to us like a sun from which depends the only light of our humble condition. And since this great God has raised you above all and adorned you with a first grace to make you the mirror where the four beautiful parts of an entire virtue are naively represented: namely faith, temperance, strength and justice, rightly as the only object of our age we owe you the honor, the prize, the love, which every virtuous soul, versed in the knowledge of things, deserves and surely expects. Spain recognizes you as such, not without justly advising that on your fortune, your knowledge, your vigils, your labors, depends peace, the preservation of the state of our good King. The Frenchman will be my faithful witness, who has not ceased to admire you since the time he knew the bitterness and vivacity of your advice, which (according to destinies) was to smother and extinguish the lit brazier of all antiquity between these those magnanimous nations. And what? Will the sea guide your conquests? Are you not the ones who share in the indelible and memorable victory of this second Epaminonde, this gentle lord of Austria, making you the same state in his regard as Fabius Maximus wanted to make in the place of the son of Paulus Emilius of Italy as having tasted the strength and vigor of this Council, will she be silent? Is it not you who have brought out all the happy means that should be employed to keep in a peaceful state so many lands far from the sight of their natural Lord? Where your fairness, gentleness and sincerity have left as testimony the regrets that these nations still sigh to see themselves in no way deprived of the Sun on which depended the light of their justice and union. These serious things which affect the usefulness of everyone must fall under the hand of those who claim to represent, by their learned writings, the images and labors of magnanimous men, and not of me who is content to fly even lower than the brave spirit lowers. But to return to my ares and in a word erect a trophy, is there a remarkable reign in Europe where your signal house has not left an immortal duty for the service and increase of the greatness of our Princes. This wise Nestor Bourguignon, the lord of Granvelle your father, did he not once make known to our invincible and magnanimous Caesar how important was the dexterity of his rare knowledge in the conduct of his great affairs? This Caesar, I say, who having learned of his funereal and unexpected death, shed the same tears that Augustus returned for the eternal absence of his well-advised Maecenas, in whose place God called you, wishing that from your hand the fortune of our King was ruled and governed: in which the greatness of your mind acquits itself as happily as formerly the vigilant Métel acquitted himself in the conduct of Roman affairs. It is enough for me, and I praise God who grants me this first grace, to make known with what zeal and affection burns the most sensitive part of my heart to the effect of embracing the least portion of the height of so many generous virtues which gild you and your stock, which deservedly commands me to present in the image of your greatness a gilded discourse which includes some demonstrations and spagyric preparations, and leaning on you (as on the plinth of some solid and cubic safety) will receive the first judgment of the letters that I collected to build his small birth. I assure myself that I cannot choose a soul better acquainted with the affairs of this world than yours, and better separating works well done from badly done. Which causes me, pushed by a slight temerity (which is the first intemperance of my young brain), to place in your hands this little aborted child that I conceived and gave birth to a few short days ago in this. I assure myself that it will take a second life from you if once your eye caresses it with the humanity and customary sweetness that accompany the greatness of your generous and learned spirit. This is what prompted my recent study to somewhat attack your merits, though I know for sure that you abhor those delectable preparations which are made by fire and put your hand in them after the Royal Affairs debate (as if it passed the Breeze test that the weight of such dealings in the long run can bring to your mind) in which you imitate the Lyric citizen of Horace who, after having attached the galley to the ports where he had happily spent the day for his fatherland, returned to his home soothed the fatigue of the war which still tormented his spirit with the harmony of the lute and Music. So I took a boldness (Monseigneur) that you must excuse, as Auguste excused the young verses of Tibulle with the hope that time maturing the brains of this young Poet would one day bring more contentment to his spirit.

Vesoul this January 8, 1582

From Your Most Illustrious Lordship
The most humble servant,

Francois Rossellet
doctor doctor


DEDICATIONS


FRANCISCO ROSSELLETO
DOCTORI MEDICO VESULANO

Aurea: cui mento frondescit barba, virenti:
Sed cui canities plurima mentis inest.
Cuifavet and Phoebus: nec non Epidauria proles:
Doctor, sequanici, laus celebranda soli:
Dum sapiens medicus, medicas incumbis in artes.
Sanguis Appolineus quam tibi dexter adest?
Sed dum scribis Epos: divinun pectus anhelat
Carmina Pieriis assimilanda modis.
Quam benen conueniunt, medicina et sacra Poesis,
Haecanimum nutrit, corpus at illafovet.
Delius is acque medicina, and carminis auctor:
Corporis ut medicus, sic animi medicus.
Phoebigena alter ades si quidem medicamine corpus
Instauras: Animum carminibusque levas
Ac excundis opus musis and Apolline dignum:
Dum vivunt flammis fulva metalla tuis.
Dumque novis animis, animas prope reddis adepts
Corporibus: medicos vincis in arte patres:
Quid superest aliud, nisi sis Aesclepius alter,
Qui vitam extincto reddidit Hippolyto?
Quolibet is aurum sicut pretiosius ære:
Ære vel puro purior ignis ut est:
Ingenÿ monumenta tui sic inciyta, palmam
Pracipiunt aliis, pracipiunt que decus:
Utque micans aurum nullo consimitur igne,
Aurea sit tempus non tua scriptateret.

Antonius Huetius.


TO MR ROSSELLET
DOCTOR DOCTOR

Rousselet you are red, and the dawn is red
Of Phoebe Goldenbeard, of the best learned
You have restored your name with your golden writings,
And your Philosophy and its virtues, again.
The gold from among the metals, which the fire does not devour,
Of itself was priceless.
Gold much more prized, especially as the spirits
Drawn from a heavy body have the most scenery.
The Lydian people of the sacred mount of Imole
Has seen the sand shake in Pactolus,
In bodied sand, impure, thick, solid,
And you most admired among the people of Séquan
Against its natural impure, solid, thick,
Make it pure, and flowing, and drinkable, and liquid,

S. Besancenot.


ON THE CHRYSOSPAGYRIA OF MONSIEUR ROSSELLET

Roussellet but rather a rivulet of doctrine,
Or smooth-flowing river of well-limited course,
Who sends from here to posterity
The secrets of a rare and true medicine:
Who with an ardent desire inflames your chest
Of an art that the vulgar consider vanity
Because his spirit stopped on earth,
Only understands the secrets of the high machine.
If I'm one of those for whom your labor is,
Who with the same doctrine and practice is pleased,
Who searches for bodies so many metamorphoses
And that the Muses have so many times confessed.
Would I not praise you for so many worthy things
If any of us are to be praised?

G. De la Taissonniere.



CHRYSOSPAGYRIA

BY FRANCOIS ROSSELLET
DOCTOR DOCTOR

Preamble on the Medicine of the Ancients

Sometimes, being withdrawn in my private (where the desire to advance matters to my recent study ranged me), I thought and rethought on the way that our fathers held for the preservation of their bodies and relief of spirit, and what antidote has been the most intimate and familiar to them, to the effect of cutting off and limiting the course to so many poverties, that the Greeks and Arabs have left us as a testimony of their affectionate diligence and commendable observation. The memory of which is marked and happily understood under the name of a Milkweed, a Podalyre and a Swallowtail, who are held to be the first who devoted their duty to human profit under the authority and greatness of this title of Doctor. And I know that we are assured by the letters of a Homer and demonstrations of other infinities, as of a Diocles, an Archigenus or a Herophile, of the inexplicable effects they have put forward for the health of humans. If any of them is found who dares to assure what grace, what reason, what remedy they held in their way of curing: and to say that nature has been envious of the communication of their serious labor to posterity. For such benefits and merits they joined immortality, and feeling that the anguish of death pressed them, and just as there was no way (although the command of their art was great) to force the last hour which every mortal owes to its maker, desiring however the honor of a fleeting immortality, similar (as might be) to that which Alexander reduced under the moment of his last day desired, gloriously stimulated the heir to their art not to let the brave fruits and effects they had produced and engendered mold in rest. Which they did, but not with such contentment as a naïve mind feels, and driven from its Hearth in pursuit of their doctrine would wish. The inheritance therefore increased and the seeds sown succeeded so much in remedies and virtues, that Nature the least in the world or much aggravated, not wishing to be ungrateful and odious in their difficulties and to touch their sweat in vain, humbly obeyed and presented her hands to them: and sometimes seeing them half alienated so as not to see the act of their grave labor such as they desired, winking them a favorable eye, straightened them out as lost and foreclosed in the path of their desire. Who, after having conceived such benefit and such grace, and after a thousand consultations and occupations, assured that Nature, failing in her, drew from her the remedies of her passions. This judgment was grand and holds more latitude than human understanding can at first leap consider, and has put such alterations between the Empirical and dogmatic sects that scarcely all the authority of a learned Monarchy could put back into a sweet and amicable conjuration: but as they aim at the same scope and aim which is observation and effect which only follows experience, which first showed things by chance and chance and since, so that its ardor and violence was tempered, was reduced under the hand of the sages as the sole vassal of their reason. It seems to me,

The medical heritage of the ancients

We see by ocular experience and manifest observation, that the Greeks and Arabs, for two thousand years, in this have left the recipe for more than three hundred diseases to which our body is attached, without the news which is discovered from day to day and swarms of this body with such horror that the spirit which contemplates the source and cruelty of such passions sometimes remains as if ecstatic and deprived of the knowledge of itself. Which, the more successfully to combat and assail, we must torment Nature more cheerfully and with greater importunity, or gently beg her to extend to us more precious and rare remedies than she has yet made and which she opens to this blow the most favorite and rich box of his treasures, as much to secure ourselves and camp against the superb effort of these monsters as to drive them away, if by chance they wanted to shoot the arrows of their ire at the sworn ruin of the house of our soul. That if otherwise, despising her son-in-law, she does, with Pliny we will accuse her of being rather a cruel stepmother than a gracious mother to man.

Now leaving this first flight, I want to anchor at the port of a dispute with a curious protest against our Elders. There is no one, so arrested in his own affairs, who does not voluntarily confess that antiquity has not been so unfortunate and unhappy in the investigation and pleasant research of natural things, that it has not observed a thousand and a thousand means understood under the authority of remedies to develop us evils which at all times assail us, and even better to force and stubbornly overcome an unexpected shipwreck which cruel would threaten the scope and goal where the Almighty under the limit of nature us has tidied up.

Primacy of Gold

However, very few of his infants (and in truth the number is less than small) have put this precious liquor in their writings, at no other second. Which for its great and admirable virtues called it from the thing from which it is produced and drawn which is gold (metal altering the most secret folds and hiding places of the interior of man), a strange and almost incredible if the following of the Trismegistus and the heart of these Philosophers did not assure us and put almost the last seal of truth that those who used it relieved their lives, redeemed their bodies from fatigue and passions, and finally won the goal that nature promised to every reasonable creature, spiteful of the external waves which threaten the most assured of our life.

...its known effects

These Fathers really lived and drew the web of their years by ambrosia alone, and by this means put back into a second life, healthily honored the Gods, noticed the eternity of souls, the whirling of the Heavens, the content of the world, the nature of things, and thus conducted the state of their lives in virtuous pursuits. For it is an inviolable demonstration, the body being healthy the faculties are valid, the senses less confused, the spirit agile and current, which after advising to its dignity rises, and delighted with a boiling desire penetrates to the Sky, surpasses all the celestial globes and cavities where finally for grace adores him who was its first author.

Their sorrow therefore must be engraved in the most capable and arduous of our senses, to have put their desire into effect and contentment by the sole pleasure of health and the elongation of their life. That if the diligence of their following had proved to the honor and profit that the greatness of their doctrine promised, possible this so blissful remedy had not for so long abandoned the rays of our eyes.

...its detractors

It is therefore necessary that their negligence, or rather a raw heart that they carry to the Spagyric doctrine, mother and propagator of such fruits, has moved the first divorce, which insultingly abhors and cruelly detests as a sordid thing. I have poured into the world such men who, after having set foot at the ford of such science only to see the effects respond at all to their burning will and the last act of what they desired, have blasphemed against the extent of these natural principles and authorities. But I compare such an image of people to that of Icarus, who built with a badly made head and recklessly raised under his badly cast wings, rising up to the sky from where he thought violently to extract the secrets and, proud, to accompany too familiarly the things that overcame his smallness,

...those who have plowed for a long time

But others, who have sought the pleasure and contentment of such a doctrine, have not for the first time fired a despair that always shatters, and achieved the point of a laborious pursuit. But, imitating Daedalus, swung into the mid-air region for they noticed science to be long, life shorter than the latitude of it bore, and what must remain for a Trophy of all experience late and slow. However, the patience which is the nursing mother of all advancement gnawed at them, who, after having tasted and accomplished the rigor of its laws, saw themselves masters and complete possessors of the thing requested. But what one cannot say without tears, have used the brave spoils and rich fleece of their labor too much more miserably than posterity would like.

The reasons for secrecy

These broken Philosophers, and entrusted in eternity with a pain which ulcerated the most secret cavity of their hearts as heirs of Prometheus, contemplated the source of all things, the causes of these actions, faculties ensuring by living reason that the nature which hanging below is nothing but a beautiful object or portrait of Eternity or some table and mirror representing the knowledge of all things comprised under the species of animals, vegetables and minerals, which are like the parts and the whole of the shop of this visible world in which shine and are manifest the nets of the Almighty Power of God. From there have deduced the properties of things, and from the remedies, which could fight and assail nature if she wanted to erase the promise she made to our years. And as the intention, and nerve of our saying, is stretched above a part of the three, leaving two in peace, I will address myself to the third, although Nature in her creation and being has shown herself more surly and vexatious than in the generation of the others. For you will judge, to see it, that it has no soul and that it does not promise such growth as is common to plants and animals. However I want to say, with the reason of the first Philosophers, that she shared with him a sample of this balm, which she intended for the life of all things, which cannot be born of any marriage that the qualities can do in this low territory. even though Nature in her creation and being has shown herself more resentful and vexatious than in the generation of the others. For you will judge, to see it, that it has no soul and that it does not promise such growth as is common to plants and animals. However I want to say, with the reason of the first Philosophers, that she shared with him a sample of this balm, which she intended for the life of all things, which cannot be born of any marriage that the qualities can do in this low territory. even though Nature in her creation and being has shown herself more resentful and vexatious than in the generation of the others. For you will judge, to see it, that it has no soul and that it does not promise such growth as is common to plants and animals. However I want to say, with the reason of the first Philosophers, that she shared with him a sample of this balm, which she intended for the life of all things, which cannot be born of any marriage that the qualities can do in this low territory.

The 4 Elements... and their components

And even that the opinion is the most marketed and vulgar: that all the bodies comprised under the named species have for principle and efficient cause the agreement and assembly of the four first qualities which are like principles and elements of all visible bodies. Which (after their sedition was appeased) with an amicable conspiracy served for the being of this great whole, confusing, assembling, mixing the wet with the dry, the ardent with the frozen, the hasty with the late, the force with the right , granting a weight to the departure of all species so proportionally balanced that the violence of one cannot ruin the weakness of the other, so that the contrariety of heavy to light, moist to dry, cold to hot and some and other qualities is, by an equal disposition, knotted as one would say in indissoluble union and that from there, according to the most decided judgment, the plants and minerals receive their birth and increase, the raw animals their increase and feeling. If some as established from a simple being, I mean the minerals for their remote generation according to the rather ample demonstration that the Spagyres have left us, seem to warn us that they do not agree with this common opinion but, in effect, teach us that they are produced and engendered by other parents than the first.

Sulfur and Mercury according to Geber

What Geber maintains in his Somme, the greatest torrent of metallic principles that could be found, which with animated reasons proves and affirms that all metallics are composed of two principles which he calls Sulfur and Mercury: by this sulphurous principle he understands a grease engendered from the bowels of the earth, which, stirred by temperate cooking, thickens, hardens and dries up and from the last act, which is induration, Sulfur is named. By Mercury a viscous water clinging stubbornly to the viscera of the earth of an exactly subtle substance, which by means of temperate heat is reduced to an epicrass of dry and moist equally arranged. This is why this metallic principle is fluid, because of its humidity, and cannot adhere to anything even though it is viscous because the dryness which tempers it prevents the force of the viscosity of the moist: and is stopped by no obstacle except the single bond of Sulphur, which mixes so much its parts with the opposites of the viscous humor by a means which is the heat of the earth, that from there arises a very tenuous spirit, which multiplied in it can be called the immediate matter of metals. After it is received and cooked in the temperate heat of the mineral viscera, it converts and takes on a consistency similar to some earthy mass, which softens with the humidity flowing from the earth, and by this means matter kneads better and comes together; then the elements hasten and flow into it their virtues with due and natural proportion and mingle according to their parts until the mixture is at all perfect, which by continual decoction is governed and governed until it ferments, hardens and finally takes the body of metal.

The foundation of Alchemy

This, then, is how the common mother of all things, Nature, proceeds in the generation of metals and was not enough that she enlarges a living silver for the being of these, but provide in all things she wanted to accompany this Mercury of a natural silver which cannot be anything else, according to Geber, than an oily earth, decooked and thickened by the strong heat which is in the entrails of the mines, which can be called (the words are artists) meritoriously Sulphur. And I know that the surnamed bodies only serve to be of all metals, if indeed they are somewhat different in their species and qualities and hold such latitude between them as curd compared to milk, as man compared to woman, than money to her subject matter. However, I will say this, by pursuing our career to stop the opinion of some, that common sulfur and vulgar mercury cannot be elements and matter of metals. For these two bodies, namely Sulfur and Mercury, are principled and considered as individuals from which no actions, without having force and faculties moreover, can proceed. And besides the reasons that I could put forward in the campaign, experience will prove it quite honestly. Never have we seen or found common quicksilver or vulgar sulfur mixed and united together in mines. How then would they be principles since they are not found at the places of the birth of metals. namely, Sulfur and Mercury, are principled and considered as individuals from which no actions, without having force and faculties besides, can proceed. And besides the reasons that I could put forward in the campaign, experience will prove it quite honestly. Never have we seen or found common quicksilver or vulgar sulfur mixed and united together in mines. How then would they be principles since they are not found at the places of the birth of metals. namely, Sulfur and Mercury, are principled and considered as individuals from which no actions, without having force and faculties besides, can proceed. And besides the reasons that I could put forward in the campaign, experience will prove it quite honestly. Never have we seen or found common quicksilver or vulgar sulfur mixed and united together in mines. How then would they be principles since they are not found at the places of the birth of metals. Never have we seen or found common quicksilver or vulgar sulfur mixed and united together in mines. How then would they be principles since they are not found at the places of the birth of metals. Never have we seen or found common quicksilver or vulgar sulfur mixed and united together in mines. How then would they be principles since they are not found at the places of the birth of metals.

Of the nature of Sulfur

This active Sulphur, which is like the father of the work of the Philosophers and of all metals, has two natures in itself contrary to each other, one yields to the battle that the heat sets up for it, the other resists all external violence and is as congealed and not melting, which is the cause why nature wanted to show how great is the difference between active sulfur and melting. What is observed in the fusion of the seven metals which are congealed by the action of the fusible Sulfur as no less one sees the simple metals, Magnesias, Marcasites and other Chymoles, sour to the force of the fire because the sulfur not fusible gains the upper hand in them and dominates at all in their first nature.

... other considerations

Leaving this second flight to take up a new air, I will pray whoever, probing the will of my speech, could think of more mature reasons to forgive me if I leave, for this blow, the opinion of the master of Alexander in the deduction of the principles of metals to follow the demonstration that the Philosophers of the first age left us. And I know that they are vastly different in stopping the procreation of metals and that they fight as one would like to say in diameter. If the opinion of one cannot be preceded to follow only the affection of the other. For even though you affirm that the metals are juices hardened by cold and made of earth mixed with water according to Spagiryte, or Sulfur and Mercury cooked by heat such as the Arab prince has feigned for us,

Access to dyes

And so may the tinctures testify. Gold is a metal according to nature. Aristotle makes earth mixed with water and, especially since the quantity of earth does not erase the splendor of water but only obscures its transparency, all the more its color is more beautiful, pure, lasting in the fire, precious and estimable between us, since its mixture is more sincere and pure: but, according to Avicenna, you will say that it is a clear rubicund Sulphur, accompanied by all purity, which is cooked with excited heat belly of the earth, which for its perfection requires a world of years: and as much as this Sulfur is more pure and sincere and the coction of this one longer and perfect, so much the naturalness of the metal is more high, precious and valuable among humans.

Still all these diligently arranged considerations will not be able to assign a truly probable whole if the scythe is not thrown further into the harvest and if it is not affirmed that the heat of the earth alone cannot be the private cause of the being, color and virtues of metals. But it is necessary by necessity that the neighbors of the elements operate and put their hand in the generation of these.

Role of the Sun, the Moon and the Stars
The Sun and the Gold

We see that the Sun and its sister, and the other celestial torches, fluttering in such unanimous disorder along certain marked paths from places divided by certain periods, divide us and describe the seasons, give us the hours, of which joined and united establish for us the days, days the months, months the year, years the centuries, centuries hear the age of their innumerable revolution by which they cause vapors to exhale, make them re-cool, warm us, winter us in a natural and not accidental return and spinning never tired and weary. And from there, according to the Egyptian doctrine, plants and minerals receive their increase, their virtues, their properties and graces, for we see that where the heat of the eye of the world is more continually active the growth of this metal is there more copious and fertile, the color more beautiful and precious. This manifests itself in the regions nearer to the Torrid Zone, because the rays of the Sun in these continually hot places bring a non-idle and interpolated cooking to the matter destined to be gold. What the Majorican seems to have somewhat in his testament and in his work of the animation of the mercuries, where he assigns and specifies the time from which the Philosopher must take and draw the beginning of his work which is the equinox and return of the Sun at the first point of Aries. Because it is then that the Sun with its heat brings back to us the germ of all things,

The power of the sun
... its assimilation to Gold

Here, then, is the usefulness of this Sun, the first miracle of the world, which shows itself not only by its vigorous heat, which nourishes and makes fertile the earth and gives being to all things, but also by the remarkable mutations of the times and changes seasons. These first conquests could not limit the career of the study of these good fathers but, always stubborn in their great work, wanted to seek the virtue of created things and, not content with having their principle and creation in hand by a beautiful grace and accord of nature, have so loosed the rein on their affection that they have made prodigal this fruitful mother where she wanted to show herself stingy and surly and, pushing the veil of their poignant desire, have penetrated to the entrails created by its metals, and leaving some apart as aborted and formless, have set up their part on gold, not without precisely advising that this superb metal was like prince of the others, representing in itself the image and authority of this celestial torch, have imagined all the caresses that could soften and entice the harshness of such a metal that does not want to be caught without a mitten. And to do this, they were forced to return to their first porticoes and recall the similar help that nature had once granted them in picking its first flowers.

The problem of its dissolution

However, this was not enough, but they drew up a more expeditious and stable means because it was necessary to corrupt, dissolve and reduce to first species, this in a short time when nature had been occupied by a world of years, and for this to do it was almost to be imitated in all its properties, knowing that from the corruption and solution which it engineered of one kind, another was reborn. And how they saw that naturally it corrupts one thing in order to engender and produce another. What is evident in steel, brass, and such self-corrupting things as rust begets in it, slips and grows like a cankerous polyp mines until the entire consumption thereof. And from there, pulling the imitation of this movement,

Reduction to "First Being"

Namely a demonstrative reduction of these bodies in their first being. And this is how these Philosophers looked: Man is composed by a borrowing of a few portions of the four first and great elements, of which the parts reduced to a whole are forced against their naive disposition: for as fire is stopped here below, though tending according to its nature upward, so the earthly portion is deprived of the repose to which it is ever inclined against its center, and to be joined in equal proportion are collocated against their natural predestination. And because any forced connection cannot be eternal and because the things connected by such means flee assembly and each tend stubbornly to the place where its nature pushes it, this connection lasts very little, and the human body dissolves in a short age as each elemental portion desires to return to its own and natural home. Which, reunited and glued together again for the immortal continuation of their like, unanimously revive the species, which by the resolution seemed to have been lost and abolished. And from this demonstrative type have drawn that if nature erected a natural reduction of all specifics in their first being, that no less the art which imitates it and follows in its properties could do it. What Albert the Great seems to touch that the metals taken from mining are dead and promise no hope of life. But if art dissolves them and reduces them to their principles, so much can they tend to infinity and give being and sow similar species. From there, as the Peat of the Sages says, the great work sprang up, and the seed hidden in the bowels of gold was drawn, which produced to these fathers a harvest in this species immortal. What is ingeniously described in the Chrysopée d'Augurelle.

Hordea cui cordi demum serit hordea, ne tu
Nunc aliunde pares auri Primordia, in auro
Semina sunt auri quamvis abstrusa recedant.
Longius et multo nobis quærenda labore.

From the heart of barley only sprouts barley, and if you
Now you want to draw the Firstfruits from elsewhere, it's in the gold
May the seeds of gold be found, so hidden that they conceal themselves therein.
We have to look for them for a long time and with great labor.

Now I, only learned in such things by lending my ears and curious readings that I formerly made of some singular dumb people, I will leave the voluptuousness of such speeches to those who make it the first state among humans and will be satisfied, for this shot, to put in role why Medicine received and cherished this precious metal, not without justly advising that it was the most meritorious of all the compounds holding the first rank in the property of created things.

Medical applications of gold
... the difficulties

And in truth Gold is a body endowed with all perfection, composed of an equality of substances proportionally mixed, understood under an equal temperament, receiving the union and the admirable texture of all the virtues both superior and inferior, to which no mixed can be compared. As, however, the brains that have caressed it have been diverse, so the use that has followed for the maintenance of the body has been very erratic and suspicious: and has put enough revolt in the heads of some who deserve could be called just Critics of well-made and badly made works: of which seeing the use of this one so little assured and closed, overcome by a curious impatience, were reduced under the fact of such a delectable solitude and hiding place, that they did not cease until their unanimated manner was converted into a better and assured demonstration. And protesting against a thick enough number of serious Physicians of our age, have shown, as just spectators in most things well-born, the little duty and opportunity they had to use the virtue of this touchy metal. without exactly weighed considerations. But I ask for all suppressed affection, and send away from what reason could I pay those who accommodate it to illnesses such as heart palpitations, forces thrown and almost bent under the grandeur or diuturnity of a cruel passion, venoms and others that I could name, pulverizing it or using the extinction of it. And protesting against a thick enough number of serious Physicians of our age, have shown, as just spectators in most things well-born, the little duty and opportunity they had to use the virtue of this touchy metal. without exactly weighed considerations. But I ask for all suppressed affection, and send away from what reason could I pay those who accommodate it to illnesses such as heart palpitations, forces thrown and almost bent under the grandeur or diuturnity of a cruel passion, venoms and others that I could name, pulverizing it or using the extinction of it. And protesting against a thick enough number of serious Physicians of our age, have shown, as just spectators in most things well-born, the little duty and opportunity they had to use the virtue of this touchy metal. without exactly weighed considerations. But I ask for all suppressed affection, and send away from what reason could I pay those who accommodate it to illnesses such as heart palpitations, forces thrown and almost bent under the grandeur or diuturnity of a cruel passion, venoms and others that I could name, pulverizing it or using the extinction of it. the little duty and opportunity they had to use the virtue of this touchy metal without exactly weighed considerations. But I ask for all suppressed affection, and send away from what reason could I pay those who accommodate it to illnesses such as heart palpitations, forces thrown and almost bent under the grandeur or diuturnity of a cruel passion, venoms and others that I could name, pulverizing it or using the extinction of it. the little duty and opportunity they had to use the virtue of this touchy metal without exactly weighed considerations. But I ask for all suppressed affection, and send away from what reason could I pay those who accommodate it to illnesses such as heart palpitations, forces thrown and almost bent under the grandeur or diuturnity of a cruel passion, venoms and others that I could name, pulverizing it or using the extinction of it.

Is it therefore possible that a body so compacted, so solid as gold, can comfort, exhilarate and restore in force first the spirits drawn from the sources of the heart where its property is addressed, being taken according to Avicenna and the suite of the Arabs orders it: do we not have a beautiful text from Hippocrates which teaches us that there is great latitude and difference between the food which nourishes, and that which is dedicated to nourishment and maintenance of the body ? The nourishing food completes its work by being digested, matured, separated from its impurities and converted into spiritual vapours. Such and similar vapors nourish the spirits, fathers and authors of our operations. Secondly, the food intended for food is nothing but a body or a first subject, which requires, in order to reach the end of the first,

what it should be
... comparison with steel

So we must say, if we want to have the legitimate action of our medicine, that it must be made spiritual, volatile, and separated from the mixture which it has in common with the impurity of the other elements; and imitate the same office which the heat of the body holds in the preparation of its food. However, some curious and adversary will bring into play that ordinary experience assures that water in which heated steel has been soaked several times stops colic, opens spleen opilation. If therefore steel has such a specific virtue, why not gold since they are composed of the same principles and nourished in the same school of nature. Again I will add that the greater the predestination of gold, the more its virtues are more fertile and communicable to this microcosm. However, the difference and contrariety of the communication of their virtues will be found in that as much as steel is more porous and less fixed than gold, all the more nimbly it communicates its virtues since such bodies, as experience ensures, are reduced early in the fire and easily receive a principle of calcination. But Gold, which is the most solid, fixed and least porous of all metals, obstinately rejects all the assaults that the most violent fire raises against it, and does not change its beauty or its weight for any ardor. By which it is easy to believe that he cannot impassion the least part of the thing in which he would have been tempered. all the more nimbly it communicates its virtues since such bodies, as experience assures us, are soon reduced to fire and easily receive a principle of calcination. But Gold, which is the most solid, fixed and least porous of all metals, obstinately rejects all the assaults that the most violent fire raises against it, and does not change its beauty or its weight for any ardor. By which it is easy to believe that he cannot impassion the least part of the thing in which he would have been tempered. all the more nimbly it communicates its virtues since such bodies, as experience assures us, are soon reduced to fire and easily receive a principle of calcination. But Gold, which is the most solid, fixed and least porous of all metals, obstinately rejects all the assaults that the most violent fire raises against it, and does not change its beauty or its weight for any ardor. By which it is easy to believe that he cannot impassion the least part of the thing in which he would have been tempered. and does not change its beauty or its weight for any ardor. By which it is easy to believe that he cannot impassion the least part of the thing in which he would have been tempered. and does not change its beauty or its weight for any ardor. By which it is easy to believe that he cannot impassion the least part of the thing in which he would have been tempered.

Uni quoniam nil deperit auro
Igne velut solum consumit nulla vetustas,
At neque rubigo, aut ærugo conficit ulla,
Cuncta adeo firmis illic compagibus hærent.

Since nothing disappears in gold
By fire, just as no old age consumes the sun
And let neither rust nor verdigris form there,
Everything is fixed there in very solid combinations.

fake dyes

Also the apotesm is inviolable that truly calcined metallic bodies only communicate their virtues to the things that resolve them. It is therefore easy to judge that such resolutions, which are made by so many slight igneous impressions, are so invalid that one should use them (unless better advised) than for a term of capacity.

Hermetic design

What we will learn from those who haunted the school of Hermes and knew how to separate the pure from the impure: who, noticing in all bodies a bland and corruptible surface of the four elements, which is the bond and obstacle of faculties destined to the essence of the soul, as desirous of knowing if these four parts were the sole and private causes of the nativity, action and preservation of all things, have found, by the means which I have given you, that the The being and conservation of things and their actions depended on and proceeded from a matter more spiritual and active than that to which their primary occupation had given the beauty of all individuals. Who is the gold of which Orpheus mentions in the hymn of the night from which nature exhausts the generation of all species. Which, as being more remote from the exterior of the elements, seems to represent all the faculties of these. To which the opinion of Aristotle responds who says that the operation and faculty destined for the essence of the soul does not come out of a matter similar or similar to that which is objected and represented to our sight and dressed in material quality of the elements, but of a much more sincere, divine, excellent and remote nature, this one is considered in the operations that nature sets up daily for the immortal continuation of its individuals, you see it in the grain thrown into the ground, which purifies, resolves itself, and dies: however, of it remains a matter which the agreement of the sages has named radical or premigeny, which is the source of the life of all things, minister of the actions and faculties of these, mother and propagator of all individuals, mediator of discourse and annoyance of the first parts of this great whole. Which, studious of the immortal continuation of things, brings back into being a species similar to that and intended for the same use as the first had. If Nature, I pray you, shows in herself the effect of such a preparation, can she deny the knowledge of her naturalness to an art which follows her almost in all her properties? Since, according to Lully, it completes in a year what it does in a thousand, it produces in an hour what it engenders in a day. calls it to be a species similar to that and intended for the same use as the first had. If Nature, I pray you, shows in herself the effect of such a preparation, can she deny the knowledge of her naturalness to an art which follows her almost in all her properties? Since, according to Lully, it completes in a year what it does in a thousand, it produces in an hour what it engenders in a day. calls it to be a species similar to that and intended for the same use as the first had. If Nature, I pray you, shows in herself the effect of such a preparation, can she deny the knowledge of her naturalness to an art which follows her almost in all her properties? Since, according to Lully, it completes in a year what it does in a thousand, it produces in an hour what it engenders in a day.

Back to the First Essence (or the Fifth?)

If many people think that it is not possible to represent the matter that I put into play for you since, according to the Spagyres, it is occult, invisible, spiritual, celestial, adhering only to reason, separated from the community of our senses and, to be such as I make it, this title of matter is very unsuitable for it since, according to the Platonics, all evil and poverty that our nature endures and suffers, abounds in the matter nevertheless necessary to be it. of all individuals. However, as intoxicated by an easy demonstration, I will use this word matter, which (although it is invisible and which the Greek Theophrastus calls it) nevertheless being separated from the sorts and impurities which it has in common with the elements, manifests itself before our eyes, and instead of being quiet and ocious, it is mobile and active. Wherein the great providence of the Archetype must be remarked, or if divinity is not sufficient to satisfy their curiosity, I beg them to contemplate Homer's golden chain: and the society of the unseen with the visible, of the container with the content, of the moving with the tranquil and quiet, of the last with the first, of the effect with the cause, of the idea with the exemplar. Which doing, they will confess that what we see is dead, invalid and sterile if we leave the service which we owe to reason to pursue only the affection of our senses. and the society of the invisible with the visible, of the container with the content, of the moving with the tranquil and quiet, of the last with the first, of the effect with the cause, of the idea with the exemplar. Which doing, they will confess that what we see is dead, invalid and sterile if we leave the service which we owe to reason to pursue only the affection of our senses. and the society of the invisible with the visible, of the container with the content, of the moving with the tranquil and quiet, of the last with the first, of the effect with the cause, of the idea with the exemplar. Which doing, they will confess that what we see is dead, invalid and sterile if we leave the service which we owe to reason to pursue only the affection of our senses.

Introduction to Practice

What will be seen in the way that our predecessors left us concerning the preparation of all things necessary for the maintenance of this little world, as I myself will deduce in the last part of this present discourse which includes the preparation of the most precious of the metallics which is gold, in which the variety and difference of an art is shown as admirable as one might think. For some desiring to separate this sordid, earthly matter, true prison of the action of the soul, to put to the power of the eye that to which I have mentioned, and more ocularly following me will do, have excogated a world of ways.

Corrosive Water - aqua regia - the spirit of tartarized wine - the gentle calcination of Gold - Rectification of the quintessence - drinkable Gold

Some therefore, in order to draw the spiritual humor from such a metal, have demanded the use of a water which, for its great corrosion, has deservedly been called valid water composed, namely, of a part of nitre and of two of vitriol, which has the power to resolve silver into water similar to milk and, on the contrary, it causes gold to subside like a blackish powder. To which, if one adds a quarter part of sal ammoniac, the extraction made according to the art, you have a water which is called regale which shows an opposite effect to the first because, dissolving the silver, the reduced to lime, the gold, on the contrary, to a cruciate and pure liquor. But I would not advise using such a preparation for the extreme ardor and great acuity of such water which would cruelly erode the entrails. We find in Ulstad a monotype of the liquor of gold, which two Cardinals of Toledo, John and Hugh, had in affectionate recommendation as using it in their customary diversity of life, which however is not less to be feared as the first for the extreme venoms which serve to aid the dissolving of gold. The others, detesting the result of such poisons, took Tartar, which reduced to a fine powder, decooked it into phlegm of brandy and from there, drawing a salt by decoction and resolution, promised themselves an easy reduction. gold. For the calcining and sublimating not in vulgar but physical sublimation (in their words), made it so active and penetrating that with the aid of a spirit taken from wine, where said salt had been melted, easily dissolved the lime of gold into liquor. I have known from readings that some reduce the inner part of the man's test to salt, hoping thereby to make drinkable gold. What Albert touches on in his book of minerals, where he affirms that the hair of man, especially that which is cut at certain times, shows an admirable efficiency for such matters: and continues that, in his time, he saw a pile of gold dust between the teeth of the upper suture of an unearthed male skull. Geber, who drew from the bosom of nature the principles of his art and reputed as an Aristarchus of those who daily exhaust the secrets of his beautiful doctrine, especially recommends an oil drawn from human hair for inserting or preparing metals, to the effect of making them easier to liquefy. And that it is so, it seems that their way is quite remote and distant, since we have something easier to hand than the skull of the man and the hair of this one to draw up such preparations, from which the smell is so fetid, stinking and filthy, that no one can endure it. What I experienced in the past in the extraction of its oil for the cure of high evil. Andarnac, singularly versed in both medicines, had as recommendable above all a way of drinking gold prepared without the help of any external thing but fire, as follows. He took the gold separated from his leprosy which, first reduced to very thin strips, arranged deftly in the vases and furnaces which were necessary for such a work. And, by the continuity of half a year, calcined them with fire of quarter degree, which afterwards it drew and exposed to the serene one, and from these easily flowed an oleaginous, reddish humor and of sweet flavor. That if by chance the calcination had not been equal and the humor was difficult to flow, he moistened his strips with a sometimes rectified wine, which took on the color of gold, causing it to subside into a powder similar to some ash. And to rectify this fifth essence in its tenuity, he poured it into a matrix with all its parts and arranged it dexterously in a cold bath, being the upper part of the vase surrounded by a cloth soaked in hot water, immediately the antiperistasis or contrariety separated the igneous parts from the aqueous, which again distilled left at the bottom of the vase a liquor verging on red, which he called in common the word potable gold, the use of which kept him healthy for many years and many of his friends using it in the way that follows. , it was necessary, after a few light purges, to shave and heat the top of the head and over it to pour out a dram of its liquor and as many took it with malvasia. This preparation is not far from reason, since experience assures it and the demonstration that Geber has left in its entirety that All metallic bodies truly calcined by revered calcinations dissolve, since everything calcined approaches the nature of Salts and alum. the use of which has kept him healthy for many years and many of his friends using it in the way that follows, it was necessary, after a few light purges, to shave and warm the top of the head and over it to pour a dram of his liquor and as much took it with Malmsey. This preparation is not far from reason, since experience assures it and the demonstration that Geber has left in its entirety that All metallic bodies truly calcined by revered calcinations dissolve, since everything calcined approaches the nature of Salts and alum. the use of which has kept him healthy for many years and many of his friends using it in the way that follows, it was necessary, after a few light purges, to shave and warm the top of the head and over it to pour a dram of his liquor and as much took it with Malmsey. This preparation is not far from reason, since experience assures it and the demonstration that Geber has left in its entirety that All metallic bodies truly calcined by revered calcinations dissolve, since everything calcined approaches the nature of Salts and alum.

A singular case

The above-named way greatly pleased Count Jules Haderch, marshal of the empire, who only studious of the hidden and abstruse remedies that are prepared by fire, forgives at no cost, no labor and no cure, and is happy on all in knowledge of such rarities, and as this means was above all more graceful and agreeable to him, both for private profit and for the health of humans, seeing that the said preparation was made without the aid of any erosive, after having begun and laboriously complete his work, a misfortune occurs that the dying operator the work remains imperfect and endless. Which as worthless was abandoned by the count. However, a few months later, the whim came to his mind to see the relics of his work begun. Who, after removing the vases, noticed that the fittings which supported them, as thick as the height of a large finger could equal, were all pierced and covered with small droplets fallen from the laminates which the workman was preparing. By which it is easy to believe that if these excited drops had the strength, with the tenuity of their parts, to penetrate the thickness of an iron so solid, that with better reason, being dedicated for the use of the body, they can more nimbly run and flutter by the vessels of this one and alter the parts necessary to our life, the scarcity of the wood and the continual fatigue, then afterwards prevented the reiteration of the work.

The use of Philosophical Eau-de-Vie

Formerly some learned Doctor in the preparation of gold communicated to me a way of making this succulent metal without proof of any corrosive. He precipitated the gold into tenuissime powder by a regal cementation, which he washed so many times in water from the sky subtilized until the powder was sincere and developed from the cement, which he put with a proportionate quantity of brandy. spiritual, and the well quenched vase digested it for forty days in a temperate bath, the digestion happily completed he poured the liquor drawing on the Citrin into a clean vase and separated the water on the first degree fire, so that all the liquor rose , and the gold remained luscious at the bottom of the vase, similar in color to gold.

The philosophical spirit of wine according to Weidenfeld

But to return to our floors, these resolutions which are made by the spirit of wine are long labor and daytime fatigue, and require the dexterity of a brave worker to separate the igneous from the moist and earthly. What the Spagyres call separation of elements. For wine contains in itself an earthiness, which separated from its spirit gives off a very fetid and stinking odor, and I know that such and such waters hold some greatness and strength for the resolution of gold in liquor, if There is nothing more valuable and prompt for the resolution of this than mineral salts. What Geber teaches in his books of the great perfection that every resolvable body partakes of its nature of salt and alum, or some similar, and there is no body which receives a solution rather than this one, therefore every resolvable body must be resolved by the nature of the Salts, namely into water. But like most of the salts and especially their waters are fetid, unrewarding, corrosive, and at all contrary to the maintenance of our nature and repugnant. Certainly, it seems to me that the workman who can prepare it without the support of such venomous has a precious and rare secret for the maintenance of his body and cures of the diseases which would retard it.

Salt Water
... his rationale

To what, advising a learned man of our age, first author of the last preparation of which I am treating, and for three years in this by me, happily tempted and reduced in effect, thought that common salt could not gain less more on gold than others, and as it is devoid of all danger, graceful, and at all necessary to our life, which it is manifestly known that no meat can be delectable without salt, no body can last without the use of that here, but rather receives the impression of a thousand putrid diseases. What Hippocrates confesses when he gives icteric patients salt for medicine: because as it has the power to attenuate and incise, it opens the obstructions of the viscera and by its desiccating faculty prevents the corruption of humors, which is the material cause of jaundice and other contagious diseases. It therefore deservedly seemed to him that the preparation which would be made by such means would be much happier and more useful than that which would arise by another way.

... its adjuvants

In the preparation of this last work, three things are necessary, gold, salt and very little sublimated vinegar, and before the gold is part it requires a first preparation and separation of the impurity which it has common with the other metals. What antimony does admirably if they are liquefied together, but the weight of the gold must be ten times less than the quantity of the mineral. For Antimony, fused with gold, draws into itself all the impure that gold has in common with the others and causes it to subside pure and sincere at the bottom of the pyramidal vase. Which easily, then after, separates from the mass (in the terms of their art) called Spelter. Sour wine takes second place and, to more happily convey the work,

Processing salt to make water

Salt requires its election no less than the former, and as there is a diversity of salts I believe, after having observed the diversity of some, that sea salt is the most virtuous and suitable for the perfection of our work, since 'it represents all the types that a good salt must have, the shine, the weight and the whiteness.

Take a pound of this very fine salt and sprinkle it with a good bit of vinegar, then dry the said salt over a low heat, shaking the well-sealed jar sometimes to mix the materials better. This must be repeated three or four times.

salt oil
...its preparation

To every pound of common salt you must add two ounces of your acid salt, and by this means you have your prepared salt. The furnace must be similar to those used for the extraction of valid waters, of such capacity and ease that the greatness of the fire can freely flutter and surround the retort. Among the vases this one is the most necessary composed of a very ample and capable belly, of a large and somewhat narrow neck, which must be dexterously fought to better endure the violence of the fire. To this vase is added another very large and ample, which contains two pounds of water from heaven separated from its impurity and is called the receptacle of the spirits which are contained in the opposite. After you have half filled the retorte with salt, you must place it on the bars of the stove and arrange the receptacle with such consideration that the whole is so deftly conjoined and adapted that no mind is lost or resolved. By the first four hours the fire must be very light, raising it little by little until some smoke like a light and whitish cloud is seen in the capacity of the opposite glass. That if by chance they appear, it is necessary to contain the fire in the same degree until they vanish, then little by little drive out the spirits, increasing the fire to the entire redness of the retort. From then on, it is advisable to maintain it in such a degree of fire for the space of four or five natural days, without caring if one does not see matter disgust and produce some spirits. And even though nothing manifests, if one will see a material withdrawing to the color of chalk adhering to the walls of the glass. This distillation successfully carried out, one must pour the materials into a Cucurbite with its Alembic and distill them in the heat of a very slow bath, the water will rise first and then the vinegar, and the oil of the salt will remain in the bottom of vase clear and limpid, color approaching green and taste similar to silt.

Drinking Gold

Here, then, is the liquor in a portion of which, if you put the gold separated from its impurity, by the antimony will easily be dissolved into liquor by the aid of the heat which the ashes excites: which must not exceed the strength of a degree or otherwise the work would be lost. And, on the contrary, the carefully guided thing represents to you gold reduced to its liquor, accompanied by its same color and such subtlety that it can even rise in the yoke of an Alembic if it is excited with very little heat. The doctor of Ferdinand, prince of Austria, used it, and in his imitation some others with a very happy and blissful success in the cure of chronic, putrid diseases, accompanied by great obstructions, because besides what it is acrid,

... its therapeutic effects

Why it is held to be the Sovereign Antidote and remedy for apoplexy, paralysis both of the tongue and of the whole body, contraction of limbs, retention of months, strangulation or suppression of urine from the stone which admirably diminishes, from l jaundice, onset of dropsy, lost appetite which it promptly restores, vomiting and other stomach ailments, it extinguishes the heat of fevers and quenches the great thirst of the feverish. For syncope or failure of the heart, for the tremor of this one, for the melancholy affections, it is a sovereign remedy mainly if one mixes it with waters suitable for such affections. It prevents the strength of all poisons and mainly mercury, it soothes the pains of the joints, and such like relics as customarily come out of the school of an inveterate pox, gargled with roses cures putrid and filthy ulcers both of the mouth and of the throat. I know they are accompanied by inflammation. For suffocating catarrhs, for pulmonary affections, for the plague (where it serves only), it is one who will know the dose, which is very small, and the way to administer it, will draw a singular contentment for him and for his patients. In short, where it is a job to incise, to attenuate, to solve and to consolidate, which are the curative indications of diuturnal diseases. The use of this liquor holds the first place. I know they are accompanied by inflammation. For suffocating catarrhs, for pulmonary affections, for the plague (where it serves only), it is one who will know the dose, which is very small, and the way to administer it, will draw a singular contentment for him and for his patients. In short, where it is a job to incise, to attenuate, to solve and to consolidate, which are the curative indications of diuturnal diseases. The use of this liquor holds the first place. I know they are accompanied by inflammation. For suffocating catarrhs, for pulmonary affections, for the plague (where it serves only), it is one who will know the dose, which is very small, and the way to administer it, will draw a singular contentment for him and for his patients. In short, where it is a job to incise, to attenuate, to solve and to consolidate, which are the curative indications of diuturnal diseases. The use of this liquor holds the first place. to attenuate, to resolve and to consolidate, which are the curative indications of diuturnal illnesses. The use of this liquor holds the first place. to attenuate, to resolve and to consolidate, which are the curative indications of diuturnal illnesses. The use of this liquor holds the first place.

What about Lully and Arnaut?

But to interrupt my present discourse, I opened up a doubt, which still reigns present in the Spagyric schools, to know if the present liquor, of which the abstruse and hidden Medicine has so often spoken, is that of which the ancient Physicians used for the maintenance of health and curation of illnesses. I have read Lully's codicil, I have read his will which contains the world's first grace, where he mentions a medicine called Elixir which he dedicates and intends to cure all passions, but the ambiguities and difficulty lies in that one cannot be certain whether it is a Mercury, I mean a liquor or a salt, I mean a solid matter. Arnaut, in some part of his rosary, puts into play the similar word of Elixir and assures that it has such effectiveness and force, that it can reduce imperfect metals into an absolute and incorruptible substance similar to that of gold. On which one could base the judgment that such a body would rather approach a solidity than a liquor. In the other part of his beautiful work, abandoning this word Elixir, he often claims this name of drinkable gold, baptizing it with the title of medicine over all necessary for the cure of illnesses and the maintenance of health. And I believe that there is in this no antigram and that such and such a word embraces one and the other meaning, namely a solid, fixed and permanent matter, which reduces the metals to a purity and color similar to that of gold. What Jean Augurelle learnedly touches with his accustomed grace.

Ipsius ut tenui projecta parte per undas
Æquoris, argentum tunc vivum si forest æquor,
Omne vel immensum verti mare posset in aurum.

If quicksilver was the sea,
As by a small part of the sea itself projected on the waves,
The whole vast sea could be turned to gold.

Conclusion

As for the other matter which is liquid, dedicated only to the use of the body, deservedly is called potable gold, very different from the condition of that which we have for the present. For in wanting to assure of ours what our fathers affirmed of theirs, I could be too affectionately misguided, namely to erase the impression, indifferently of all illnesses, to defend the beauty and gaiety of a youth against the wrinkles of a annoying and weak old age. But I know by observation, and many others are in my tablet which will certainly touch the truth, that such and similar golden liquors (of which I have made fairly honest mention) have produced admirable effects in the cure of many diseases. resistant to any other type of drug. In short, I will conclude with Crato,Nihil prætantius, nihil utilius, nihil humano generi convenientius esse potest sole et sale.

Vigent hominum studia
Invidis temporibus.

Men's studies are revived
Through envious times.


TO MONSEIGNEUR
THE ILLUSTRATED CARDINAL OF GRANVELLE

India with a golden crinon: or the rich mania
Marigold gold bewitches the eyes.
Of the pearled Indian, cannot open the skies,
Where the soul with its God must be reunited.
It's all just wind, just a tarnished face
Of a dying patient, that furious blow
Orcs, and death, hurtle down to the scene
Eternal sleep, which mortals bore.
From India, nor from gold the mortal mixture,
Cannot of your name make an immortal name,
Although the land of your greatness wants to please,
And lavish his best: But the elongated features,
By the learned threads of well-purged pencils,
Immortal, glorious in heaven you can do.

Franc. Rossellet. DM


TO MR DE THOURAISE BAILLY D'AMONT

The Sun of heaven the father,
And the lonely lamp
From the night to the black crinon,
And from the sky the double strength,
Let his spark start
At the most remote mansion
D'Achey (Love of your race)
Make known that your grace
Comes from their bright fires,
And of them the wise nature
Borrowed the portraiture
From the April of your beautiful years.
Their benign influence
Has gilded your signal grace,
But it was all nothing
If a father, whose face
Wearing the daring warrior,
Had you not been born for his:
The Tiger to the Tiger mixes,
The germ of the Aigleynelle
Don't breed the fearful bird.
The sweet and fruitful earth
Of a beautiful and fair harvest
Produces tasty fruits.
I want a sky to give birth to you
And that in you he made grow
The harvest of its treasures.
I want the blood of a father
Who dead, in you alive illuminates,
Gave being to your body.
But the chandelier that you pull
Of him, who upholds the Empire,
And the reign of our kings,
Who with a gentle and stern brow
Like a Jupiter tempers
The world below its laws.
It's much more than your face
Feel the rays of his grace,
And that on your happy brow,
His fair justice,
His sweetness to all propitious
Engrave his loving gifts.
Never a mortal storm,
Never seen dark cloud
Don't cut off the season
Of you, darling of the muse,
And of this Mars that amuses you
To the treasures of his house.

Franc. Rossellet. DM