COMMENTARY BY HENRI DE LINTHAUT

ON THE "TREASURE OF TREASURES"

BY CHRISTOFLE DE GAMON


1610

(Part 1)

TO THE MOST AUGUSTUS AND MOST INVINCIBLE KING OF ENGLAND,
From Scotland, & Ireland.

SIRE,

The allegorical birth of Latona on the island of Delos, having happened several times
truly accomplished in your isle of Great Britain, under toil most
qu'Herculéen by George Ripley, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, & others, made me
obliged to address there the heroic conceptions of that great Poet Christofle de
Gamon. I do not see a cleaner place in the World, nor a more competent arbiter than
your august Majesty, to decide the difference which could arise between their
sweet harmony, & the boring song of the Marsyes, who have always
endeavor, under the support of Midas, to obscure the splendor of Apollo, and the
to detain, with all its knowledge, in the sad river of oblivion. But our Poet
having valiantly withdrawn, I humbly beg your Royal Majesty
to be its defender, & to receive it with as good a heart, as your predecessor,
the incomparable Queen Elizabeth of very happy memory, condescended to accept
the offer of the little essay of my early youth. If she found any taste in this
fruit still green, I hope your Majesty will find much more in
this one riper & rarer. Also he is the Prince of true Physicians, the
Phoebus, unique of Heaven terrifies, the Treasure of all the Treasures of this World, finally
the true Phoenix, which reviving itself, can never perish.
Praying to the King of Kings, Sire, that likewise you may perpetuate your Royale
lineage to the general resolution of the universe.
Your very humble & obedient servant,

HENRI DE LINTHAUT.


ODE.

O what golden riches,
O what pompous brilliance and splendour,
O how many Royal greatnesses,
What jubilation from Zirée!
Never Peru in its ports,
Never the rich Taprobane,
Nor ever the rich Océane
Do not live such rare treasures!
Here is the horn of Amalthea,
Here is that worthy fleece
Than the magnanimous Jason
A under its conquered value:
Here are the Lydian sands,
If, although in time fi prosperous
Greed has no more to do
Of course in Indian climates.
In fact the blond Pactole,
The Hydaspes on the gemmy shore,
The Beast, & the famous Ganges,
Where Gold runs in the soft wave,
Seeing that their blond flow
Is not comparable to this Treasure,
Make their sand turn pale with shame,
And go away a little languid.
O truly most perfect work,
Where grace & usefulness,
Bring the beautiful clarity
To our cloud-covered eyes,
And go uncovering the mistakes
Of those whose cunning adultery
Abuse of the sacred mystery
Of which the Sages are fond!
To better deprive our eyes of veils,
Here with such a luster name,
Ahead of the rays of the Sun,
Two bright Stars are blazing.
But toy, who of a richer attire
Embellished with Gamon the work,
How can your learned language
To gild the gold, to light up the day?
Other than your scholarly pen,
Could not, in all the universe,
Comment on the Eloquent Muse
From an Gamon father to the learned verses,
Other than his admirable pen
Could not, by a rare writing,
Supply sortable material
To know your beautiful mind.
That, if the implacable Envy,
that no one can put to death,
Against you two dared to run,
Suddenly she would lose her life:
Seals you will be, so dread
The strokes your pen shoots,
That we have the same Resistance
Can't even resist!
Then the King of Great Britain,
Of yours, writes the Protector,
Will make them shine with honor
Below the accompanying shine:
And Reason, to praise you
Of all will induce courage,
Seers, delighted, so learned a work!
To so learned King to devote himself.
What can you, O beautiful soul,
Radiant Beaver & Polux,
Who you share gracious
The hour of your immortal flames,
May you, free from obscurity,
Very happy our happy souls,
Shine Blazing Stars,
In the Sky of Eternity.

THE TREASURE OF TREASURES OF SIEUR CHRISTOFLE DE GAMON

To a singular friend.

My God ! My dear Concern, whom I bear with hatred
To that bunch of Writers whose Muse is so vain!
One always warm with love infects the universe,
The other thinking of winning, mixes prose with verse,
The earthly language to the celestial language,
And common speech makes a horse-trading.

A Bon droit the Poet comments here with an exclamation, and protests that he
abhor those who use the sacred Muses in vain and profane things. I
I will not say as he has since testified, even in his Divine Muse, &
more recently in its learned Week, Work whose beauty & usefulness
give as much contentment as his arrival brought astonishment; sees
that Time nor envy that can shake, as if built on the truth that does not
can perish. I will speak only of the present Poem, which he revised, increased, &
purged of the faults born under those who, having torn him from his Poetry garden,
to transplant it into the rallied Muses, and since, into the Parnassus of
Poets, changed the title of the piece, sealed the name of the Author, &
corrupted verses in an infinity of places: fault joined to malice, & cousin of
sacrilege. Here, then, is really the Treasure of Treasures, which the subject does not need
other title, and which as such, having for lack of nothing, will give us enough
of subject, without begging anything elsewhere: & by the variety of its wealth, will make us
enjoy a material that is as profitable as it is pleasant, and as genuine as it is rare,
as we will see below.

He taxes, by the way, those who only sing & sigh for love, who really
infecting the World, only serve there to corrupt good morals, of which it
hate mad Poetry, witness what he tells them elsewhere, by these verses:

Lovers, what does it serve you, in such a vain vein,
To write so many verses for describing a pain
Who fakes, brings you real diversion,
Only speaking of Love, song so much sung,
You do that to yours, towards no love is brought, &c,

He does not speak here properly of those who sometimes intertwine verses in
their prose. (Although it requires a great deal of caution & dexterity)
but of those who, more versifiers than Poets, dip the wing at all times,
& mixing the trivial & prosaic style with the celestial language of Poetry, abuse the sacred name of Poet.

It's not everything, (my Everything,) to cackle well,
Because it is necessary sometimes, while speaking, to benefit.
I want to present you with a profitable present,
Now maintain an amazing thing.
I want to fly higher than my pen has done,
Also the true Poet has more than one object:
Even giving light to dark things,
To the rough some grace, & belief to the dubious,
I want, pushed from the God on adored Parnassus,
To give you, true, a Golden Poem.

Our Poet considers only the main gize to be made up with a beautiful language. Because of
fact, it is not that he rejects the well-spoken: witness the beauty of his inventions,
the energy of its terms, the texture of its verses, the application of proper words, and the
diversity of its ornaments. But he does not affect a mere Rhetorician cackle, nor
the embarrassing babble of the dialectician, nor the heady & sophistical language, &
abhor this foolish and presumptuous mockery of the Satyr. So he wants to pass
besides in his discourse, not by one who is only too vulgar, and does not understand
only on the surface, but with very firm reasons, & taken from the entrails of
things, wants to benefit the public. So he despises the eloquence of a Demosthenes,
Chrysippus & similar, if it is not accompanied by utility: thinking, only if it
used it thus, making profession of things so sacred, so sacred, she
would only serve as a reproach.

He declares here gossip he wants to enjoy not wanting his speaking times
like the arc of the cloud, or the appearance of the Dawn of the day which seems
something to the sight, & is nothing indeed: but rather to the Sun, really
very useful & very beautiful. He therefore promises to give a profitable present, &
really is such. For he who once received it has no business (after God) with any
thing that times in the World, as being the only antidote & medicine for
illnesses of any kind, the true restorer of old age, and the treasure
without end of all riches. What he promises & pretends to show by
continuation of his speech. But everything as well as the subject is more occult &
sublime, meditation must be higher. However, since the first subject
of this discourse is such that it is no more comprehensible in the sense, than God himself,
he will be forced to take the wings of the Eagle, in order to fly to the center of the
Dazzling sun, & bring back such illumination that human eyes
understanding will in no way conceive it. This is why he is ready to
seek at this blow the most beautiful subject, after God, of the sacred Poetry, rising
from the stream to the true source.

“The Poet who is not mixed up, & does not have all matters treated with dignity & according to their quality, is not a true Poet. Also Homer among the Greeks, & Virgil among the Latins, deserved this true title, & show it by their writings: & our Poet, who deserves it today in France, testifies it himself by his own. But he
It will be difficult to find a subject more worthy of this divine exercise than this one.
For this rich material includes in itself the mystery of the Creation of the World, &
greatness & wonders of God: quoting a true Sun, giving light, for
sure, to dark things. All that the vault of Heaven encompasses is
than a light concealed under a monstrous veil of darkness. What testifies
well the shortness of duration & the ruin of all things. 'Cause just as the light is
water of life, so does darkness like Death. But God by a just
judgment has associated them with the light, so that everything may perish in its time, and the
corruption & generation of natural things never ceased. The man too
is at all blind, & needs the darkness to be illuminated with light,
which at all celestial & astral clears the sight of the understanding. Thus a
light shines through the other, the darkness being discussed, and the spirit no longer being
captivated by a supine ignorance, can freely adapt the celestial
impression, by which he drives out doubt, & polishes rough things &
rough, giving them some grace, as the Poet says he wants to do here,
where in fact, he dexterously marries the soft style of Poetry with a high material of
Philosophy, & shows easy what most hold impossible.
God alone is the true Phoebus, father of clarity, & just distributor of
light. For this the Poet says he is pushed from it, following in this the true Sages,
all of whom have confessed to receiving their knowledge from God. In fact this subject is so divine
principally in the second operation, as the Poet amply declares,
that it is & always was impossible, & will be to all who come after
us, to know it for themselves, as being a secret that follows the
knowledge of the greatest & expert Philosophers of the World. Because all the
reasoning reason of the logician, with that of Empedocles, & Aristotle, even
all natural experience fails in this. So that rightly
Hermès three times very great said, I hold this science only by inspiration
divine . Alphidius likewise, Know my son, whom the good Lord has reserved
this science for the posteriors of Adam . Geber affirms the same in his
Sum, saying, Our Science is in the power of God . That's why,
taking for wings this chariot of light the Poet flies away on Mount Parnassus,
where Phoebus presides, & having searched all the hollows & vaults of this
sacred mountain, has finally discovered a rich quarry from which he derives what to build
& build not a Poem with lead, but a Poem truly gilded, gilded in
ornament of discourse, and what is more, gilded in the truth of things, of which it goes
free to share with all those who will make themselves worthy of it. I know that our
researchers of the South, at this news, will immediately prick up their ears, and will want
in the guise of the ancient Argonauts, embark on the conquest of this rich
Fleece, but I advise them to postpone their embarkation a little until
the end of our Poet's speech. However, they will be able to take advice if there will be
storm for them, or if, with the wind in their sails, they can approach the port
of rescue.

And swear to you (a) that none afraid of making a mistake,
Have not yet discovered such a lofty thing:
But it is not to you that must be sealed
What without practicing Heaven woke me up.
Then, (b) you won't use it as I consider you wise.
For your sword armed with poison & rage
Reap your haters, nor to make the throat
Great Kings to reign, hang your murderous iron:
Nor to show again many Indicated stones,
Which divide the fine gold on your magnificent fingers.
Nor for, rich in clothes, in gold to carry you,
But to (c) soberly live, & the poor attend.

a) Legitimate suspicion engenders a fear of the same, mainly
when we see some appearance of a mine or trebuchet
underground. This is what makes our divine Poet protest to his faithful friend
that no one has dared to reveal such a great secret to him, and wants him to hear
that if the friendship he has for her were not its veil, he would go cautiously alongside the
bank known to him, to land his ship charged with his conquest, rather
than to take to the high seas, and abandon oneself to the free choice of the pirate, to
to have the rich material unloaded on credit which maintains his ship roughly
swayed against the storm. He bound & testifies that the Sages have always considered strong
dangerous to see Diana naked, witness poor Actaeon, who changed his body
human to beast, & his ordinary forehead has stag horns. He also ignores the
substance of the sacred Oracle, which forbids throwing pearls before swine.
Of which we rightly feared to make a mistake. That if this rare Marguerite were a
once spread over the Universal Theater would be none of the spectators who immediately
did not desire her, and did not run after this Atalanta. The brave soldier leaving his
weapons, the so-called lawyer, his Bartoli, the doctor his Gods, Hypocrate,
Galen, Avicenna, & the Anatomist his carrion. This is why the Philosophers
who preceded us, as Alphidius says, hid their main intention
under various enigmas & innumerable, equivocal, so that the publication of
this occult science did not ruin the World. Because apart from the above confusion, the
plowing would cease, traffic would be lost, and there would be no one who wanted
mingling with work, having in his power this height of contentment, and
noble acroire for his money, of which one could, well say, as very well
met someone on this bastard nobility,

Farewell value, farewell science,
Of nobility the two pillars,
Since we see that a little finance
Ennobles the Gallefretiers.

This is why Hermes apologetically, at the beginning of his book, says, My
child do not think that the Philosophers have hidden this great
secret for envy that they have for learned & well-educated people,
but to hide it from the ignorant & malicious . Certainly there would also be
what to get angry wisely: because as Rosinus says, By this means the ignorant would be similar to Pavât, & the wicked would use it, to the detriment of all the people . This is what our Poet wants to convey, as we will see now.

He begs & tacitly commands his intimate friend not to reveal this secret of
secrets, and objects to him, in addition to these inconveniences, four capital misfortunes which
would immediately add to it, namely, revenge, ambition, luxury, and
vanity. Certainly we conceive, besides an infinity of others, these detestable vices,
in our first generation. We put them in action as soon as
our youth is coming, budding: & almost only beginning to blossom the
first flower of our Spring, here is immediately the painful movement, true
harbinger of the coming birth of these hereditary monsters malagmez&
embedded in our first matter & substance. So that only the water remains
suitable for advancing the ripeness of this dangerous fruit. But where the
shall we find that in this general grass which is convertible to good and
evil, & without which these monsters can be born, live, nor reach their perfect
maturity ? If now it was dangerous to discover the grass that evacuates the
blood of one, of two, or of several men, with all the more reason should one
conceal, even bury the secret that would distill the blood of a million
human creatures, and would overflow a sea of ​​this noble and invigorating liquor.
For if a Nerone soul possessed this solid & endlessly augmentable nerve of
war, what horrors, what cruelties, what furies
out ? What would be the dike & levee so firm that can stop the violent
run from this torrent? Certainly there would be reason to fear that by overthrowing the palisade &
piercing the flanks, she overturned everything, and spread her floods on all
also. Would the feigned & masked soul of an ambitious Nerot be more
stopped in motion? That if she had that rich fleece, wouldn't she
not essencified his designs sketched in Idea? Would it be possible
that it went on for so long without really laying the foundations of its
castles built in Spain, and set them not only in France, but everywhere
the Universe? If without the enjoyment of this priceless treasure, some have
ingested so soon, that to attack not only the Monarchy, but the
Monarque even, (witness the attack of fever pestilences, of which France was
worked for so long, and to which she thought she would fall during the enjoyment of her
full health) what do you think, if they had it, what would be the cure
suitable to appease the indefatigable appetite of those gluttonous stomachs of
dominance? Could a Heliogabalus adapt to the quarantine diet?
The fabulous Phénix & the rare Rémore would they be safe in their hiding places
mansions? Wouldn't the epileptic movement of the dancers seize the brain &
all the members of this happy owner who would be inclined to this madness? THE
would paillard be satisfied with a courtesan? The peasant in his office, the
merchant of his farge, the gentleman of his satin? Wouldn't they all want
to shine with tinsel in the Spanish style, and wear gold as our Poet says?
Wouldn't the scabby cover his fingertips with diamonds & rubies, in order to
hide those of his scabies by more precious ones. In short, I think the valleys
would like to be mountains, and these clouds? The streams a great river,
and this the open sea. And thus we would see a universal confusion, and a
Chaos truer than that of Ovid. What being proper to obviate, let us see
our duty that our excellent Poet proposes to us.

He says one should only seek this Treasure to live soberly in everything
& everywhere & to assist the poor, ambition to the holy truth & profitable as much for the soul as for the body: of which I cannot discourse here longer, since
this Holy subject is offered more fully below. Because here is to begin to begin such a beautiful subject, where our author, keeping the order required for the intelligence of our Science, & to give us easier entry into it, shows us the procedure of Nature in the generation of metals.

Now in (a) the distant age, that the fair Astraea,
Was, not yet Astrée, honored here below:
That (b) Ceres, that Denis, that Priapus germinate,
Without sowing, without pruning, without planting,
And plains, and hills, and smiling gardens,
Would bring back the ears, the grapes, the grass:
That we did not see the fury shining under the iron,
Nor knock down the pines to cross the sea:
That oxen would die at human hands,
And avarice still had not limited the plains.

The Poet wanting to touch with his finger the first way of Nature, &
timing the start of its operation with respect to the particular generation
metals, offers us here the generalissimo age of all ages, by justice not
still corrupted, by the freshly recommended multiplication of the mouth
of the Creator, & by all conveniences & pleasures arriving without difficulty.
Thus he puts before our eyes remote antiquity, the object of matter which is the
generation of gold & other metals, subject of both Terrer des Trésors.
b) Before going beyond, it is necessary to notice here a grace, & as a gift
particular to our Poet, to intertwine among the various flowers of his Poems,
without constraint, & as if imperceptibly, reports ores to two, ores to three,
ores with four columns. I will give these examples to the curiosity of readers;
therefore this one drawn from the second day of his Week, is in two columns, or towards
cut:

The merry wolf of blood, the unhappy owl,
Raider of the night, host of shady drinks,
In vain seeking the thick, in vain seeking the shadows,
Of the darkest nights, of the darkest forests,
would ring his feet, make his voice complain
Always days in the fields, always days in the woods.

I noticed a similar one in his divine Muse, in the vocation of the Gentiles.
To three columns, besides the one our text provides us with, I would report this
example drawn from the said divine Muse, from the Dialogue of the Soul & of Christ:

In short, the laugh, the kiss, & the pleasant course
Of my eyes, of my mouth, and of all my speeches,
Above all stop, embalm, completely happy,
The human gaze, the lip, & the listening ear,
But this taste, this smell, this full contentment,
You're powerless, you could, hear yourself torment.

With four columns, I will allege this single example of it from the seventh day of the
Week, where it seems that he was all the happier that this report is more
rich & difficult than the others,

The clatter, the flash, the spike, the fury,
Armours, fires, thrusts, of the victor,
Stuns, dazzles, beyond pierces, denies,
Ears, eyes, opponent, life.

His artful writings would furnish us with still another sort of report, which
made in the same verse. But this way being older & known, we
leave now to resume our broken.

In short (a) in the golden age, if one must believe so,
Nature which of man had more worries,
Having made gold in the hollows of the deep Earth,
Pushed it on her own in the eyes of everyone (b)
And the World, if need be, drinking up its gold coffers,
Didn't inquire happy, where this treasure came from.

He describes here the bliss of the first age, called golden by the Poets, & by
collocated them, not without mystery, under the reign of Saturn. Age when iron have
yet been beaten to blades, where the Earth of his own free will, without knowing the ploughshare of the
plow, gave birth to its fruits, and in the same way grew, as if for parade, its grains
of gold, shining among the arena of the rivers, & on the crests of the mountains. Gold in
their fresh generation our first parents seeing these things & having
killers sound judgment, accompanied by science & inner knowledge
of Creatures, by which the first man judged incontinent the naturalness of all
animals, were immediately the virtue and property that Nature brooded under this
dazzling color: & drawing the true sun from this terrestrial Sun put it in
body & health use. Thus gold shone everywhere in virtue and in quantity : but was no longer required for its virtue, having men to do nothing else.
subject. For the division of the Earth was not yet done, the balance was not in use,
avarice did not take away the sweet sleep of humans, and did not trot out this annoying word of
Yours & Mine in the mouths of men. Gold was common, and there was nothing more precious or more despised than gold. But wise Nature, foreseeing that the
malice of the successors would cause this metal to be the ruin of the whole world, in
so that it cannot easily be found. Also it would not have been discovered without too much
curious view of the one who first tore it from the belly of the Earth, whose
the abuse which ensued, the Poet complains on the Third day of his Week,
when he says,

But well was unfortunate this penetrating Lincée,
Who darting the rays of his senseless sight
In the deep secrets of the infernal caverns,
Made known to the Sun the Sun of metals.

But let us now hear the particular reasons & effects of discontent
of nature.

But since beyond simple justice
Mortals had done too much immortal vice:
That we saw the tares tremble in the guerets frometous,
And the peasant in the field grazing his oxen in doubt:
Nature knowing itself of Human nature,
Hid the precious gold within the Dark Earth.
Humans, no longer human, she said, hiding it,
Your evils will turn pure gold into silver,
Pure silver in iron, and then iron again
In bronze, whose tawny forehead takes on color,
Then this fading tawny pewter metal,
Then will make the pale tin be blackening lead.
When (b) you were perfect, I tended to perfect
All metals in gold, and nothing was contrary.
Now, although I tend to make them perfect,
Various impediments will harm my effects,
See & to find them, it will be necessary that the man enters
Through the gates of honour, into the earthly belly.

a) As soon as this monstrous Hydra, given birth to by Eve's disobedience, &
fomented by the credulity of Adam, to be an inheritance to all his posterity,
began to swarm its heads: Nature, turning pale to see this hideous animal
infect the human lineage, & fearing that imbued with its pernicious venom, he
raped, fled, & hid his golden treasure in the deep center of the Earth,
leaving the gold with only the luster appearance it had before. That's what wants
say our Poet, summarily describing here the evils that vice has brought to the
World.

Now on the change from this first age to that of iron, I noticed at the first
book of his Fisheries, this line which has no bad grace,

Soon after the most obstinate
Elsewhere came destined:
Who of iron flays the Earth,
Who beats, who encircles the cemetery,
Who pours the trees higher,
Who subtle, digs into naus,
Who then skimmer, in traffic,
Who uses it for iniquitous war:
Everything changed, etc.

In order not to pass lightly here what he says that Nature has hidden the gold, it is necessary to know
that the meaning of hiding, is at all allegorical. Because you have to know that gold does not
finds most, only in the deep bowels of the Earth, if it is found
today in several places of the Indies in the sand of the Rivers, as
we will say in its place, & at the foot of the mountains, buried only from there,
two feet deep. Also it is necessary to consider what Rasis says, in the book of the
Divinity, know that natural things are by subtle artifice
concatenated together, that in each thing is each thing in
power, although we do not see it indeed . And Albert, in the mineral book, says
that gold is found everywhere, because one does not see any elemental thing in
which one does not naturally find gold at the last refinement. Then he proves
that the greatest mineral virtue is in each man, and principally between
the teeth. What the learned Penot affirms, saying that he had found fine gold in
long grains between the teeth of dead bodies. Doesn't nature have it
well hidden, since the man looking for gold elsewhere, does not take care that he
looks like the one who, looking for his donkey, was mounted on it. What's worse, he insists on
the gold mine in his hand all the time, and does not know it; & when he
would know, he would not know how to draw it from it without the permission of the aforesaid Nature, and the aid of
art. Here, then, is the well-hidden gold, here are its deep caverns, and here at last, oh
mystery ! The gold of the gilded century, mussed into the deepest center of gold itself.
Nature was right, God willing it so. Because it was not reasonable that the one
who had so despised the light, & embraced the darkness so strongly, enjoys the sight
of this resplendent Star. This Giantomachy of sin was already threatening
the human lineage of total destruction. Nature also feared as to & as to the
retrogradation of this terrified beautiful Sun to the form of vile & abject lead.
Here is to conclude the general & particular reason why gold is so hidden
today, & no longer shines everywhere, as it did under the reign of this
first King of Crete.

b) God had in the beginning created all things good & perfect, but the
fall of man, bringing with it disease, & eventually Death,
also introduced diseases and the death of metals. This is what apologizes here
Nature ; & the impediments it puts forward, make the diseases of metals
imperfect, which is nothing but a superfluous humidity, adhering to the
Mercury, & a combustible sulfur holding on to the natural & incombustible sulfur.

But as long as these two superfluities remain, the metals are sick, perish
& eventually die. In this way when water adhering to Mercury
of the said metals, arises other water from the clouds, the radical humor, or Mercury is
drowned, & all the metal rusts & perishes little by little. On the other hand, if Sulfur
natural & metallic comes more combustible sulphur, either by
the ignorance of the Alchemists, in their cementations, & calcinations, or by the
for lack of founders, the combustible sulfur increases & ignites, therefore it
destroys the metal, & consumes it. Thus ensues his death. Because the mind
flies away, forced by these violent efforts, as if unable to remain long
into a dirty, sickly & infected body. So much that this filth causing
the imperfection of metals, prevents Nature from being able to
make gold: as we will say more fully below.

Therefore the delighted eye sees rich metals,
The care (a) ores committed to the teeth of animals.
The cavernous serpents, & terrible dragon,
See & the black Demons, hosts of the horrible mountains,
Stand up brave, to those that gain
Urge to rummage, bold, in the earthly bosom!
But what ? We wondered, so much human nature
Prefers sweet rest, often harsh pain,
We rather asked where the metal comes from,
That why so hidden Nature holds it.

a) The Poet here briefly describes the pain that usually accompanies those
who are too addicted to the search for the deep veins of minerals :&
touch the hazards in which the miners sometimes find themselves offering them
iron bites of poisonous beasts, the Panic fear that most accompanies them
often, & beyond that the illusion, & the Diabolic ambushes, which, as has often happened, blinding them by the appearance of a fantastic vein
encourage them to always dig, without giving themselves any warning that suddenly they see it
bathed above the head, or being overwhelmed by the kind of rocks,
most perish miserably. Agricola recounts in a Dialogue called the
Corinne Rosée, que en une mine, from Annenberg in Germany, named the
Corinne Rosée a Demon suddenly killed twelve miners: so that the said
mine has been abandoned, although it abounds in silver. I leave illnesses aside,
bad colors, trembling limbs, & finally the brief life that in
report most of these mountain borers.

b) He then demonstrates the vanity of these metal researchers, who had to,
before descending into these terrible chasms, to know why Nature has so much
hidden the metals, & does not hatch them on the back of the Earth, as it does the
plants & animals. Because because of the means they would rather have arrived at the
possession of virtue & utility, than of the sight & handling of these solid bodies, which remaining in the form of their heavy mass do not profit in any way: but
do more harm than good to human life. Since as our
Poet by this beautiful sentence, at the end of his Week,

Gold in this tight time which has no cure for virtue,
Is human vices the inhuman pasture,
A charm of the mind, bait of the disloyal,
Seed of worries, element of all evils.

We will therefore leave these troublesome undertakings to those who prefer the
shell as the hub, shadow as the real body: & will proceed by way of
composition to the real anatomy of metals & minerals. But before that come to
their particular generation, we will deduce the general production. And so
indoctrinated into the true knowledge of the creation of all the parts of our
subjects, we will easily arrive at the perfect construction of the body
metallic. Which resolving after once more in its parts, we will be able without
to fail, imitating Nature where it will be necessary, to arrive by an exuberant
decoction to a seminar & multiplying virtue of metals. Of which for good
hear our Poet, in that he sings very learnedly of birth, of these
body enough of our low Astronomy, it will be necessary to take the matter a little
above declaring how Nature works in the caves of the Earth. So we
will learn how art can follow it, and consequently what matter
required to perfect them on earth. For in this consists the principal end in which must
to aim at the true Philosopher, as Geber exhorts him to do at the beginning of his
Sum: & Avicenna forbids intervening to practice this Royal art, if
first, the true foundation & matter of the mines was not known. We
we shall therefore begin with the generation of the general matter of metals, which is the
Mercury. We will lay down six heads, & come first to what is moved,
secondly to what moves, thirdly to the place or term from which this
which is moved, fourthly to the place where it is carried, fifthly, to see by
where it passes being generated, & finally to what excites the motor.
What is moved is the matter of Mercury, which is but one thing.
viscous & subtle humidity, as Albert says, & Geber who affirms the same
in its Somme, & Aristotle, who says in the fourth of Meteora, that all simple
which are frozen by the cold abound in their first matter in moisture
watery. It must now be considered that this aqueous matter fills the entire
belly of the Earth, & is a coagulating juice, which is the first matter of the
Mercury & the most distant of the metals, engendering moreover things by the
means of its agent which is the engine, because it cannot produce itself, and this
agent is nothing but a kind of mineral earth, which is like cream
& grease of icelle, which Nature, like any scholar, added to matter
viscous. Thus is produced the Mercury of these two agent & patient, or humidity
viscous & subtle earthiness, & by this means is dual, having in itself its sulfur or earth, which does not differ from viscous moisture, except as
said earth is more baked, & consequently more thickened, & in a word, a
Mercury joined to its homogeneous sulfur inseparably. So come into the
generation of Mercury two viscous humidities, one outside &
extrinsic, which we have called patient, the other within intrinsic &
agent. Which are so mixed together, that both are not
a mere matter, which in part cannot be consumed by fire,
that it is entirely. From this admirable mixture is procreated the mercury
that we commonly see. What Arnauld de Villeneuve certifies to us
when he says that these two above matters are conjoined perfectly in the
Mercury, and the terrestrial retains the humid with itself, or the humid takes it away. THE
same also affirms Albert the Great, who seeking the causes of
metal compositions noticed very well, considering why bright silver
is always moving that it is because the humidity over-dominates in the part
earthly, as for the same reason, knowing by their inexpressible & unambiguous mixture,
earth dominating over humidity, is the cause that quicksilver does not wet the
hands, nor anything he touches, except what is in his nature. As to
third point, namely the place or term from which comes what is moved, these are the
caverns of mineral lands, as Albert testifies in his book of Simples
metallic. And in this agree with him Geber, Aristotle, Arnaud de
Villeneuve, Italian Bonus, &c. The fourth point is the place, where it is worn:
for which it must be considered that Nature cannot say idle pushes the
Mercury to seek its agent which we commonly call Sulphur, which
is in the same degree, comparing it to quicksilver, as the rennet in the
comparing to milk, man to woman, & agent to subject matter. It is therefore
towards this place where Mercury is naturally carried by Nature, as
teaches Isaac Hollandais in his book of mineral works: which further says,
touching the place where it passes, that Mercury first coming to be converted
in an exhalation, evaporates through the openings of the mines which are its only
passage. Now what excites the motor is done by an external movement, which is not
something other than the action of Heaven: as in this all the
Philosophers both ancient and modern. From which we will conclude, that by
the tireless movement of celestial torches, full of active fire the Earth
is as if impregnated & fertilized, & receiving this influence, is on the other hand full of a vaporous fire, which Nature feeds with mineral water, by the
concoction of the matrix of the Earth, & takes shape becoming a coagulable juice,
by means of what moves, which is the terrestrial viscosity. So the material
finding its external agent or rennet, becomes an earth which contains in itself the
matter of the high heavens, as Penot testifies in his Magical Axioms. So
is born the Mercury of the Philosophers, which is something other than the spirit of the World,
become a body in the center of the Earth: of which we will speak more fully in
his place. Let us therefore proceed to the generation of metals, which is made of the earth
mineral that the learned Libavius ​​calls Chalcanteuse: Metals having for
matter the Mercury & for forms the Sulfur or external agent which freezes it.
Where does it come from that Mercury is said to be the mother, and sulfur the father of metals, the
Mercury feminine principle, cold & humid, & Sulfur masculine principle, dry & hot: as the said Libavius ​​testifies & discusses more fully in his book on the nature of metals. Gold of the metals none are perfect, others
imperfect The perfect are those whom nature has brought to the absolute end of the
metallic kind, & are Silver & Gold.
come back to our Poet, whom the reader will be able to hear more easily than our
previous intro.

So(a) the shining gold, King of all the band,
This metal drags people, who hot, on everything commands,
Comes from a (b) Pure Subtle Sulphur, & red joined
To white & lively silver, which pure does not burn.

a) As the celestial Sun is the center of the Sky, & King of the Stars,
mainly summer Stars, the Lion the King of irrational animals,
& the man of all animals. Thus Gold is the center, Sun & King of
metals & the most noble creature that God created after man. Because there is
nothing in the World that is of its kind nor anything so precious, yet is & should it
to be the ornament of Kings & Monarchs.

b) Gold is therefore the most perfect metal, subsisting of a very ripe & very pure
Mercury & being by force of a very excellent Sulphur, cooked & mixed with
it is made very firm, very compact, & adorned with a citrine tincture & in short is only a very exquisitely cooked & very constantly coagulated Mercury. For when the red & pure Sulfur mixes with the clear & pure white Mercury, it
freezes the said Mercury, & then this matter becomes a yellow & shining Arsenic, more subtle & purer than white Arsenic, & the greatest venom in the World.

That if a large and powerful horse swallowed an ounce of it, he would undoubtedly die:
as Isaac Hollandais testifies in his first book of minerals. Because this
venom is addressed at the first blow to the heart by a magnetic virtue, and from there
spreads in an instant through all the limbs, fatally infecting wherever it
passes, & also causing death, not only to man, as well as to all
animals too. But by length of time, & by the action of the motor
external & internal, the venom recedes into the interior of the gold substance,
bringing outside the part familiar to Nature. So that this matter which
before was a very great & fatal poison, now becomes by power
of the art a very excellent medicine. For this axiom is certain,

When the thing which is in the center of a subject in power, comes into
action, the thing diffuses by effect in the circumference, hides in the
power center.

So that the gold put into action becomes the only leaven of the Solar virtue,
volatile & spiritual existent in the radical things of vegetable metals &
animals. What our putative doctors shouldn't ignore; furthermore our
tincture makers should consider gold in its manifesto to be citrine,
but in its extremely red occult. For that ain't he just dyed him
same, but gives abundant tincture to others, & is a principle &
Perfect Sulfur Seminar. It bears in its forehead the moderate dry heat, &
hides in its depths the fire of the same Nature. That is why it has in itself the
male seed, & an amicable & attractive splendor with which he is courted by everyone. He imitates the Nature of his celestial father, of whom he is the Sun of the
Chemists, but more legitimately true Philosophers. And just like the
Sun of the Great World, being in the Sign of Leo, darts on our Meridian its
burning sparks: thus the gold being decorporated by the artist down to its
higher color, namely darkly sanguine, is in its own house,
named the Terrified Lion, & commonly called the Red Lion, comparing itself to the
African Lion as to its exterior, but in its operation & virtue, more
right in the heart of man. He sympathizes with the occult Elixir of plants,
but mainly to the Star of wine which is nothing other than its
quintessence. He communicates only with the Mercury seven times mortified by the
baths, vitriolic of gelding, with which after, as the allegorical fountain says
of the Trévisan, it mixes inseparably. Finally, this metal drags people, (like the
properly names our Poet) makes his arsenal & his ammunition, for the war
against the Duke Mercury, of orpiment, of sandarace of fixed sulphur, fixed precipitate,
cinnabar, antimony &c. We will still let the dissections of these minds
incorporate with our makers of ashes, & return to the more exalted generation
of our underground King.

Note then that Gold is generated in two ways, the first, when Mercury
exhaling through the slits of his mine, meets the red Sulfur of the Philosophers, &
pure, of which Gold is made, Nature separates from it the external agent, which is only
Sulfur. This is why Gold is more perfect than other metals, & the others
less perfect metals because their Sulfur or external agent is not yet
separate. How does it come about that one remains lead, another tin, another copper or iron,
not being brought to this simplicity of Gold, if not by a long & laborious
concoction of Nature, which has no other intention than to purge the metals of their
Sulfur. For what she did in the first operation by a perfect decoction, she
does it in the second by a long & continual digestion, digesting & purifying the metals little by little, as long as they are reduced to Gold. And this is the second
generation of Gold, of which the Poet will speak hereafter, & of which the good Trévisan says, The
Sulfur is nothing but pure fire, namely hot & dry, hidden in the
Mercury, which has been in the mine for a long time, moved by the natural movement of the celestial bodies, and thus moving, digests the cold and the humid within it . Of which according to the degrees of the alterations it is changed into
various metallic forms as we will say later, For here is our Poet who
bring him to the Théâtre l'Argent now, to make him play his character
in his rank.

Silver, (a) Imperfect gold, which its master masters,
Where lacking heat & color required,
Se goes from (b) pure Mercury in mines producing,
And of very pure, whitish and shiny Sulphur.
As we see these Bernards, on the shores of Tethydes,
Train in the pattern of wet shells
Let them all dress naked, when the young season
And their mutable instinct changes them house:
This white mutai forms into beasts underground,
Following the devious hollows of the stone veins.

a) God believed nothing solitary, but gave each male his female,
fish, birds, beasts, man, herbs, plants, &
sensible & insensible things, so that by the conjunction of the two sexes
continued the propagation of the species of all creatures, excited by the
continual influence of Heaven, which even has its female, which is the Moon. Of
fact, it is reasonable that he who marries, spouses & begets all things here
down also has his half, to help him in the execution of the commandments of
the Lord. This is why the Moon in charge of the winter Stars, therefore it
is the center, as the Sun is of the summer Stars. And just like the
Celestial Phoebus is the Father of our Sun, or Gold, so this Diana is the mother of
our Moon or Silver. And just as woman is less perfect than
man, Silver is less perfect than Gold in all Parts, which are the
weight, sound, color. So that there is always something to
perfect in it, which will never be worth anything, if it does not agree in everything and everywhere
with Gold her lawful husband leaving love and presumption of self,
that it hides under the make-up mask of Sulfur or external agent, which loses
as for & her all the other metals when they pass through the hot bath of
Vulcan.

b) The generation of Silver hardly differs from that of Gold. Because when the
White & clean sulfur falls into pure quicksilver, then by the commixion of these
two engenders white Arsenic, which is also a dangerous poison, however
less than red Arsenic. The Moon is therefore a perfect metal, (but a little
less than white Gold, composed of a pure & almost fixed Mercury, & of a white & clean Sulphur, which is not at all finished cooking, & all the time is almost fixed like Mercury. Yet does she not endure royal cement, Antimony,
Sulphur, cadmium, &c. And may notwithstanding be fixed by physical cementation or
reduction to its first matter. It expands less than gold under the hammer,
& allows itself, like him, to be drawn in very subtle nets. She is the moon
Alchemists, & the White Gold of true Philosophers. Because

The Heavenly Moon is not the mother of the terrestrial Moon of
philosophers, but a certain celestial Mercury, first mature of the
Nature.

The ancient Philosophers consecrate to this terrified Moon the brain of
the man, but, principally that of the woman, being reasonable that the effect
homogeneous framework in all its movements with its nearest object. She has for
his seat & tabernacle the subterranean Canera, which is the vulgar Mercury, as
Gold, Leo or corporeal Mercury. Whose having passed through the hands of
Philosophers, she gives a white dye, & is the mother of birth &
physical production, like Gold the father. It has a less compact body than
Gold, & for this is louder & dazzling. Also it does not weigh as much as Gold. She has her store supplied separately, with cinnabar, fixed sublimate, salt
Fixed Armoniac, Magnet, Fixed & White Sulphur, & Salts that Fear Not Fire
to make war on Mercury, all the time with a pretension other than that
de l'Or, agreeing with her husband only in the assassination & death of this poor
youngster, who does not speak without reason, when, madly complaining of disaster, he says,

Those whom I engender kill me.

She is the gate of Heaven, & hides in faith, inside the azure mantle of the vault
celestial. It generates itself in two ways, like the Sun, and we will talk about it again
below.

c) Bernard, is a small fish of the dunce species, living on the edge of
lamer, as recite Matthiole & others. He locks himself in the shell he
finds, like a Hermit in his little cell, of which he is even called
Hermit crab. Thus growing he takes the form of his little house, like
if it were cast in the mould. Our Poet draws a comparison from it for more vividly
express earth diversity of figures that we see in the Money coming from the
mines: to know what proceeds from the concavities & twists of the veins of the
mineral rock or stone. For confirmation of this, Agricola tells in its
Berman, having often found pieces of silver formed into a square,
the others in octagon, the others like a diamond, & often in real
needle. He affirms to have found in the mime of the instruments of the minors,
all formed of Silver, namely a hammer, & a small sarpe knife.
Moreover, said to have seen in it the mineral stones, figures of grass,
beasts, & other strange things: seeming by this diversity of which Nature is
plead to operate, that she wanted to brave the Surveyors, image cutters, &
pithy.

The lover of black loving, Iron filthy hard,
Is born of a Sulfur which burns, and of an impure Mercury:
And (c) the tinkling Brass comes from an impure Mercury,
And an Earthly Sigh with red dye.
The Tin (d) of Silver-quick white & Sulfur comes,
Even in its surface a white Mercury holds.
And you, Languid lead, draw your ugly form
Of non-pure Mercury, and deformed Sulphur.

a) The love that Iron has for the Magnet, & the Magnet for the Iron, is so great, &
admirable, that neither Empedocles, nor Aristotle, nor any of these seekers of reason,
have never been able to utter the slightest cause. But similar to this
Desperate peripatetic, drowned with their reason in this sea of
wonder, which nevertheless spreads its streams through all the valleys of the Earth,
& overflows from the summit of lofty mountains. 'Cause there's nothing under the
Heaven that does not have this divine attraction enclosed within itself. So there are many kinds
magnetins, which by a similar force of the Magnet draw to them from a familiarized
occult, things which to the eye seem contrary to them. But where does
this privacy? That's what

The spirit dwelling in a foreign body draws its body to itself
homogeneous.

If the Archi-philosophers of the past, & our language fighters of today
had known this secret they would have made room for this chaste Virgin Nature
that their vain reasons strive to violate. If our Doctors also had
wise to find & bring out of power, in action this Magnetic virtue which
lives in all their simples, they would have naturally worn out of the body
human, with no peccant temper, without strength or violence, and without so many symptoms
baneful, delivering this magnetine virtue by natural preparation, from his body
stranger, to do the standard cure says Hippocrates, hastily, surely &
joyfully surprises me that this road warrior & old force of medicine imbued & dying of natural reasons, has however nothing more hatred than to operate by way
of Nature, & also seems that our Alchemists engage in a league
indissoluble with this kind of Doctors: wanting to compose with things
against Nature, the work where Nature alone must preside. What else do they produce
both ? One a hunchbacked cemetery, the other monsters that finally go away
with the wind. Let them recede from Nature, & come a little nearer
close to the enclosure of this marvel, which is that the Magnet does not only attract the
iron, but iron being rubbed by the Magnet, & rubbing other iron, contributes its
virtue to attract others. This attractive & communicative virtue can be
artificially produced by the diligence of the true Physician in Colophony,
Turpentine, Sulphur, Pitch, Rubarb, Agaric & the like, by purifying them,
duly exalting & fermenting, & separating the foreign body from them. THE
Philosopher can by this virtue cause his fountain to attract the body of the King,
this King afterwards attracts to himself all his good subjects. But where does my
feather ? To return therefore to our Poet, we will notice that it is not
without a cause that he calls black the Magnet of which his Muse speaks here. Because he who is
white is not a lover of iron, but of flesh, as he himself has it very well
noticed in his Week, where he says elegantly,

Like the Ivy, with swirling folds,
Staples itself against a wall laden with moss & years,
Or tightly embraced, with a twisted pace
Of a wigged Oak the sparse hair:
Or like the virgin shears madly
Arrows of Love, embrace tightly
Her young favourite, & on the beloved mouth
Prints a sweet kiss, the arr of a hymen:
Thus the fond body, this vigorous Magnet,
Attach in our mouth a loving kiss:
Even an enclosed kiss, that the envious hand,
Barely let go of its daring grip!
But good God! What do we have of the solid Element
More prodigious than this subtle Magnet?
Who rubbed, as they say, with inhuman blades,
Done without death, their point beyond passing the veins,
Fountains of life, & slip through
Skins, fibers, tendons, muscles, arteries, nerves,
Without fear, without pain, & without even seeing
That a torrent, through the wound, undulates red flood?
What strong virtue, what virtuous effort,
Makes a sharp sword, the image of Death,
By making a fortunately treacherous wound,
Without killing we slaughter, & without heartbreaking hurt us?

I would consider the virtue of this second kind of Magnet incredible, if I myself
had been an eyewitness to it, and had only seen in the town of Le Puy a
Apothecary having rubbed a needle with this white Magnet; pierced his hands with it,
without any pain whatsoever, and without a drop of blood coming out of it!
This bad boy & incivil boor of iron, as Paracelsus calls him, dares
discuss royalty well with its Prince, claiming to be the closest to the
crown, & the said Paracelsus is astonished, how from such a vile commoner one could
make a gentleman. What is however easy to do in Roy: & I can also
to make by imitation the true Philosopher. Ironing off his outer coat, & him
putting on the azure shirt, so that he becomes Astral, & changes his naturalness to
that of the celestial Mars. All this will also be done if it is only bathed &
wash in our fountain, whose water is of such virtue that all the six metals
leave their old and corruptible form, and put on an incorruptible nature.
So strong that emerging naked from this fountain shine like the King of
metals, & are then really the Planets of our terrified Sky, or low
Astronomy. Now so that the reader can better hear this & not be offended
point of what we call corporeal and material things, Stars: it is necessary
that he hears that we say what is high, formal, like what is low,
material. So that whatever of its own nature & motion tends in
high, we say them most perfect: for what it is brought to the hall of form, &
at the height of perfection: & thus conforms all the more to the nature of the
Heaven, that it is more ethereal & stripped of material embarrassment. Because he endorses
then the nobility of form, & (according to Philosophical institutions) becomes
Astral, even can be called Astre. Now here is the real head on which
Hell, Heaven, & so many transmutations into Stars, & various forms by Ovid & other Poets, revolve & shape themselves at all times. Material iron, therefore, is an imperfect metal, hard, & of a livid color in its appearance, but red in its occult, having a lot of fixed, & little volatile Mercury, participating however a little in both so that it does not is hardly of the last. For this it melts late, & sustains the redness of the fire for a long time. It calcines quickly, because so little quicksilver and unfixed sulfur it has, is soon consumed, and for its present small quantity mixes with difficulty with quicksilver.

However, its terrestrial parts being removed from it, & made Astral, like us
we said, it becomes active, more mercurial, and adheres stubbornly to quicksilver.
It can be exalted into steel, & transmuted into copper. If it is however attached to the Gold
or Money, he can never be separated from it, but like a true Constable &
Lieutenant of the King, provides the extent of the limits of the Kingdom no
prefer for its usefulness to the King of metals, & perhaps with regard to
economy & police. But the true Philosopher considering the intimate substance,
nature, & end of Gold, not ignoring however the very great utilities of iron,
finds that the utilities of it are not to be compared to those of Gold. So must it
weigh & discern the difference between master & servant. The iron has its store
made of Magnet & all stones & marcasites to fire, yet is it true
Vulcan of the Philosophers, & the Mars of the Alchemists, the gall of the Physicists, &
who is a marvelous thing, the only Surgeon for Wounds & sealing
of blood: by this means making & healing wounds.
c) The friend of Mars is the crackling, rusty, & hard Copper, & is composed
of an impure Mercury & Sulphur, having the majority fixed & the other volatile,
however less fixed than iron. It has reddish color & melts & ignites rather than iron. The cause is that Venus has more Mercury & volatile Sulfur than Mars. However is in this the mood of her favorite, which she does not cherish
& hardly likes the company of Mercury, for what she cares for very little. She
abounds in vitriolic Sulfur & lots of earthiness. She endures very freely
to be beaten by her lover. This is why it extends easily under the
Hammer, but like a harlot, however, abounds in its villainies. For the
privacy she has with Mars, the Poets have feigned this surprise of Mars lying
with Venus, discovered by Phoebus, & subtly caught by the net of the jealous
Vulcan, who caused, as Ovid says, a pleasant spectacle to all the gods, &
a great desire in Mercury to be surprised like Mars, in such a pleasant frolic.
Even with good reason, for Venus having stripped off her green dress, and being in her chemise,
would easily be mistaken for the chaste Diana, whom Mercury, after Phoebus, loves
especially the alliance. If she's so reckless as to fuck her friend's lover, she
makes fun of it, taking the face of Phoebus. The same mask also gives him the
Caddy. It has in the human body the government over the kidneys, and for its
releases all sorts of vitriol. None of the Alchemists chose her for the
subject of their Elixir & Green Lion, but having long convoluted it, they find
the truth in the fable which says that Venus was born from the foam of the sea.
exalt this metal to the virtue of this great fire, which could wither one,
Ocean of quicksilver, they find at last, passing through the thunderbolts of Vulcan,
nothing but a virulent and stinking foam: rent truly worthy of these sailors who
without nacelle presume to sail on the sea of ​​this Cyprian.

d) The good-natured Jupiter gives us Tin to beautify our Heaven, & because
that it is nothing but lead purged & more digested by Nature than
Saturn, he is called White Lead, & thus, child of Lead, like Jupiter
is the son of Saturn. It is imperfect, soft, white, & resplendent, with a little
lividity. Its Mercury is the most perfect among those of the imperfect metals: also
is it softer & more volatile than the Mercury of hard metals, & more reliable & baked than black lead. Its Sulfur is white, sour, & less ripe than its Mercury, leaving in its departure a golden & red dye. However, it always leaves some part behind by the action of melting, & thus does not have in itself some fixity, even equal to its two principles, so that it abounds more in Mercury.
than in sulphur. It has little sound because of its softness: & because at its Mercury
adheres to some earthiness, it cracks & breaks when stretched all the way
hammer. He is very fond of Mercury, and in this shows the nearness of
perfection at the roots. Yet he clings stubbornly to Gold & Silver,
from which he only wants to give up with great force: and if one constrains him by
violence of the fire of letting go, it always takes the piece destroying someone
of their members. He wants the liver at the Microcosm, & the bismuth, or pewter ice,
& white Antimony for vehicles. This metal pervert has long banished the
lead from the Isle of England, as Jupiter once drove Saturn from the Isle of
Crete. The Poets depict him, not without reason, for the inventor of make-up,
since our Spaniards know how to industriously draw their white from it, to whitewash
the swarthy skin of their Señorras. Also our Sophists know well how to search in
that good Lord some light or dye to dye, had rather daub the
Copper. We laugh at him, however, a beautiful red color, & the real
Philosophers make Tin cheerful, giving him the wings of an eagle. But in the
medicine it is worth little except to restore the breach made outside in this
beautiful little world building.

e) The unfortunate Saturn wants the black lead for his part t as his mature
imprint in the Sky of the Sages, & is a soft metal more imperfect & livid than
tin. It is slightly frozen by a stinking, impure &
terrestrial, & sometimes infected with an arsenical spirit. It is sour & gnawing,
yet it devours every imperfection adhering to perfect metals, which it
converts with itself, into a Sulfur & burnt vileness. It blends in more lightly than
other metals because of the slight freezing of its principles, and its
great softness. It cannot be calcined easily, for what its Sulfur is
ferment mixed with its Mercury. What is not made in Tin,
from which the Sulfur flies away slightly, leaving a lime or powder, for this
that he has acrid and earthly minds. It easily calcines Gold & Silver. He
arrests the course of Quicksilver by its smoke, yet itself is resolved
slightly in Mercury. It is familiar with Silver, & differs from Tin,
in that it is more impure, moist, & difficult to calcine, having greater
amount of constant sulfur. The most earthly, smelly & arsenical Antimony is
of his nature. But because this old man Saturn is prudent & secretive, the
Philosophers have always warned him of the sacred Virgin, the true subject of
their occult art & Royal science. He carefully encloses it in the center of the
Earth guarding this fertile virgin with two venomous & cruel dragons
in order to preserve her from the rabid force of those who persecute, the benign
Nature make themselves at all unworthy of the resplendent sight of this Diana,
which wants to be governed only by those who have not yet had
cup of Babylon, filled with errors of lies & deceptions: but
show those who, having stripped off the fallacious cloak of human reason,
strive to make themselves worthy to see under the permission of this good governor of
Crete, this beautiful Danae. This is why we find today so few
Jupiters, & many Actaeons, in this Spagyric hunt, & an infinite number of horned Vulcans in the Alchemistic forge: which leave the chaff
empty, I return to our divine Poet.

Thus (a) white Mercury is among the metals
Like the fruitful sperm between animals,
He seems industrious, at Mercure Nomie,
Whose luster enriches high Astronomy:
For with the good he shines full of happiness,
With the unfortunate languishes full of misfortune:
And (b) as it conforms to these prognostic bodies,
Thus he does, adextrous, towards the metallics.
But that's not enough: We must (c) Lyncée again,
From further away discover the birth of Gold.
Nature (d) seeks a deep place,
Where the (e) earth forms into many round masses,
A still (f) place, where sometimes can enter,
The ardor of the stern lame, & (g) Titan penetrate,
It is there (h) that she makes Gold taking clear water,
Of which (i) one of coldness is moistly full,
The other of (the) same species is dryly hot.
But if (m) the cluster is not pure, the moist power
(n) Dissolves & (o) cools warm virtue.
When (p) the fire which, subtle in the center is kindled,
Goes warming the cold water, & (q) the hot consumed:
Thus ® intertwining by their thin parts,
These things(s) in Saturn after are converted:
Then (t) warming up again in order to climb better,
Cook one degree, becoming Jupiter.
Then (u) by greater heat, to the Moon reach.
Then (x) become Venus, then (y) Mars they become.
Then feeling (z) from the long hot the final action,
Acquire great perfection from the Sun.

The nature of Quicksilver is so admirable that Fallopius, as withdraws the
learned Libavius, holds it with the Magnet, in purgative things, between miracles
of Nature: being a liquor & a water which nevertheless does not wet the
hands. It is spiritual, cold, damp & white in manifest, but hot, dry
citrine, & red in its occult. It is very familiar with metals, adheres
within their nature.

Mercury passing by degrees through the nature of metals takes their
forms one after another, until the nature of gold, where it stops,
as at the end of Nature's career.

It is the first matter of all metals, which resolve into Mercury,
like water ice. It has in itself its analogical & homogeneous Sulphur, & from this
Sulfur proceeds its tincture. This volatile & slightly fleeting spirit surpasses the
metals in weight, & does not initially receive the said metals per se,
if not Gold. It can be finished by art, & be reduced to metal by their Sulphur. He
hardens & freezes by way of sublimation, & for its volatility flees at all from fire, so that it admits of no separation into its parts. When he
is fixed it remains stopped at all. There are two kinds of Quicksilver, the mineral & the
bodily. The first is found in mines, and the other comes from metals,
the mixture of these two generates Mercury, which is unknown to most
Alchemists, but very familiar, even domestic to true Philosophers, &
yet said by them, mystical Mercury.

b) The Poet here compares the terrestrial Mercury with the Celestial, which according to
joins the firmament with the other Stars, becomes similar to them. For this,
say the Astrologers, that when it is practically joined with the Sun, there is
two Suns in Heaven: & thus, being with Saturn, Mars, Venus, is said
Saturnian, Mercurian, Venerian. He is good with the good, bad with the
evil increasing & multiplying their goodness or badness, happiness or
misfortune. Likewise is nun Mercury here below. For being radically joined with
Gold, it becomes pure Gold with it, and thus with the other metals. So that from
its nature, it is at all convertible, & as wax or paste, to receive all
impressions, & bears whatever name you want to give it. Because at the beginning of
the work of the Philosophers, they called it water: when darkness appears,
earth: when it is sublimated, or exalted to white, air: when it is reddened say so
a fire, which is the end of their work. Yet the Philosophers do not attribute to him
for no reason so many fine qualities when they command not to take another
thing that the Sun & the Mercury, which joined together make the stone. because he
only attenuates Gold, and reduces it to its first matter, which most cannot
violent fire of the world. It is of that glorious Mercury, from which being regenerated the
Philosophers say,

Everything the wise seek is in Mercury.

He engenders himself being sublimated with the water of life, and is a Virgin, because he
has not yet made any metal in the belly of the Earth, and yet it gives birth to us
Rock. By dissolving the Sky, that is to say the Gold, he opens & draws from it the soul, &
carries it for some time in its belly, putting it back in its time inside the body
mondified, from which is born to the Philosophers their Stone, with whose blood the
bodies of metals, being dyed, are glorified & clothed in the precious robe of their
King, residing for the rest of the said Virgin Mercury without blemish. Finally, its virtues are
in such large numbers that a separate treatise would be needed to specify them at length.
c) The Ancient Poets say that Lynceus was the first to discover the
metals, penetrating trees and rocks from his sight, whence came this proverb
of a man with good sight, let him have the eyes of Lynceus: but one can see
what is underground it is impossible. However Agricola tells us in his
Berman, that, that Lynceus first began to dig after copper,
silver & other metals: & devoting himself to this exercise, carried with him,
like other metal gravediggers, lanterns underground, where did
which the populace say they could see in all parts of the Earth. Likewise
make Lyncée the interpreter of Lycophron.

d) The Poet describes more particularly the generation of Gold by Nature,
which, as Eximidius says in the Peat, is the beginning of everything,
perpetual, infinite, cooking & digesting all things: yet can none
thing be procreated or begotten without it. Nature alone collects the body
Elementary in the work of Nature, & as is very well said, Of God
proceeds something next to him, which is Nature, Nature Zoroaster
name an invisible fire. So is it true that the Spirit of God, an igneous love, has
of itself brings out some vigor from the fire when it was carried on the waters:
for nothing can be generated without this fire, or heat, which is a fire, not that
that we imagined Elementary, but Astral. God inspired this vigor in
things created, when he says Increase & multiply . What could not be done,
if there were not a double Nature, of which all the Sages say, that Nature
rejoices in Nature, Nature overcomes Nature, Nature contains
Nature. They are however not two Natures in themselves, but only a difference
in form, having one the things of the other in itself, the other having other accidents,
by which it operates that which suits its Nature. So all things are
issues from a thing, & end in a thing; and these two things are, as regards the generation of Gold, only sulphurous water vanquishing all Nature. So
Natures go ahead of their Nature, & Nature impregnates Nature, whose
Nature thus impregnated, seeks a clean place to perfect & give birth to the fruit
of nature. Nature therefore bears its fruit in the womb of the World, which is
the center of the Earth, and this deep place of which our Poet speaks.
e) When the fat of the heated Earth finds the substance of water somewhere
slightly rounded, there is a mixture of small grains in the form of pearls
small. For in the mines dwells a very abundant virtue to give form in
determining the mixtures to a certain end, which all the time was not able to freeze the
Mercury in Gold, if it is not mingled with this informing virtue in small parts by
the smoky & sulphurous exhalation, so that it is everywhere, - circuit, & the
heat can more easily penetrate to fix it, than if the said grains were
in long, triangular or quadrangular form. In fact this round factory
better suited to the circular movement of Mercury, which having passed through a
leather or cloth, falling in small grains is always based on its roundness,
as the sole patron of Nature's perfection, which produces almost all
the seeds & germs of the Earth in pearly form. So the hot breath
being in the Sulfur of the Philosophers, at the center of the Earth, breathing on the wave
moist Mercury; does all the same like children, who put soap
among the water, & blowing with a small torch in this viscous mixture
contained in a shell, form small round & orbicular bottles
which attach themselves to the end of their little channel, which shaken, rise in the air,
or sometimes, because of their viscosity mixed with water, by the sweet breath
stop, fluttering for a while with great pleasure to these little Monkeys of
Nature. Who doubts now that Sulfur invading Mercury, &
warm exhalation blowing on this Mercurial material, does not form
small bladders & round bulbs, which feeling the coagulant virtue remain
thus scattered & separated by the incidence of the mineral earth, which
between two ? This is therefore what our Author means, touching this round heap of
Earth, serving as molds for Nature, to represent his work so
perfect according to the pattern of the perfection of all perfection; who is the father of
Gold or celestial Phoebus.

God has, by an admirable counterweight, seated the round Earth, as on his
true foundation, on which it remains firm in its being, without moving or
towards one nor towards the other Pole. Because it is required, as all want
Philosophers, let there be for the generation & corruption of natural things, a
motionless place. If the Earth moved, as the Stars do, the art of Astronomy
would be neither the seasons nor the production of things. Finally all this
Machine du grand Monde would only be total confusion. It is therefore necessary that the
matter has an immobile place where it produces this heavy & grave King, like
wants our Poet. Otherwise the severe cripple (which is nothing other than the
Vulcan, or the heat of the Earth, which Paracelsus shoveled Archaea) could not
send the flames of his breath on this Embryo of Latona: but in fashion
of our blowers would send his wind up in smoke, and would waste his day: what is
false, as Ovid testifies the contrary in the allegory of Mars & Venus quoted
above.

g) Titan is the sun, or rather the vigorous fire of the celestial bodies, whence
proceeds this external movement, (of which we have spoken above) & from which
also the influence descends & penetrates to the center of the Earth. But this
heat is so small, as the Trevisan says, that it is imperceptible, and there is
continued. For in such a way , he said, that it is night, the natural heat does not
stop being there . And there is appearance because the Sun is neither hot nor cold, nor
neither dry nor wet, yet has no corners or ends. And as Jean Isaac says
Dutch, Heaven has the power to provide necessary things,
cooling the hot, heating the cold, drying the wet, &
moistening the dry . However Exunidius says, The Stars & Astres being
are of this nature to ferment & cook , & so that they
remain in their being, & perform their office, God, he says, has between them & the Earth, & the things that must be fermented & cooked, made up of airs to defend to the Stars, & mainly to the flame of the Sun, from burn all things . This opinion, followed by Raimond Lully
& of Aristotle, is false & erroneous: & holds with the said Trévisan, that the celestial bodies have a continual heat, & so slow, that it can hardly be imagined, & that thus the Sun is neither hot nor cold, but that its movement is
naturally hot & vigorous, stimulating by a friendly heat the action of
the warmth of Earth's Vulcan. Whoever desires further discourse on this
subject, read the third part of the Natural Philosophy of the said Trevisan.

h) The place where the Gold is made, is where this round heap & mixture of earth is made
calchanteuse, & this moving & red Sulphur, the patient & white Mercury, & the soft & exciting heat of the aforesaid Sun. Now this white Mercury is the clear water of which our Poet speaks, elaborated, cleansed & exalted to its supreme degree, likewise takes red & slightly melting earth,
which without using measure or balance, it joins by an inexpressible projection,
with bright & sparkling Mercury, & thus cooking the said Embryo, & separating what is superfluous, produces Gold in the first place as we have said before.

It is here the King of metals, who attains his Royalty by the sole election of Nature. Thug now how in several places this King is created & reaches the Crown, by several offices & estates, & in the end by his own bravery.

i) The Poet means here that the Mercury of Gold not yet fired by the action of
its Sulphur, is full of coldness in the humid form, and which, however, must not be
to hear this coldness be like the vulgar Mercury, but only at the
gaze of its own Sulphur, just as one might say that the hottest
woman is very cold with regard to the man as testify all the
Physicists & Doctors.

l) Red Sulphur, as we have said, is very hot & dry, compared to
its cold & humid Mercury. Our Poet shows even more clearly than above the qualities of the two perfect principles of Gold, so as not to omit anything &
distinguish well the said two principles from the two imperfect beginnings of the imperfect metals.

m) We have said above in Nature's complaint that she cannot
always give at the first attempt to the goal of perfection, because of the
impediments from the first mixture of viscous moisture &
unctuous earthliness which make this impure heap, of which our Poet speaks here.
However, the moving Nature, unable to remain idle, strives to bring her
work begun to destined perfection. For what, she adds to this
Mercury its own agent, mineral mixture, which freezes said Mercury,
like rennet milk, & being perfected, it incubates it by a slow heat,
& like feverish, tolu like a hen heats her eggs.

n) It is necessary, in all legitimate conjunction, for the wet to dissolve the dry, the
patient the agent, otherwise the alteration cannot be made, nor without it the real
freezing in metallic form. This is why Mercury dissolves its Sulphur,
to mingle with it, like two drops of water joining together
inseparably.

o) On the ground dissolution the heap appears in the form of thick water, where the
frigidity, chasing the heat to the center of the mixture, so that it can
also throw its sparks around the whole circumference.

p) The heat thus passed on, the Sulfur begins little by little to spurt
point of its circle its lively & native rays by all the parts of Mercury
cold & mortified. And for what heat & dryness is more worthy than
coldness & humidity, it always tends to overcome them, rising little by little
the agitation of the movement of celestial bodies.

q) The coldness therefore & the humidity still dominating, seem to have completely extinguished
the natural heat of Mercury, which languishes, rather denounces death than
the life.

r) Because in Mercury nothing is empty of sulphurous heat, but is mixed with
him through all his parts, the continual action of this persevering heat
always, overcome the frigidity & humidity of Mercury, & the dryness & the fixed
trade to dominate. Of which according to the degrees of this alteration of Mercury by
its Sulphur, begins to appear the first color of Nature, namely the
darkness.

s) Thus said heat or Sulphur, gaining a degree, on the humidity of Mercury
is made of lead, as Trévisan testifies, & is the first metal that by
this way Nature produces, which is nothing but a thickened Mercury,
however miserable, ugly, and ponderous, useless to generation, and finally conforming in all manners to the Olympian Saturn.

t) Nature continuing its decoction on this congealed & impure mass gains a
another degree on the humidity of Saturnian Mercury, becomes Tin, or Jupiter, which
is only a more congealed & purified white lead or Mercury. So said Mercury
is by Nature promoted to a nobler office, being of a boor & peasant made
clerk & man of justice, imitating in everything the celestial Jupiter.

v) Here the heat begins to invigorate a bit more & consuming
humidity of the feminine Mercury, makes the Moon, an imperfect metal, a Mercury with
half fixed, frozen to white by the Sulfur which is in the said Mercury,
Nature beginning & getting ready to separate the exterior Sulfur from this Mercury
effeminate.

x) The heat rises now, and consumes the frigidity and the humidity of the
feminine Mercury, beginning to push them towards the center of which said heat
was previously the hostess, so that the occult begins to manifest, & the
manifest to hide, the vanquished to rise, and the victor to be surmounted.
Thus by this change is engendered the verdant and immodest Venus, bearing
as for the pox that Mercury brooded under the white menstrual of the
Moon, which being pure in its exterior, makes the said Venus also more
clear in its interior, and thus was born the Venerian Mercury.

y) Here the Mercurial heat triumphs, & the jealous Lemnian will soon leave his
work: for here is a fiery Mercury, which henceforth with a little
support of benign Nature, will soon reach the state where it breathes from its first
youth. It is Royalty, for it lacks nothing more than to be stripped of its
cuirass & of his weapons so that as triumphant, he puts on the mantle
flamboyant of Phoebus thus changing his ferocity into a gravity & Majesty
Royale, & its hardness into a serious softness. So that Mars is nothing else
than a Mercurial Sulphur, & almost fixed, hidden under a great hardness.
(z) The outer agent being totally separated from Mars, the manifest hidden in the
center, & the occult having gained the circumference, now shows itself the
Perfectly frozen Mercury bearing on its forehead the marks of the Archaea of
earth or fire. Thus was born Gold; which is nothing but pure fire digested by the
Sulfur being within Mercury, indivisible & simple, & consequently the noblest Creature that God has created on Earth, after man.

Thus Gold is perfected, and we must not be surprised
To hear that such a subject his birth gives him:
Carrion of oxen is going well producing
From his animals a shining herd:
Animals that swarming take fins,
Fly near flowery meadows to steal the flowers:
And made honey flies, from the trunks of old oaks,
Font, breed of manure, a delicious honey.

a) The Poet here makes a fine comparison of Bees sometimes emerging from
corruption, with the Gold, now from a stinking & menstruating wretchedness of the
Mercury impure in its roots, from which nevertheless is born this virtuous honey of
Philosophers, who is the Gold, which removed from its hive & passed through the filter of the Sages,
becomes a tasty Honey & Nectar: ​​Honey & Nectar of which having used all the
days, a certain Roman soldier lived beyond the common age of men. It is
the one whom Emperor Octavian asked what he had done to achieve such
age so healthy & robust; & who replied,

I have often drunk dissolved honey, and rubbed myself with its oil on the outside .

Besides, this comparison of Honey Flies & their operation is very suitable with Mercury which is also born as from mineral dung, namely humidity & viscous & impure earthiness, & which being prepared, becomes Mineral Honey Flies, from which by the aptly the learned George Ripley English Philosopher, when he says,

Mercury is our honey fly. For just as the Avette takes the
purer & the quintessence of florets, & herbs, thus made
our Mercury on the tinctures & quintessences of metals .

Back to our Gold.

For (a) the Gold that runs pale in current rivers,
Having cruel waves foaming its mines,
Paid his miserly ransom ahead of time,
Weak, it cannot return to its yellow cooking:
But would have achieved it by the moving virtue
Of the metallic spirit, & the heating force
Sulphurs, bubbling, carry through many channels
The continual fire that cooks cold metals .

a) Because gold is most often found mixed among the sand of rivers,
Albert the Great thought that these small grains were generated there. But he
mistaken, as Agricola says: for this sandy yellow is carried there by the course and the
ravages of the rivers that uproot it from the mineral stone. So the water
moistening & often penetrating said earth, with its impetuosity the transformer &
carries it away with its stirring waves. Everything as well as washing a cemented metal &
powdered to remove the salty & burnt remedies, by pouring the water out of the
mortar to remove the faeces, very often if it is poured too roughly, it flows
metal powder. The same often happens to Goldsmiths cleaning
their washing. And Pliny writes that the Spaniards having cut the mountains, throw
force water into their barracks, in order to wash the Gold, which flowed into
clean receptacles, they collect in a powdery mass. Thus the Gold, being snatched away
of its large and small veins, is mixed among the arena, as our Poet says,
& is transported here & beyond, but is not generated there, because the sand has no vein, in which the humor of which gold is made, can be contained.
However if under the sand there were veins, Gold could be produced there, as
testifies the aforesaid Agricola.

b) The Poet is not speaking here of the granulated & perfect gold, which is found among the
sand of the rivers, but only of that which is not yet finished cooking,
is constrained, before the term, to pay the tribute to these runners of Neptune. This
Now, therefore, removed from its nest and from its womb, cannot reach its birth,
because the arid sand has no receptacle, nor a proper vein for the
lodge, but is this wretched embryo constrained to remain a formless mass,
which would have recovered the perfect disposition of its members, if it had not been
snatched from the arms of Nature, whose nourishing warmth finally had him
hatched & completed. This is what our Poet means in this place touching this
Pale gold of the rivers. Dont be on it, & ready to step out of the Kingdom
tenebrous of Pluto, as already arrived on its last limits it is necessary, (in order to
smell the air so much, desired with more contentment) we go for a walk
on these pleasant rivers, where we will see the larceny of the postilions of this
enchanting Neptune, not of gold only, but of many precious stones.
However I will fret the skiff, send your ship, & prepare all your
crew for the trip to Colchos. And in order to keep you quiet discover all these
beautiful rivers, I will present to you here as a River Map, all by the way,
for your satisfaction, taking the second book of the Fisheries of our Poet, where
his Muse learnedly describes the most precious rivers of the World:

I sing very first, golden shores,
Who in the world are more beautiful, are in the world adored
Are darling of Humans, craving with mad envy,
Who miserly to live, & lavish of life,
Win without winning, & recross the seas,
To cross the rivers of Hell just once!
I want to sing the ports of the Portuguese wave,
Where are his winged feet the wandering Beam
Who woos gaping his graceful Zephyr,
Brings forth the brilliance of ambitious Gold:
I want to sing the Beast to the deep wave,
Where Gold, bubbling from wave to wave, wave.
I want to sing l'Achate at the Cantar des Ports,
Who the Gagaten rolls on Sicilian shores,
(The black-fronted Gagate, to whom the flowing oil
And deadly wave, & burning oil wave)
And who, rich, colorful in mocking small circles
From the ices of Cypris its fertile shores:
So that in every time, from its margin, it looks like
To these afternoons where Spring assembles,
Of an enamel without enamel, beautiful of a thousand colors,
The Muget, & the Euphrasia, with a thousand & a thousand flowers:
And that of Scorpions the knotty tails,
Do not throw their tortoise sizes on its edges:
For they hate Agathe, and this Agathe hates
The frightened desire that the fever makes us.
I want to sing Unicorn, nicknamed Evenide,
On the Greek shore, on the Aetolide wave,
And golden sand. I want to sing again
From Marize Egean the yellowish treasure.
I want to sing a fellow, from the remote Indies
Hands precious rivers. The rushing waves
From the superb Caucasus to the Grangétique bers,
From Ganges to Antibole, & Antibole to the Seas,
Won't they roll many blonde riches
In minuets? And hydraspian wave,
Who vomited his tribute in long-current India
Many gems of sand go its decorating edges.
But should I prefer Phizon to Hydaspes,
To the clear floating treasure of the Scytic Arimaspes?
I don't want to forget you, river with Lydian waves.
Blondish jackpot: neither Hermès, which your goods
Blurring by its waters, golden triboule its face,
As we see when the annoying grimace airs,
Moist, drooling on us, changing little by little
In a red part-troubled by the rivers of blue:
River a hundred times happy, which enjoys without envy
With all your Gold, which in vain the vain Mortal envies.
I have for you the arched waves of this Corbe Cilheu,
Which rises by bending over the gravel curve
Very shiny treasures: & ne says the Pavane.
Whose surmounting waves the Cane quagmire
Slap fine silver. I leave to say again
From the gemstone Maraignon the admirable treasure
Treasure hard clear, whose greenness erases
Fleeing April wheat with a green face.
I don't make the rocks rock
To hear the rewet treasures of Oreillan.
But esteem, oh beautiful Bel, only the golden waves
Stall the los of your glazed waves:
No, no, the mad contempt of glittering glass
Don't make me scorn your flowing glass.
Isn't it as big a case as your leaky waves
Swim on a pavement of crystalline shores,
That Aeolus on your forehead, by this turn-baller,
Face of a clear cloud the dark air to sparkle,
As one sees shining from one shore to the other,
When under the proud metals Mars kindles its rage.
And that your waves will see an immediate sign
Lead & scrap, in shining glass,
How wrong it is to take away from your ice cream.
For being too vulgar, & its price & its grace?
Also, rather, big Bel, your beauty verrine
Will leave shining with its silvery green,
That nothing from my brain your strange memory,
From my heart your love, from my verses your praise.

Let us leave these rivers, & we embark wisely, raise our masts, & wind our mizzen, to begin the voyage, & go to the conquest of the Treasure of all Treasures. For here is the open sea, the weather is our own, &
Neptune & Eole promise us I don't know what good meeting. But before
than to unanchor, & expose our sails to the breath of this sweet Zephyr, let us hear our
Poet taking leave of the underground Goddesses.

That's what the herd of Nymphets told me
Who dwells & presides over secret caverns
Who enters the black caves of the mountains, which cracked,
Gleam gold the heaped up treasures.

The Poet feigns here a herd of Nymphettes as Guardians of the golden
Maze of this bad, son of Saturn. All Poets are full of such
kindnesses, giving us sometimes a Satyr, a Faun, sometimes a Marine God, a
Glaucous, sometimes a Diana huntress, a Pan a Nereid, a Siren. But
as for our mines, the Pagans did not believe without appearance that he presided over them, I do not
know what deity, for the fraudulent apparitions they saw there. Because
as Agricola recites, there stands at the mines a species of Demons, some of
do no damage to the metallists, but go wandering by these
hollow caves, & doing nothing, always seem to exert themselves:
now digging a vein, now piling up what has been cut,
sometimes turning the wheel of which one runs out, sometimes playing at miners
& irritants, pretending to enjoy it. This cleaning is often done
mines, where the hope of wealth more often attracts metalworkers, vassals &
tributaries of Pluto, which go without fear of unexpected floods, &
disappointments of such dangerous hosts. However our Alchemists even more
greedy after these bowels of the Earth, do not want to take the trouble to employ
only one year reading & contemplating the Map of Nature, depicted
so vividly in the writings of so many illustrious philosophers, and notably by the
learned speech born under a certainly Herculean labor of this brave Libavius,
who not only buried the reputation of the ancients for this gaze, but so well
barricaded his work, that none below will be able to add his own without
superfluity. I cannot recommend enough his learned writings, by which he has
written this science into real art. Of which with good reason he carries the laurel of Hermes,
who is the first conqueror of this Queen of the arts: of this Queen who
will be favorable to you if you do not woo his mother, amiable Nature, who alone
engenders our art: you will therefore diligently examine the sayings of the ancients, in order
to be instructed in the knowledge of natural things. But above all it
must, (as Isaac Hollandais says in his book of minerals) know
particularly that which is subject to the circle of the Moon, its course, the time of
beginning of her career, & the point from which she flushed out. So you
know the nature of metals, how they grow, and in what nature they like
to be reduced, and would have been reduced if Nature had not been prevented,
also have knowledge of the naturalness of the preventing thing.