THE ALLEGORY ON UNIVERSAL MEDICINE

Translated from the original Anglo-Saxon in the Anglo-Saxon Prince's Library, which has never been translated or copied.

RECIPES OF AMBROISIA SERVED AT THE TABLE OF THE GODS, AT THE WEDDING OF HEAVEN AND EARTH;

ALLEGORY

Translated from the Original Anglo-Saxon in the Library of the Anglo-Saxon Prince, which has never been translated or copied.

---

Jupiter having intended to marry Heaven and Earth, and to make them equal in virtue and in dignity, so that one became absolutely equal to the other, resolved to make use of a God, in order to operate astonishing things.

His choice fell on Mercury, son of Maya. This God seemed to him more suited than any other to fulfill this august and important function, because his wings and his lightness provided him with the means to go and return often from Heaven to Earth and from Earth to Heaven, to carry the message of the two lovers who were responsible for composing the Ambrosia, with which the new spouses wanted to regale the lower Gods, this dish to give them the immortality which they did not yet enjoy. So they led Mercury into the inner cabinet of their secrets, and after instructing him in the cabalistic art of natural magic, this subtle God began his operation. He first traveled to those regions where the sky is adorned with Magellanic constellations. After crossing the line from east to west, he came to a kingdom situated at thirty-two and a half degrees, where there grows, among other curious plants, a certain tree called Trisarchos. Those who know the language of the great Aristotle will see that this name contains powerful virtues, since it denotes three kingdoms or three empires.

The natural Cabalists claim that it is so named because it contains the three great natural principles, or because it relates to the three kingdoms of Nature;finally Mercury was looking for a Trisarchos. He chose one, tall, healthy, of good height, that is to say, about sixty-six philosophical feet high (for the ordinary height of the Trisarchos is seventy-two philosophical feet). Although, as we have said, this tree was healthy and healthy, it nevertheless happened to have a hollow in the middle. Mercury collected from it a sulphurous marrow, of nature and close to the fountain of the angry young people, and immediately taking its flight towards the northern star, it arrived, after a few hours, in a distant place of approximately 1300 nautical leagues from that from which it had started; there he found a handsome Trisarchos, as fresh as the first;but instead of collecting the marrow of it, having perceived an incision which the gardener of this place, named Nature, had made in this tree, about twenty-five feet higher than the hollow from which he had extracted the marrow, he collected from it cold water and of his nature, which he needed to temper the excessive heat of the sulphurous gum of the Trisarchos. In order not to lose time, and to employ these two substances, sisters and homogeneous, in all their freshness, Mercury entered the gardener's laboratory; and having borrowed one of his vases, in order to purify, amalgamate, sublimate and philosophically cohober these two matters issuing from the same root, he withdrew from it two Homogeneous substances; one white, which he called the Cold Woman, and the other he named the Red Servant.

These operations had already changed the form of the two substances, to the point of making them unrecognizable. The gross had been made subtle, the thick made liquid, and the thick liquid, all of a solid nature, but infinitely less imperfect than it was before this first and indispensable operation; but Mercury knew how much it still lacked degrees of perfection, before being able to brood the matter which was to compose Ambrosia.

This God was however not a little embarrassed. Until then he had only needed the help of Cybele and the gardener. As they were related, he had easily won their good graces;but soon he was going to need the superior gods, and above all Apollo, with whom he was so estranged that he could not bear his presence, although they were close relatives; and as soon as he saw this God, he dissipated before him like smoke. Mercury not doubting that his cousin the Cold Woman, being of the same nature, would not fail to be frightened at the sight of Apollo, and would flee like him, which would render his work vain; and knowing also that Apollo would despise the Red Servant, and would not condescend to cast his eyes on him, if, on the one hand,the Cold Woman did not acquire a degree of fixity capable of making her support the presence of Apollo, and if, on the other side, the Red Servant was not ennobled and raised to a higher state, he judged that there was no other resource, to work these marvels, than to make use of a certain Genius (invisible to all but the Gods and the true Sages) who holds a medium between Heaven and Earth, and communicates to one the influences of the other. This powerful genius, like another Proteus, assumes all sorts of figures; sometimes it is fire and invisible, sometimes it is water and does not wet the hands; sometimes it is poison, antidote, animal, grass, metal. It is the general sperm of all sublunar beings, contains in itself all the seeds.We would not finish if we wanted to describe all its virtualities; his name is Ramver, and Mercury knowing that this Genius was the only one on which all the success of his operation depended, he flew from one pole to the other, and traversed many meridians on land and sea, before he could find him. In the end he met him in the plains of southern Africa, who lavished, with full horns of plenty, his precious gifts on the imbecile Hottentots and the miserly Dutchmen who, without bothering to know its essence, were content to sell it for handsome cash, after having locked it up in glass bottles, and this is what we called the Wine of the Cape.

Mercury's laboratory had been established at the gardener's who lived near the forest of the Trisarchos, towards the northern tropic.Ramver received Mercury amicably, and promised to be favorable to him, as well as to the Cold Woman and the Red Servant, who happened to be of Ramver's family; but whatever entreaty Mercury might make to him to induce him to follow him north, Ramver proved to him, for good reasons, that it was impossible for him to consent to it; but he promised her that, in three philosophical lunar years, he would go north, on the mount whose head is adorned with the double horn of Amalthea.

Mercury was obliged to retrace his steps;and as he had to wait a long time, lest the White Woman and the Red Servant should come to fall in love with each other, and unite illicitly, he enclosed each of them in the two serpents of his caduceus, and in order not to lack them if need be, and lest they should be bored alone, he gave several companions and companions, both to the White Woman and to the Red Servant.

After the three lunar revolutions ended. Mercury one day, flying above the sea, saw two big porpoises which sailed towards the south and were already lost in the horizon; and casting his eyes in the opposite direction, he saw a group of winged children who perfumed the air with their whale; they chained, with garlands of flowers, a beautiful sheep that Mercury recognized to be Ramver's mount.Mercury did not waste a moment but he went to a verdant plain towards which Ramver directed his course. Cybele, who had already been favorable to her, took the Cold Women and the Red Servants that Mercury brought out of her caduceus, and put them on her head, so that they were as if mixed up, without being covered among Cybele's growing little hair. This Goddess knew well the love that Ramver burned for her, and that above all her cousin took pleasure in playing among her growing hair;he did not fail to do so, and he took so much pleasure in it that he shed tears of joy, which, coming to fall on the proteges of the Goddess, were whitened, washed, liquefied, subtilized, fixed and ennobled to such an extent that Mercury himself, who expected it well, could not help showing some surprise.

He therefore took advantage of the help of the Goddess to repeat his operations as many times as his instructions required; and when he saw his children in a condition to appear with honor and dignity, he ventured to present them to Apollo.This mighty God had no sooner cast his eyes on the Red Servant than, foreseeing (in his quality of God) that soon this being drawn from the mire, and born in abomination, not only would share his scepter with him, but even that he would become so powerful that he would perfect in a few hours the work which he had employed a thousand years to accomplish, he let himself be carried away by a terrible fury, taking his bow and his arrows, always sure of their blows, he unleashed several on his enemy.

Blind Divinity, where does your fury take you? Can't you see that, far from killing your rival, each of your arrows gives him new vigor? From the third, already like a sublime eagle he dares to stare at you; in the seventh, he is equal to you? But what!the tenth part! the bow falls from your hands, your fury subsides, you fly into your rival's arms; what am I saying, he is now your brother, you are inseparable. It is no longer in your power to take away from him the virtue that you have given him, and far from desiring it, you aspire only after the happy moment when, freed from the rest of his impurities, your brother, who is your son, will reign with glory, and will crown your other children.

Diane could not see the Sun's fury without worry. She was already in a pretty bad mood. For several months his hunt had been painful; the frost and the snow had often caused his dogs to lose track of the forest dwellers. To fill her cold melancholy, she had just, at that very moment, witnessed the immodest embraces of Mars and Venus which were before her very eyes, and in the company of the chaste Goddess. As she wore only a slight crescent on her head, no doubt these Divinities, carried away by the vehemence of their desires, had misunderstood the modest Diana. The Goddess still seeing the cold Woman whom the Fates threatened to make her equal, as the red Servant of the Sun had become, she could not resist so much pain; and forgetting her quality of Goddess to give herself up to the weakness of her sex, she shed a torrent of tears which soon flooded the happy Cold Woman; she still increased in coldness, but she gained in sperm and in virtue, and what had never been seen, the tears of a virgin impregnated a virgin, or rather rendered her fit to be impregnated; it was thus that the Cold Woman became as happy as the Red Servant had been, together with their companions and companions who became able to be married, and to produce the King and Queen, that is to say, Heaven and Earth purified and married together.

Mercury had succeeded too well not to complete his work; but as what remained to be done was child's play and a woman's amusement, and as he was called elsewhere for a message from Jupiter, he entrusted the rest of the work to Mother Maya, who, spinning her distaff, conducted him to perfection, taking care only to hold, in a gifted heat, the Cold Woman and the Red Servant, whom I shall henceforth call the King and Queen, and whom Mercury had shut up in a palace of crystal.

Shall I speak of the darkness which covered the nuptial bed of the King and Queen, which lasted for a philosophical year and a half? of the cruelty of the Queen who devoured her royal husband and brother?tears she will see of repentance, which were such that after a short reign in whiteness, she liquefied, in order to enter the belly of the King who, after eight philosophical years, rose again glorious, dressed in purple and crowned in gold? Isn't all this written in the Fasti of the Sages?

Moreover, from the body of King Mercury composed the elixir of the Sages; it was the Ambrosia of the banquet of the Gods at the feasts of the marriage of Heaven and Earth, which ended on the spot.Jupiter Was Pleased with the Labors of Maya, and to Mark His satisfaction, He allowed Mercury to Multiply by Ten, and Times Ten, and Times A Hundred, and Ten Times a Thousand, the Elixir of the Sages, Both in Virtue and In Quantity, by Only Having the King and Queen His Wife Bathed in the Blood of the Red Servants and Women, Whom Mercury Had Stored in the Serpents of His Caduceus, and to Whom the King and Queen Distributed, As A Reward, Kingdoms As the Grows. Since that time, Ambrosia has been the ordinary dish at the table of the Gods, and very rarely do they share it with some Sages, their favorites who, fearing them,

END