The Banquet of the Elders

or "Instruction of Mercury to one of his disciples"

Central Library of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris Manuscript n° 2040 - XIX th century.

First race

From my earliest youth, I tried to penetrate into the order of the laws of nature subject to the rules that God prescribed for her from the moment of the creation of the world and I noticed that she acts in all things with the same simplicity. Busy studying and meditating on these admirable laws one day, among others, that Aries brings back to our hemisphere the beautiful days of a pleasant spring, I was approached by a young man whose height and majesty were above the ordinary. My friend, he said to me, I have been examining you for a very long time; it seemed to me that you are very embarrassed and that a serious study makes you sad and melancholy: could we know the subject of your meditations and your sorrows? Whoever you are, I tell him,

No, he said, I am the very one you are looking for. My name is the Unknown and Universal Mercury, which can satisfy you. I am that same Mercury which is found in all the bodies of nature, which gives movement and life to all things. Everything lives and breathes only through me. I am the son of Jupiter and Juno, it is I who take on all imaginable figures. I am the Protheus who imparts movement to all things; when I attach myself to a subject, I conform to its nature. I excite him by my gentleness; I prick it without bitterness, I move it without violence, and I awaken it from its slumber by a pleasant action.The same thing then happens as in the amorous caresses of animals, that is to say, an emission of semen of the species of this subject. What makes you all wander, it is that you do not apply yourself enough to understand the most essential axioms of the philosophers. Here is one over which you pass too lightly, which, well meditated and studied, is enough to know all my secrets:

1. Nature contains nature.
2. Nature rejoices in nature.
3. Nature overcomes nature.

How can a good mind not understand that the first indicates matter which, although non-metallic, must become metallic; that the second excellently marks the action of natural fire, by which Mercury breaks its bonds, to produce itself in the eyes of philosophers; and that finally the third expresses how this Divine Work reaches the term of its perfection without any other aid than that of nature proper, by the industry of nature and of the artist.

It is therefore from the amorous kiss which takes place in putrefaction and by its means of the dry and the humid, of the cold and the heat, that the child of the philosophers is born, whom they have named after me. And this is done: the dry and the hot, which were enclosed in matter and which are the repositories of the light and the fire by the sweetness of the agent, push their rays from the center to the circumference and leave their deep retreat, where they were as if numb under the mass of the humid and the cold which held the outside, they come to caress them and unite with them through the action of the mediating agent. And as the cold and the humid have darkness and obscurity for their domain, they agree with the dry and the hot,may darkness and obscurity take flight to the bottom of the waters and may, by a complete separation which will take place from them, be relegated with all the impurity among the dross which served as a filthy and coarse envelope to a substance composed of such pure elements. And let light and splendor be brought in to illumine this new world both without and within, and cause life to reign where before death held sway in the horror of the impure darkness that oppressed the fire in the dry and the hot, constricted and reduced as to a point in the middle of the center, and that finally the hot and the dry, by a distillation of their virtue, carry their empire to the circumference and reign everywhere, without however destroying the cold and the humid,who will suffer only by means of this philosophical reconciliation, to be converted into hot and dry nature: and this is done as I have said by means of another putrefaction, by the mediation of the agent by which the opposites are reconciled as in a medium which belongs to the nature of the whole. But this reconciliation cannot be made either in vinegar, or by strong waters, or by saline and corrosive menses, or by any elementary water or water foreign to the metallic species. Philosophers, to explain the mildness of this agent, have compared its operation to the copulation of animals; because, when our mercury is born, it is a substance that takes its origin from two and results from it as a third, made from the union of the two sperms. In this direction,

Second dish

What the child of philosophers is.

The fault of all students, Mercury continued, is to know neither the child of the philosophers nor his admirable birth. This is their great stumbling block. And you who listen to me, remember your last works, where, by a certain operation which I had inspired you, you proceeded in such a way conforming to nature although on a subject which is not the real one, that this noble child or something similar presented itself seven times before your eyes, always more beautiful and more brilliant, finer than pearls, clearer than silver, whiter than curdled milk, all strewn with stars and rays marked with its celestial origin: however you do not know the peace nor the importance of this substance so delicate and so beautiful that you saw with your eyes and touched with your hands,you saw that it was something good; but your still clouded understanding did not suggest that you take and gather apart this mercurial substance which was born as if of its own free will, and without having seen or foreseen its birth. If you had gathered it and separated it from its impure dross, on which it had sublimated itself; and if then you had known how to cook it in its own blood you would have had an abridgment of the solar and lunar tree; but you did not know how to operate with this beautiful mercury, you dreamed of what you should do with it, you took the time to think about it, believing that it could not escape you and that an eighth time would give it to you even more beautiful;what had happened if you had not increased your fire: but a little more fire than usual made it fly. The day after, you thought you would see this beautiful child again, but he had disappeared. It is true that it occurred to you to take it, to pick it apart and even to cook it, it was I who inspired you with this thought. But because you lacked science, you were not firm. The fear of missing made you miss and by your irresolution this beloved son flew away; however, it only flew to the top of the vase whence falling, it was drowned in the Icarian Sea and mingled with impure sand from which it could not return. Thus, he unfortunately perishes from his birth in the impure mass of a damned land. you were not firm.The fear of missing made you miss and by your irresolution this beloved son flew away; however, it only flew to the top of the vase whence falling, it was drowned in the Icarian Sea and mingled with impure sand from which it could not return. Thus, he unfortunately perishes from his birth in the impure mass of a damned land. you were not firm. The fear of missing made you miss and by your irresolution this beloved son flew away; however, it only flew to the top of the vase whence falling, it was drowned in the Icarian Sea and mingled with impure sand from which it could not return. Thus, he unfortunately perishes from his birth in the impure mass of a damned land.

That's what you all do when you only half know my science. You operate and work without knowing what you are doing, without knowing the true principles, and when you see them they escape you through ignorance. The beauty of this child surprised you. You qualified this operation, which I had given you, by the name of eagle, in this form in imitation of Philalethes in his writing, in which you were right, because it was a kind of sublimation which imitated physics quite closely. So it had a nice effect because you didn't know what you were doing or what was to happen. What prevented you from taking advantage of it was that you owed this discovery only to chance and not to science. May such an example make you wise in the future.

Learn however that in this fortuitous work, although on a subject which was not the real one, you had found the middle substance of quicksilver, so sung by Geber, the great moon, the shining icy water and the white lily of the little peasant. Learn therefore that the time of his birth must be known.

Third dish

The error of most artists comes from not knowing the precise hour of the birth of this royal son; for although philosophers agree on it among themselves, they all designate it differently, to throw students into error. They even suppressed in their writings that part of the work which makes the mercury, saying that it is not their work, but that of a rustic man, and that the agent which they use to make this precious sublimation is not their mercury, as Aros says, quoted by Trévisan. They called this first part of the work first conjunction and the work of winter because, in this conjunction, the mercury and the sulfur separated by the preceding operations to purify them,come together and reunite by a freezing which is done by cold occurring in their sublimation which is quite different from their philosophical and final freezing which is done by heat. This is why this work is not recognized, nor philosophically sensitive. It's one of their tricks. Zachaire, one of the most sincere who says that the conjunction of the two sperms which contain the mercury takes place at the very hour of his birth, and that whoever does not find it at that hour should not wait for another in his place; that he who undertakes the work without knowing the determined hour of this birth, will gather from his work only useless sweats; that this conjunction contains the true weights of nature to which there is no more to add than those of art.Because, adds this to philosophize, if someone says that it takes place or must take place on the seventh day, another will say the fortieth, another the hundredth, another after seven months, another after nine, another at the end of the year; finally we do not find two of them in agreement on this point, although there is only one time, only one and only day, even one and only and even of the birth of this fruit. Read Zachaire, fourth part of his opuscule page 84, and you will know by heart that the silence of the philosophers on this first work which they hide from all the disciples, is the cause of their error. The hour of this so hidden birth is at the end of the perfect putrefaction which gives the elements easy to separate and to purify and to reunite after they are pure.This hour must not be missed; for if it is neglected the mercury rises in vapors and falling to the bottom, mingles with the damned earth, from which it can no longer be separated. Happy, three and four times happy the one who knows this hour and who knows how to take advantage of it.

First dessert

Mercury having finished this speech, said to me: “I must show you something rare and of which men are unaware of the price and the excellence because of its lack of appearance. It is nevertheless the rare wonder of nature. And saying this, he held in his hands a certain earthy mass which seemed neither hard nor quite soft, nor quite red, nor quite white; she was crude and ill-polished; it looked like earth and was not earth, like stone and was not stone; it had a metallic glow; looking at it, I did not think I saw such a great marvel; but this ingenious God blew on it, and in an instant it flowed out in little drops, as clear as the tears of dawn: he drew out a small vial, in which he received this crystalline liquor.When this mass was almost entirely converted into water, nothing remained in his hand but earth, from which he separated all the impure with a single breath, and the earth remained pure and white. He poured the liquor from the flask into a very clean and neat crystal ewer; he threw this bit of earth into it, and taking his caduceus, blew on it. I saw that breath emanating from his mouth like a small bolt of fire like lightning. And at that moment, applying his caduceus or divine rod very gently on this mixture of earth and water, I saw them take together and harden into the form of a large diamond and a square figure. He said to me: “Take this stone at the bottom of the vase, look at it well and contemplate it at your leisure.I immediately pulled out this stone which seemed to me heavy and cold as ice: it was soft, smooth and polished like crystal, or like a beautiful well-cut diamond. But I was quite surprised that by looking and considering this lovely stone, I saw in it all that one can admire that is beautiful in nature. I saw a natural representation of the terrestrial paradise in the middle of which I recognized our fountain, then a green lawn, all enamelled with flowers, in the middle of which it was. I still saw in the middle of the fountain that floating clod full of lilies and immortal roses, planted by the hand of Pallas.I saw a natural representation of the terrestrial paradise in the middle of which I recognized our fountain, then a green lawn, all enamelled with flowers, in the middle of which it was. I still saw in the middle of the fountain that floating clod full of lilies and immortal roses, planted by the hand of Pallas. I saw a natural representation of the terrestrial paradise in the middle of which I recognized our fountain, then a green lawn, all enamelled with flowers, in the middle of which it was. I still saw in the middle of the fountain that floating clod full of lilies and immortal roses, planted by the hand of Pallas.

I saw another marvel far greater than all these various objects. I saw emerging from the pure waves of this fountain the seven planets of the sky, which had come to bathe there. Mercury came out of it first, after having washed himself in it; Saturn next, which disturbed the clearness of the waters; then Jupiter, who cleaned the fountain, then the Moon, which was whiter than snow; Venus then appeared and gave a liquid consistency to these waters, because she drew her origin from them and, raising them into subtle vapors, she gave them a charming variety of all the colors of the world. Mars then appeared and the waters all turned red from the reflection of its standards. Finally the Sun appeared the last as soon as Mars had left it.After having bathed there for a long time, he diversified the fountain rather with splendors than with colors. And this burning god soon dried up this pleasant fountain, which saw its waves harden into rubies and carbuncles and took from nature the brilliance and the fires of the sun. Finally, admiring these marvels which held my eyes and my mind enchanted, I turned to question Mercury. I was very surprised not to see anymore, much more to realize that I was coming out of a deep sleep, believing myself wide awake.

Return of Mercury

All these marvels which I had seen in this pretended dream, made such a strong impression on my mind, that I had difficulty in persuading myself that it was a dream. During this time that I was in the embarrassment, Mercury appeared with his helmet on his head, his fins on his feet and his caduceus in hand. Warned by Zéphir, he said to me: “Are you wide awake now? Will you take the truth of my presence for a dream? I come to tell you that what you saw and heard in the first interview is only a figurative prelude to our mystery. Let us leave the allegory, and give a certain and true notion of matter, as well as exuberant mercury in foliated earth, and the knowledge of these secret waters that philosophers call "fire".This will be the second lesson you will have received from me. »

Fourth dish

True notion of the matter of philosophers.

“Have you ever conceived the idea of ​​this admirable embryo, in which, by an entirely divine artifice, I have contained all that is necessary for our work? It is in it that the sulfur and the mercury are found united together, by nature, not by a union which can be called a physical conjunction, which terminates in a complete mixture with the particular idea which places it among the individuals of some species, but by a union which must be called a simple natural mixture of the principal ones in the form of sperm, with the universal idea of ​​the metallic species of which it contains the seed of the individuals who can be procreated; by sulphur, we must understand the first principle of metallic generation, which is the male sperm, lively, where air and fire dominate.Mercury is the other principle and the female sperm, also alive, where earth and water dominate. Both sulfur and mercury are only hot moist air, containing smoke or vapour. That of sulfur has the red color in common. The mercurial has the white in act and the red in potentiality. These two smokes are found in the three kingdoms to serve as principles of generation. But those in question regard the mineral kingdom where they have acquired a more fixed state and a purer and more constant solidity, to be fitted to occupy the attention of philosophers. It is necessary to have these principles completely green, that is to say lively. I will here call nature itself greenness, insofar as it is the principle of life and vegetation;in this sense some speculators have said, by deep penetration, everything was green. Thus this term of greenness means to live, to grow, to germinate, to vegetate. Notice here, then, this term greenness, which has the character that true matter must have. I don't mean by that it is green in color; I mean that she must be quite vigorous and full of the juice of life. The principles must be pure and simple or at least not very complex; that is to say, this first incomplete and primordial composition, easy to dilute and purify. You will not find it, this purity and simplicity necessary to art, in any of the seven metallic bodies, not even gold or silver, which are of a compound substance, entirely corporeal and material.As you need a substance that is all spirit, to penetrate like a subtle smoke, you cannot take either of these two beautiful bodies for your art. No mineral other than this embryo can give you these principles, when it would contain gold, because the minerals all have a corporeal form, complete, very imperfect, and they are only excrement, where these two principles find neither whole, nor simple, nor pure, nor healthy, in their vigor and greenness. If therefore they cannot be obtained from perfect fruits, how could you obtain them from adulterous, abortive, and excrementous fruits? Common quicksilver has been regarded by the greatest number of scrutinizers of this Art as a mixture which contains these principles in their greenness;but how much has he disappointed the expectation of his followers as well as gold and silver and all metals,

This is why it has been compared to herbs. "Take, says Mary the Prophetess, the grass that grows on the small mountains, and grind it up fresh in its time." It is this greenness that must be sought. She is no longer in these bodies, where there is no longer anything damp and where everything is dry and arid; for humidity is the seat and domicile of greenness and freshness, life is preserved there. This embryo has a real existence in nature; but it is invisible in a visible envelope, this envelope is a body which is not metallic, which is not made and complete in its own way. But it is a formless mass which could in time acquire a form of metal; and this formless mass has a root in the matter of all metals, minerals and vegetables.This embryo exists in the form of a certain salt in the center of our matter, which is a certain earthy mass, without being earthy, smoky, moist and cold in its exterior, hot and dry in its interior, where the light is real at the central point, while the circumference is surrounded by darkness and death. This is where I am, small, enslaved and chained. But if anyone sets me free, he draws all my greatness from this little point, and as a reward, I give him seven crowns. » small, slave and chained. But if anyone sets me free, he draws all my greatness from this little point, and as a reward, I give him seven crowns. » small, slave and chained.But if anyone sets me free, he draws all my greatness from this little point, and as a reward, I give him seven crowns. »

Second dessert

After Mercury had made such a beautiful description of matter, he touched me with his caduceus, and immediately a wind carried us both to a park where there was no water except that which fell in the morning from the beautiful eyes of Aurora. Mercury said to me: "Water is very rare in these places which, as you see, have no other watering or other freshness than these tears. This water is the mercury common to the three genera of nature. own, that he make a journey to the center of the world; that, from there, it is pushed back to the surface after having passed through the hands of nature, which alone knows how to work in sperm, and make the mercury you need; the flowers, was converted into mercury .I'll show you up close how to pull it: What I can't do without changing shape. Take my caduceus, he said to me, showing me a very large stone near which we were, he said to me: When I am gone, you will strike with my rod the rock in which I am about to enter. You will strike the first blow from the side of the west, the second from the side of the East, the third from the side of the south. Zephir, Auster and Eurus will come to give you your commands" knows how to work in sperm, and make the mercury you need; you would wait a long time, before this water that the nymphs collect on the grasses and on the flowers, was converted into mercury. I'll show you up close how to pull it: What I can't do without changing shape.Take my caduceus, he said to me, showing me a very large stone near which we were, he said to me: When I am gone, you will strike with my rod the rock in which I am about to enter. You will strike the first blow from the side of the west, the second from the side of the East, the third from the side of the south. Zephir, Auster and Eurus will come to give you your commands" knows how to work in sperm, and make the mercury you need; you would wait a long time, before this water that the nymphs collect on the grasses and on the flowers, was converted into mercury. I'll show you up close how to pull it: What I can't do without changing shape.Take my caduceus, he said to me, showing me a very large stone near which we were, he said to me: When I am gone, you will strike with my rod the rock in which I am about to enter. You will strike the first blow from the side of the west, the second from the side of the East, the third from the side of the south. Zephir, Auster and Eurus will come to give you your commands" before this water, which the nymphs collect from the grasses and the flowers, was converted into mercury. I'll show you up close how to pull it: What I can't do without changing shape. Take my caduceus, he said to me, showing me a very large stone near which we were, he said to me: When I am gone, you will strike with my rod the rock in which I am about to enter.You will strike the first blow from the side of the west, the second from the side of the East, the third from the side of the south. Zephir, Auster and Eurus will come to give you your commands" before this water, which the nymphs collect from the grasses and the flowers, was converted into mercury. I'll show you up close how to pull it: What I can't do without changing shape. Take my caduceus, he said to me, showing me a very large stone near which we were, he said to me: When I am gone, you will strike with my rod the rock in which I am about to enter. You will strike the first blow from the side of the west, the second from the side of the East, the third from the side of the south. Zephir, Auster and Eurus will come to give you your commands "showing me a very large stone near which we were, he said to me: When I am gone you will strike with my rod the rock in which I am about to enter. You will strike the first blow from the side of the west, the second from the side of the East, the third from the side of the south. Zephir, Auster and Eurus will come to give you your commands" showing me a very large stone near which we were, he said to me: When I am gone you will strike with my rod the rock in which I am about to enter. You will strike the first blow from the side of the west, the second from the side of the East, the third from the side of the south. Zephir, Auster and Eurus will come to give you your commands "

Saying this, Mercury slides like lightning into the rock, at which I was amazed. I struck the rock roughly on the west side, and a brilliant flash came out of it instantly, followed by a little fresh wind, and a jet of very pure water which sprang into the air, fell back on the rock and dug a basin there which held it. What surprised me was to see flames mixed with these waves, which fell pell-mell with the water in the form of white and clear stars, and merged together in this basin. While these waters rose in the air, I went around the rock to take it to the East and I struck a great blow. At this harsh blow, a star came out of the rock brighter than that of daybreak, there was a stronger wind than the first;this was followed by a water which shot up with a rapidity which rarefied it in air and instead of falling, it formed small clouds above the rock which were all brilliant with the colors of the iris with a rainbow; and these little clouds melted away little by little and fell like a subtle dew, which flowed into a little basin which it hollowed out in the rock; this water was more subtle than the first and of an ethereal nature and did not wet the hands any more than good spirits of wine. Finally I came to the part of the rock that looked at the sun and struck a caduceus blow. Out came a small sun with all its rays, followed by a crescent moon whiter than silver.They were followed by a gentle, warm wind, and among this little wind a small jet of water was seen to emerge, which did not shoot up very high because it was greasy and heavy and had the consistency of a very clear and limpid oil; it also fell on the same rock, which in a moment melted into water before my eyes and was converted into a grand fountain surrounded by a large basin of white marble. This show surprised me so greatly that I no longer believed anything impossible in philosophers. which in a moment melted into water before my eyes and was converted into a grand fountain surrounded by a large basin of white marble. This show surprised me so greatly that I no longer believed anything impossible in philosophers.which in a moment melted into water before my eyes and was converted into a grand fountain surrounded by a large basin of white marble. This show surprised me so greatly that I no longer believed anything impossible in philosophers.

I then saw Pallas, Apollo and the Muses, accompanied by the chaste cupids, walking on the crystal of this clear fountain and singing verses in his praise. At the moment, Mercury came out of the fountain and said to me laughing: "Is it a dream or a truth that you see? Then he said to me: "Touch these waters with the end of my caduceus", and I had no sooner touched them than at the moment they appeared of all kinds of very beautiful colors; then suddenly Mercury opened a channel under my feet which in a moment engulfed the vast expanse of these brilliant waters of a thousand colors. They had a flow so rapid and so easy that in a moment the great basin of white marble which contained them remained dry. I picked up some rubies, diamonds, emeralds and pearls from the bottom. Mercury then said to me: "Follow me,and you will see the most beautiful things that can be seen; you will see objects worthy of giving pleasure to the gods.' So saying he removed a stone from the mouth of the canal, which led to this figure of the temple. Immediately our beautiful waters which had stopped, disgorged with impetuosity between the two walls of the mold of the temple and filled it to the top. This hollow terrace swallowed all the water in the basin so that not a drop remained in the canal. Instantly Mercury made me touch this terrace with his wand. What was my surprise to see immediately that this hollow mass, both inside and outside, as well as my beautiful waters, frozen with all their admirable colors, were changed into clear and transparent walls which formed the most superb palace.

Here the author describes a temple, the exterior of which was one room as if it were of cast iron, supported by a great number of pillars and buttresses of various colors and surrounded by a hundred columns of jasper, agate and other precious stones. The whole of composite order where none of the seven moldings was missing, between these columns were figures of gods and goddesses. Above rose a golden pyramid, at the other third a second and third crown which bore a cross. The facade was adorned with a sandstone colonnade. From two to two columns, one saw the statues of the famous men by their science. On the facade rose two towers; one entirely of sandstone, the other of alabaster.

Description of the interior.

At the entrance of this temple was a spacious portico, vaulted in a rainbow of all colors, at the bottom rose an altar, made of an emerald surmounted by a figure of the Virgin and a single diamond whose head was adorned with a crown of twelve carbuncles in the form of a star. Around this statue, seven ruby ​​columns in the form of a canopy supported a column of gold adorned with jewels. The vault was blue, loaded with stars like the firmament. The narrow nave was supported by sixteen pillars representing the evangelist apostles in precious stones. The three-tiered walls on both sides were transparent and painted like tapestries. The first represented the finest fable,

I went out and found the Mercury at the end of a long alley of lemon and orange trees which he had had planted while I was considering all these beautiful things. He said to me: "Come and see the three origins and their three sources in the three kingdoms of nature." He led me over very high rocks. There was a meadow and a plain in between. There he showed me three figures. The first, in alabaster, represented a naked form whose breasts spurted milk. On its belly one read: ANIMAL NATURE. The second was a young man crowned with ivy seated on a barrel from which sprang a divine fountain which fell into a golden cup. On the barrel was written: REGNE VEGETAL.The third represented two frightful dragons whose tails only seemed to emerge halfway from the rock, although their heads were protruding over the middle of the basin. One of them was winged, the other wingless. From the mouth of the first came a stream of very clear water and from that of the wingless dragon a small trickle of oil. Two satyrs received these two liquors in crystal vials and on these dragons was written: ANIMAL KINGDOM.

Turning then towards the temple, I saw on both sides of the avenue that the spaces between the trees were filled with satyrs of philosophers in white marble. They had been given attitudes in keeping with their genius. Some held a globe, others mathematical instruments.

Mercury says to me: "I am going to show you the origin of the three sources that you have just seen." Striking our feet against the ground, a wind came out of it which encircled us on the inaccessible summit of these three rocks. Their height frightened me. From there, I saw the temple quite clearly and its large statues looked like pygmies to me. I saw a number of blind men prowling around this solitude. These unfortunates jumped for joy when they had touched one of these figures and returned as blind as they had come, flattering themselves that they could see clearly. Instead of coming to our springs, they were going to rush into a pond, the waters of which were backward, muddy and full of monsters.Their misfortune came from not knowing a grass that was at the entrance to the path, to take it and rub his eyes with it. They would have found the natural springs and not got lost. They tread this grass under their feet every day. But their presumption blinds them. Mercury then says to me: "Come and see the origin of the world". We descended very low thanks to a carbuncle which he put in the mouth of one of the two dragons. When we were on the last steps, he made me see the caves of the earth in the middle of a vast expanse of emptiness. The middle of this expanse was occupied by a spherical body surrounded by twelve other globes which are the twelve figures of the zodiac.

These bodies turned with such rapidity that a wind arose from them which blew continuously and without interruption. He said to me: "This wind descends from the heavens, it is launched in these low places on the twelve signs from above, and the twelve signs from below revive it in their turn. This wind is the spirit of the stars, when it rises, it returns spirit of the earth.

We went back up the stairs. Coming out of his cave the little wind carried us to the door of the temple where I saw all the filth from the terrace or mold of the temple fallen and thrown outside. I entered it. I live at four corners four degrees or stairs. I climbed one which led me straight to the steeple where I saw two medium-sized silver bells and two of malleable glass. I found there a genius who was in charge of it and who had others under him in other towers to which he gave the signal to ring when he wanted. What he did by ringing his own. Immediately, I heard seven bells ringing, which are those of the seven planets, each playing its part. We knew them by their sound, Saturn doing the bass.I was in the other towers where I thought I saw the bell of the Sun and that of the other planets. I was surprised to see that these seven bells had no other body than the colors of the seven planets and that they were in a single glass vase, that their sound was only a mixture of their colors which form a harmony intelligible to the mind. Coming out of there, the geniuses wanted to be paid. Not knowing how to satisfy them, they told me that it was philosophers' money that they needed and that this money was a breath of wind. So I whispered thirty or forty times in their face, and they were happy. They told me that gold or silver, however material they may be, are made of the essence of the wind. As there were marble bars in the avenue.

Mercury says to me: “Come and sit down. I am going to give you help on our Science, because everything you have seen done by virtue of my caduceus has a marvelous relationship with the work of philosophers. By this rock, which struck by the caduceus throws three springs of living water, preserve the matter struck by the rod of the magic fire which dissolves completely in water as easily as this rock melted into a kind of sea. It is the zephyr which first opens this matter by the endowed moistness of a lukewarm bath whose heat, imitating the heat of the spring oven, which is an aperitif, begins by its gentleness to excite the elements contained in our matter and makes it sweat tears. Eurus, which is the east wind, is the nurturer of the flowers.It is the second who begins to reign. When Zephir has poured its waters and moistened the countryside, the eastern wind finding the open land causes the spirit of life to come out of it, to which we have given the name of air because everything that lives in the universe lives on this air which is the spirit of the sky and on this air which I have shown you at the center of the world from where it rises every spring to give life to the three kingdoms as well as to vegetation. You have seen flames, lightning and stars among these spirits, to mark that the philosophers call these waters their fire, you heard the imperious blows of wind and the claps of thunder. This marks that this spirit is the matter of wind and thunder whose effects are equally terrible and wonderful.Auster is the south wind, a warm and pleasant wind which, because of its endowed heat, is the father of all nature. It makes the nature of the radical humidity in all things. It is moist, unctuous and viscous. I marked it for you by the south wind, but I will later explain their conveniences and their relationship to our work. By this channel where you have seen waters engulf, hear the distillation of the spirits, by the admirable temple which has risen from the freezing of these waters, understand the perfect and accomplished work where all these relations are just, as to the mysteries of our religion than all the works of nature .The figure of the Blessed Virgin who holds the place of honor was not used by chance: if you examine the principle of the work well, you will find its just suitability and natural application. The sixteen pillars with their greenery and their mottos mark the sixteen months of baking that must be waited for for the last perfection, and because there is not a month without some apostle's feast. The greenery marks the vegetation during the time of the work. The mottoes have a mystical meaning relating to the glory of God and the Apostles and partly to wisdom. The rest takes care of itself. if you carefully examine the principle of the work, you will find its just suitability and natural application.The sixteen pillars with their greenery and their mottos mark the sixteen months of baking that must be waited for for the last perfection, and because there is not a month without some apostle's feast. The greenery marks the vegetation during the time of the work. The mottoes have a mystical meaning relating to the glory of God and the Apostles and partly to wisdom. The rest takes care of itself. if you carefully examine the principle of the work, you will find its just suitability and natural application. The sixteen pillars with their greenery and their mottos mark the sixteen months of baking that must be waited for for the last perfection, and because there is not a month without some apostle's feast.The greenery marks the vegetation during the time of the work. The mottoes have a mystical meaning relating to the glory of God and the Apostles and partly to wisdom. The rest takes care of itself. and because there is not a month when some apostle's feast does not occur. The greenery marks the vegetation during the time of the work. The mottoes have a mystical meaning relating to the glory of God and the Apostles and partly to wisdom. The rest takes care of itself. and because there is not a month when some apostle's feast does not occur. The greenery marks the vegetation during the time of the work. The mottoes have a mystical meaning relating to the glory of God and the Apostles and partly to wisdom.The rest takes care of itself.

If I have entrusted you with my caduceus to do great things through its virtue, learn from this that the wise man rises by his virtue and his knowledge above the common run of men. By this elevation he approaches the favor of God who loves wise men like a mirror on which his divinity shines the rays of his light and his goodness. Finally, learn that nature obeys a philosopher as it does God who has submitted it to his power provided that he only demands of it what is possible for him and this by simple ways that he knows, provided that he acts with it by flattering it and without violence. By these whirlwinds that carried you beyond your strength,conceive that the power of the sages is beyond the reach of man and that the wind is necessary for you to succeed in it and to fly over these high mountains, that is to say that you will never do the work without philosophical sublimation. You will never sublimate if your matter does not expand, become rarefied, become subtilized, rise in vapors because these vapors are our whirlwind of wind. By our prison, you may understand that the sulfur you need is imprisoned in the mass of your matter, which must be set free by virtue of the caduceus. You do not now doubt the reality of the work,although there are scholars who doubt it and because they have not seen the fountain and the origin of nature and they do not know that the wind is the first principle of things, because these ignoreamuses, when they want to make fun of the sciences and despise them, say that we only make wind, not believing so well to say since finally this matter is only wind. But this wind is a greasy wind which blows from the south side, which charges the trees with manna, the flowers with honey and the herbs with dew which the dawn pours on them in the morning like a rain of molten diamonds and sparkling rubies. »But this wind is a greasy wind which blows from the south side, which charges the trees with manna, the flowers with honey and the herbs with dew which the dawn pours on them in the morning like a rain of molten diamonds and sparkling rubies. But this wind is a greasy wind which blows from the south side, which charges the trees with manna, the flowers with honey and the herbs with dew which the dawn pours on them in the morning like a rain of molten diamonds and sparkling rubies. »

Exuberant mercury

After this general idea of ​​our mysteries, he is bound to come to general knowledge of the principles of the work and to explain the terms and the ambiguities which the masters have used to hide the science. The greatest of all ambiguities is in the term "Mercury." Besides the notion that we have given above of sulfur and mercury, it must also be said here in general terms that by sulfur we must understand the dryness and the heat of the matter which holds the fire, and by the term mercury we must understand the humidity of the same matter, but since there are two kinds of humidity, a cold one which relates to the humidity of water because of which it is called aqueous humidity. Another hot humidity relating to the element of air for which reason it is called aerial,a double mercury is born from it, which gives rise to ambiguity because it is of these two mercurys that part of the mixture that we call phlegm consists, which, as it is born from the humidity, is a key to open the door to generation or destruction, and this is not the true mercury that we are looking for. But there is a hook to pull it. The other mercury that we are looking for and which is the real one, is that which is born from the humidity of the aerial humidity. It constitutes that second part of the mixture which we call spirit. This spirit is the radical humidity and the true principle of life and generation in all things.To speak among themselves and in terms unknown to the vulgar, they named it air, a fairly proper name because it suited its nature, and improperly named it magnet and air, and by comparison: element that draws air and steel to itself, which lets itself be attracted by the magnet . In this they mean that this true mercury is the steel which allows itself to be attracted with the phlegm and a magnet in relation to that part of the mixture which is called salt, oil or fire, which it attracts to itself in its turn as well. It is in this sense that we must understand the Cosmopolitan and Philalethes speaking of the steel and the magnet of the philosophers. This is a remark that was necessary to get out of this labyrinth.To embarrass more, although there is only one mercury, they made it a mercury of nature, one of the bodies, one of the philosophers, a common, a vulgar, a simple, and a compound. The mercury of nature is that of which I have just spoken, which I have named air, radical humidity, spirit of life; to know its nature, Light coming out of the Darkness which entered amply in its path of descent. It is the wind or the air of the heavens which carries in its womb the fertility of the sun, it is the vapor of the elements of nature of the superior waters which naturally carry within it the spirit of light and the true fire of nature.

It is the purest portion of this chaos. And it is in this state that he is young or a virgin. But in the path of ascension consider when he ascends embodied and congealed with the lower elements; under a saline and earthy and obscure form it is the radical humidity of things which under various dross does not fail to preserve its first origin without its luster being faded by its newly contracted alliance with the nature of water. She is a very pure virgin who has not lost her virginity. Although it is found in the public squares, and though generation passed it from the womb of its mother into all the bodies of the three kingdoms, the common mercury is the true wind which carries the simple fire of the sun in its womb and the air of the wise,the middle substance of water and the secret fire. It is he who distributed them through the center to all the mines, who serves as food for the mineral bodies and who has in his bosom the metallic essence. Common mercury is one of the imperfect and useless metallic bodies. The mercury of the philosophers is the exuberant mercury so named by Lully and some others. It does not sell. He is not known. It is only to be found in the shops of the philosophers, and though this radical humidity, this spirit of life, this air of the philosophers may also be said in a proper sense the Mercury of the philosophers, it is only of our exuberant mercury that is meant by this name.

He was also given that of iron, of Saturn, of the true Diana, of sap of metals, of medium substance, of quicksilver, of magnesia, of natural salt, of ammonia, of natural sulphur. By all these specious names is meant the same air above mentioned, sublimated with its same well-prepared body, sublimated so that it is leafy earth of resplendent whiteness which is dry water which does not wet, which is nevertheless made with this mercury called air which wets before being frozen and sublimated . It is this sublimated mercury which is called the child of the philosophers, of whose birth they have sung so much and whose time we have said above must be known. It is in this sublimation that the two serpents of my caduceus are united, namely sulfur and mercury.It is done thus, the spirit and the body well purified; the mind by the seven rectifications; the body by gifted artificial solar calcinations: the spirit or the air returned to its earth to prepare for it, one part out of four. The sitibond body (ie thirsty - LAT) which is called here sulfur ignites and engulfs this spirit, which, fugitive,

From the fires of the philosophers

There are properly three of them, I don't bother to explain the external fires, but only those that the philosophers have hidden so much and that if, as Arthephius says, there is artifice in finding them, there is none the less in knowing them.

The first is called unnatural, the second unnatural, the third the natural. Fire against nature is a water called fire by comparison with fire which cannot do with all its activity what it does in the hands and by the industry of the philosopher. This is the first water that is applied to the subject to dissolve it, which she overcomes by the industry of the artist. This is what all the fires in the world could not do because it is also called mercury. She is the first key to obtaining it. It issues from the same subject but it is originally only an envelope and it is not of the essence or matter of true mercury. He is a bastard and adulterine mercury, nevertheless an adulterine brother of the true mercury and issued from the same body.Because of its alien nature the philosophers said it was taken away from matter. This sophism has caused an infinity of artists to wander, who have sought this solvent in things foreign and contrary to metallic nature, imagining that they would find some resemblance of nature in which they would unite; which they never found to their great loss, having been seduced by the literal meaning of philosophers who did not even want to take the trouble to distinguish in this way. It is taken from other than matter. I distinguish from another substance than sulfur and mercury from matter: I grant it from another subject than that which contains sulfur and mercury: I deny it. To explain this distinction, it is necessary to know that this first water,although it is not of the essence of sulfur and mercury, it is nevertheless contained in the subject which also contains sulfur and mercury. And this first water, having proximity and affinity with the essential parts of the subject, draws it to itself and sets them in motion. The philosophers said of her that she was not the mercury. They called it fire against nature because it first corrupts and loosens what nature had strongly bound and dissolves the compound first by its action. They called it vulgar, lunatic fire because it does to its body what the Moon does to the lower elements and the sublunar things which it corrupts with its cold humidity. They called it Saturn's urine because, as time devours everything,likewise this precious water is a principle of corruption both for the generation and for the death of all the sublunary bodies. It is a hot spirit, enemy of rest, destroying and decomposing everything by its rawness. They called it again fire against nature because it is a water and it is not natural that fire is water nor water fire. It is against the nature of both. This natural fire is simple mercury, the true solvent and one of the essential parts of matter. It is called fire for the same reason as the previous one. Unnatural is a word coined by philosophers to distinguish this fire from the preceding and from the fire of nature.Innatural here properly signifies a substance entirely airy and middle between the qualities of water and fire because mercury is named after the air which holds the middle between fire and water to mark that the air, which is hot and humid, agrees on the one hand with the water by the humid and is not water; and on the other hand with the fire by the heat, it is not fire, being of quality to be accommodated with both. It does not fight the nature of either, but it is so so that it often takes the form of water and fire, especially when forced by the philosopher whom the elements obey when he is wise and wise. But this borrowed form is not natural and proper to it like that of the air which is its unnatural form, as if to say unnatural.Several philosophers have, by envy or perhaps inadvertently affected, often confused fire with the preceding, although very different. For this is the essential mercury which manifests itself in distillations by the dissolution which is made by the most subtle portion of the volatile salt. The previous one is not a dissolved salt but only an external humidity. If the form of water and that of fire are not natural to this fire, as we have said, they are not so foreign to it that it takes them and clothes it as neighbor and friend of both, supporting perfectly well the nature and property of the air whose name it bears and thereby showing that, susceptible of any natural form, corporeal and spiritual, hot or cold, moist and dry,he is the true mercury and the Protheus of nature in which all opposites find a mediator to be reconciled without going to war. It is, therefore, the mere mercury in nature, which together with sulphur, by the industry of the philosophers, there must be born the true compound mercury of the art which we have said above to be called leafy earth, our white magnesia and our new-born child. It also performs the functions of dissolvent with the preceding before the philosophers separated them, and all by itself after it is separated from them. The previous which is an unnatural fire separates from the dissolved fire, as foreign; but this one freezes and is taken again with its dissolved body in the same form after having dissolved, calcined, washed, purified and sublimated it with it.He destroys it only to restore it better, and because the air is warm and of a nature that loves the fire which is the true principle of life in all things. It is compared to Venus as the first water was compared to the Moon, as the philosophers say: Sidera Veneris and Dianae corniculata tibi propitia sunt .

By these words are designated these fires in terms of figures. The last is called milk of the winged Virgin, Argentine water, living wave, Diana, great light, brandy, very sour vinegar, the precious pearl of the philosophers, Beya, and an infinity of other names in comparison with what is most beautiful and best in nature. Natural or natural fire is nothing but the dissolution of fixed salt, which gives sulfur more digestible and riper than the purple of the light of the sun. I hear the red dye. They also said of him that he took himself from somewhere other than matter,because it is extracted from the earth by means of the air and the earth during this extraction appears black and afterwards becomes weathered and quite different from it at the beginning because of the change that work has made in it. But this fire is a balm of life, and life itself is the best of all substances. Not only is he essence, but it is he who constitutes the essence. It is the living gold and the true Sun of the philosophers. This illustrious captive, this noble prisoner who gives seven kingdoms to his liberator and multiplies the royal purple of gold to infinity. It is the living gold and the true Sun of the philosophers.This illustrious captive, this noble prisoner who gives seven kingdoms to his liberator and multiplies the royal purple of gold to infinity. It is the living gold and the true Sun of the philosophers. This illustrious captive, this noble prisoner who gives seven kingdoms to his liberator and multiplies the royal purple of gold to infinity.

In these three notions consists the most essential part of the theory, for it is a great point to know what matter is, where it must be taken; and it is still essential to know the water, the air, the oil and to know that these three humidities are three fires which are drawn from the same subject, against the literal sense of the philosophers. It is no less essential to science to know the form of mercury, which we have sketched out without bringing authority, a god worth more than all the authors in the world and who only knew what it pleased him to inspire them.

SECOND PART

From practice

The work of the philosophers has several parts, namely cooking, imbibitions which are fermentation and multiplication. I reduce these various parts into three works. The first is called XIR, the second IXIR or ISIR, the third ELIXIR. But the philosophers have never said what the operation of the XIR consists of, which is the most laborious, the most painful and the most essential operation of the three works. They have therefore entirely passed it over in silence out of envy and all admit that they ignore the first water for their mercury and for their dissolvent, qualifying it by this name as the second water, which they consider to be their essential mercury, giving it the name of air.In the same way also the preparation according to them is not the work of the philosophers. They do not count it in their labors, saying that it belongs to rustic people to engage in such a base and vile occupation which does not correspond to the dignity of a man of letters. The reason for this great indifference and this affected contempt is that this preparation ends in a coagulation which is made of sulfur and mercury by cold. They consider it worthy of a man of letters because it is quite similar to a chemical operation and very different from the physical work which ends in freezing which is done by heat. The reason for this great indifference and this affected contempt is that this preparation ends in a coagulation which is made of sulfur and mercury by cold.They consider it worthy of a man of letters because it is quite similar to a chemical operation and very different from the physical work which ends in freezing which is done by heat. The reason for this great indifference and this affected contempt is that this preparation ends in a coagulation which is made of sulfur and mercury by cold. They consider it worthy of a man of letters because it is quite similar to a chemical operation and very different from the physical work which ends in freezing which is done by heat.

The Cosmopolitan says on this subject: "If anyone knows how to freeze water by heat, he has certainly found something a thousand times more precious than gold." You also have the author of The Light Out of Darkness , who, on the subject of this first freezing by cold, says very well that the vase must be sealed by winter and that it is by the cold that the guest is kept at home . Whereupon it is remarked that by the water of Hermes the philosophers have principally heard of the conjunction of sulfur and mercury, in other words of the two dragons, which when it doubles does not form leafy earth, which is done under the auspices of the cold Saturn, which occurring freezes them, and the moment of cold freezing is the moment of birth.

Hermès was the first to speak of it in these terms: “When what is naturally hot meets cold, or what is naturally cold comes to meet hot, it will not harm it. Plato says enough to make himself heard saying: "Heat must be thwarted at the time of its birth or freezing." The Peat thus says: "Know that you will not hold the color of purple if it is not the cold. "

Here, according to all these authorities, is a great discovery of what is most essential in the work which is done in the preparation by which the worship is made manifest by the birth of the child of the philosophers, the operation of which will be described thus: In its place, by this, matter is sealed in its natural vessel by the true seal of Hermes which is made by this congealing of mercury in sulphur, the one being the proper and natural vessel of the other. In this consists the first crown of the work and that first degree of perfection which by means of sublimation is acquired by him who understands these truths well.

Particular operation of this work

Arnaud de Villeneuve says that it is necessary to begin by separating the elements which are those of which we have just spoken, namely this water, this air, this fire or oil or this red earth of matter from which art extracts them by distillation. Virgil touched not only the work, but also the material with these words: “First by the strong bulls, by the breath of Zephyr, the loam or mass of earth is resolved and opened. Without any figure or equivocation, it marks matter which in this sense is the real thing. In fact, a completely new and fresh loam is necessary for it to be more vegetal, moist and spirituous and in its great greenness which is communicated at that time by the spirit or renovative mercury, when it rises from the center to transmit it to all sensitive and inanimate beings.The young and strong bulls that are applied to this work are none other than the strong and vigorous spirits of matter and on the other hand the external fires which are the instruments of this art. This lump or stinking mass by impure sulfurs are its exterior is filled to serve as an envelope for the light which is hidden there dissolves by the Zephyr which is a small sweet wind which blows from the side of the West, since the poet said that this stinking mass dissolves by the Zephyr, we must learn who it is.

The Zephyr of the Philosophers

The king prophet said this little word of the breath of God which is the wind, and he teaches us that it is he who makes the waters flow: Stabit spiritus et ejus et flavit aquas .

Our very small Western Zephir is a wind capable of making the waters of our matter flow. This Zephyr is only a wind. Remember that Hermes says the wind carried him in his belly. He hears of the son of the sun who is the fire, who is the soul and the life of the wind, that is, of our air and our air and its food being the true vehicle of the fire as the body is the vehicle of the spirit. But it is particularly when it is carried upwards by the sublimation and rarefaction of the air that this fire or son of the sun gains strength as with the air it is dilated into vapors because nature only requires a tender fire. Philosophers, poets and prophets all agree on this.

You want to know what is the Western Zephyr that says to cause the physical waters of matter to flow. Learn, my friend, that the first spirit that comes out of our matter is compared to our downstream wind which blows from the side of the west and never blows without giving rain. It is he who is our first key. This Zephyr is what philosophers and chemists despise and reject from their work. They call it phlegm and do not use it as philosophers but only as chemists, since it does not enter into their precious work. This spirit is the same color as true mercury.It is clear, limpid and crystalline, but insipid, very raw, enemy of congealing and of the universal author of conceptions, and even of the generations in which it mixes as a principle of mutation, of alteration, corruption and death . I say a second time that this spirit that men often do not understand what is said to them not only the first time, nor the second, even the tenth, nor the hundredth time. I tell you this in passing to show you the excellence of God who, if he did not put great shadows in the understanding of mortals, they would be gods before their death, as they approach after their death. But let's get back to our topic and talk about the practice.if he did not put great shadows in the understanding of mortals, they would be gods before their death, as they approach them after their death. But let's get back to our topic and talk about the practice. if he did not put great shadows in the understanding of mortals, they would be gods before their death, as they approach them after their death. But let's get back to our topic and talk about the practice.

Practice of the first work

You must first stock up on at least 60 pounds of matter taken fresh and newly brought from the places where nature has formed it. You must distill what you can. This distillation will be painful, laborious and tedious, especially since it must be done with an insensible or imperceptible heat. Draw what you can from this water, which will be only a simple phlegm, but of an admirable virtue for the beginning. Cohob and digest on the same putrefied material, often redistill and cohob. It powerfully dissolves all matter into water, putting three parts water to one part matter or earth. But one must be careful and wise to sharpen the virtue of this powerful agent. This is done by iterations and distillations.This repetition gradually dissolves the volatile salt of matter. This dissolved salt mixes with it, strengthens and sharpens it. One pound of this phlegm is enough to dissolve as much matter as you like, however large the amount. You will know that it is no small job to get a pound, let alone several. What makes many say to mark the fatigues of such hard work that it is a work of giant. It takes fire to govern, rest to observe, weight to equalize, time to reach, and a patient artist who remembers that all haste comes from the devil. Phlegm will often be distilled, cohobed, and redistilled after digestion. The time just mentioned carries with it with each distillation some portions of the true mercury, to which the name of air has been given.Phlegm rises and stretches because it is its magnet, which has earned them the names magnet and steel by comparison. Thus after the fourth distillation and after having separated the air from the phlegm and rectified seven times this air which becomes brilliant and crystalline by itself, one no longer proceeds to the distillation except by it alone. One pours it, thus rectified on its own body, in which it penetrates like a sharp knife and by repeated distillations following suitable digestions, it carries away the remainder of the air which remained in the body as most obstinate. What we continue as long as there is moisture in the same body still distilling at an imperceptible fire. As for the phlegm that has been separated from the air,we use it for new materials from which we want to draw other air and other oil by always proceeding in the same way and always separating the air from the phlegm. After the fourth distillation and joining all the phlegms together and all the airs together to fortify them and increase the quantity because all these substances are needed well worked and in good quantity. This air thus rectified is put back on the digested matter as before and after having dissolved all the volatile salt, draws all the remaining air to itself, then put back on its body with the new air which it has attracted and gives powerfully over the fixed salt, dissolves it, elevates it, and draws it into distillation in the form of oil, which is the element of fire which the air brings out and delivers from its prisons,causing him to dry up at the bottom of his black earth where he rested like a governor in his fort. But someone less than him makes it give up not by force, but of his own free will because he sows it, being unable to separate one from the other, air being the element of fire as phlegm is that of air. Lully says that it takes at least twenty or twenty-two distillations to obtain all the fires of matter and giving each distillation a suitable digestion as I said, which he claims to have accomplished in seven months. If one works in various portions of materials, in various stills, everything must be conducted by the same rules and one must make a good supply of these three spirits, phlegm, air and oil, setting each one apart in well-corked vials. Here are the three items obtained.

Mineral earth

When the earth is empty of its spirits and its elements, it is calcined, bleached and roasted, it is triturated, it is made subtle, greedy and sitibund (ie thirsty - Note of LAT). To do this better, the mirror of a large volume would be of great help to those who seek to help by nature. It is not absolutely necessary, but I maintain with Valentin that the limes acquire in this calcination an entirely celestial virtue and force. By this son of the Sun the limes become whiter, more gifted and more spongy, more salutary and more natural, being well calcined in a closed vessel in this fire and often triturated in a dry place and in the sun, if possible, so that this lime, extremely attractive, does not attract any superfluous moist air.It is by this noble and celestial fire that Mary the prophetess had obtained the shortest abbreviation of the work. It is also the secret of Agricola or small peasant who learned to do the work in thirty days.

Sign of perfect calcination

When one throws a little of this lime or calcined earth on a red-hot blade, when it does not give off smoke and when it is as subtle as a fine flour, then it is ready, and one must proceed to the impregnation. When this sign has been recognized, there is nothing more in this earth than a fermentative virtue in which the metallic species is preserved with the power to take up and freeze these spirits and this by virtue of its own substance which is nothing other than a living and permanent sulphur, which is the root and the foundation of metallicity. Also the philosophers have rightly given it the name of sulphur. To engender the philosophical child, it is necessary to impregnate this prepared earth. Here is the touchstone.Of all difficulties, this is the greatest to overcome. It is at this impregnation that one needs to be wise, prudent and wise and that one must have good judgment in order not to miss one's shot. Here's how this important one is done. As it is a question of congealing what was dissolved at the beginning, it follows that this operation could be contrary to the dissolution because the first work opens, and this one closes. So we proceed in a very weighed way. So we start with the weight, in the name of the Holy Trinity who did everything. We take this bright and purified air by seven rectifications which are the eagles and which fly above the seven planets.And instead of first putting three parts of phlegm on an earth to dissolve it, here on the contrary we only put one part of air on three of our lime, or prepared earth. She drinks greedily and coagulates it. We repeat this dose of air and earth so many times that this fertile mother, growing fat little by little, often repeating this operation, gives birth to our young king. If any doubt arises in you, consult the doctors, namely Lully,The Rosary and Riplée (Ripley - Note of LAT) and especially Servita. They described this operation particularly well. I refer you to their writings if necessary.

This birth is admirable. It has been sung by all philosophers as a prodigy of nature and art. This work is so great that they gave it the name of childbirth, because, as childbirth is the greatest effect of nature, also that operation which like nature, with nature and by nature, brings into the world a creature begotten of two sperms and produces a thing that has life without soul, body and spirit of male sperm, sulfur and female sperm, mercury. Not only is this work compared to an ordinary work, but even to that of a virgin surpassing the course of nature. It is a work which holds of the prodigy; to see the birth of this new Sun, it is necessary to have done the impregnation of the earth well, and immediately, without any delay, to do the following.

Physical Sublimation

To succeed in this noble operation, it is necessary to make use of the lukewarm bath, hot ashes and fire, and the almost sudden cold occurring shortly afterwards, not however suddenly, by the application of something cold, or ice, because the vases would break. You have to be a good artist to do this operation well. I will repeat it more exactly so that you do not miss it. Take earth well worked and loosened like fine flour, very white and well disposed to receive these spirits. Put these three parts of earth in a curcurbite, pour on it a part of air, put the blind capital on it and fight well. Leave everything on a slow fire until the earth has drunk this spirit.Put again on this earth thus dried three parts of earth and one of spirit and let it dry as the first time for two or three days. Always repeat the same thing in the same quantities as long as you have earth and air. If it happened that within the prescribed time, this earth, accused to drinking its humidity and to drying up with it, had not taken it and swallowed it up, withdraw the superfluous which floats and dries it up by a slow and gentle distillation; and when everything is dry, add more earth and air if you have the same weight as above. Always proceed in the same way until the earth is impregnated with his spirit and ready to give birth. Here are two signs of perfect impregnation.The first is known by the weight of the earth which must have been weighed after the calcination, and after having carried out the impregnation, it must be weighed again, and if it weighs a fourth part more than before the impregnation, it is a sign that it has taken what is needed of the spirit and that it is quite ready to give birth. The second is known by its volatility. If you make a gold or silver lamina redden and you throw a little on it, it must fly away with the spirit without anything remaining on the lamina. Then, you can be certain that, since the earth does not abandon its spirit and flies away with it in its proportion, it is ready to be sublimated. If you press it with a little fire, it will rise with its fleeting spirit and will not leave it.If, on the contrary, there is still soil on the laminate, its sponginess is not penetrated by the spirit and it is a sign that it is not taken enough. You must still sprinkle it with its air as above until you see the sign, which being very constant, have a stove ready with hot ashes, and at the same time remove your gourd from the bain-marie. Place it immediately on the warm ashes, covered with its blind capital.Push the fire a little and make it good enough to warm the ashes, the spirit will no sooner feel the tip of the fire, than it will spread its wings to return to its homeland, and the body having become volatile and spirits, will expand so well in this moment that, rising with the spirit, they cannot be disunited, and as the spirit arrest lifts the body, it will arrest the spirit and check its flight, as Zachaire says by his natural heaviness . They will go no further than the top of the cucurbite capital, or, if they remain sublimated in dazzling whiteness, frozen together like a kind of silvery ice-cream in foliated and delicate earth, beyond all that can be said.All this will be done fortunately, if at the moment of their elevation you put out the fire so well that the cold comes to freeze them and unite them together. It is this operation so important and so great without which one can succeed in the work. We are sure of success if we are happy enough to do it well. It depends on the degree of the fire that must be given under the ashes and the cold occurring immediately, for if the fire did not cease at the right time everything would be lost because the earth and the spirits sublimating themselves at the top of the vase leave all the impure at the bottom, to which the mercury would return and unfortunately precipitate there.If that happened the evil would be irremediable, for one can never by any artifice separate it from it. This is what would undoubtedly happen if the fire did not cease and the cold did not set in.

There are three signs of the degree of fire required for this operation. The first is that little rises from this snow. This indicates that the fire is not strong enough and that it must be increased. (It is the author who speaks.) The second is that much rises from it mixed with impurities and that the color is dark and not of a beautiful white, resplendent and brilliant. This is the sign that the fire is too strong and that it must be reduced. The third is that if the sublimation is abundant and pure and white as snow, we have fortunately found the true degree which we must continue. These three signs must be well studied and observed.They must be taken as a guide, and this with all the more diligence since this sublimation is done in an hour, by hot and by cold. The philosophers there are formal and all speak of an hour for this sublimation. Philalethes says in express terms speaking of the child of the philosophers who is thus born in the air: "If someone knows how to take it at the hour of its birth (note this term hour) it is as if he said someone knows this great secret so hidden and so difficult to take advantage of the precise hour in which it sublimates and rises in the air where it takes birth. The sublimation is completed and made to the ashes by a light fire. Artephius adds: “The first part cannot be fixed unless it is joined to the second and the first hour .» Zachaire page 84 of his opuscule, second part, where he deals only with this fatal hour, « if, he says, we miss this hour, we miss everything ». To mark its importance, we imagined the fable of Daedalus and Icarus his son who made wax wings to fly away from the labyrinth. Icarus flying too close to the Sun, melted his wings and drowned in the sea. Daedalus means the sulfur of nature sublimated and coagulated physically and philosophically. Icarus is mercury sublimated and coagulated, but melted and lost by too much fire in the sea of ​​Icarus.These passages show that this operation is so delicate that, for want of application and of great diligence, for want of dexterity, it is rather difficult to succeed in it unless one does not take the right measures, for these substances of quicksilver and sulfur being so tender and so delicate and so volatile that it can come to fault. If one does not take pains to avoid it by a great fidelity to his work and a punctual exactitude and finally by an invincible courage at work. I end this chapter by telling you that the last authors have more desire than the old ones. Witness the author of who, speaking of this sublimated earth with his spirit, calls it the worm that must be drawn out of the ashes with skill.The light coming out of the darknessWhat can never be understood by a student who would never have heard of this operation always putting like those who resemble him books which cannot be suitable for anyone, not even for the children of science who are predestined to pick the fruits. To mark how much this desire is disagreeable to me, I am having you write this science in clear terms so that the students who will read this after you will one day know their error and know that this leafy and sublimated earth where this first sublimation and coagulation must not be taken for the white work. I make this observation to you because it is your mistake and if you had not heard it for the white stone, you would have done it a long time ago. This is your stumbling block and that of many others.The envious are almost all those who have written science rather from vanity than from zeal for truth and to instruct in the true principles of this art.

THIRD PART

First operation of the philosophers according to them and the second according to us

After the impregnation of the earth in which you have put a fourth part of air against three parts of earth prepared to serve for the sublimation of the leafy earth which is the king who is born to us, there remains to you air of which you must have made good provision for the need and particularly in the operation which presents itself to be done where it is a matter of raising the king and nourishing him, making him grow, giving him strength and leading him to the highest perfection. You therefore had to make two parts of your air, one of which coagulated with the earth, took the name of body, brass, child, and the other the name of azoth and retained that of spirit and milk. That of spirit to volatilize and spiritualize the body, of azoth to wash the brass,and virgin's milk to feed and nurture our royal child. The philosophers after birth, began with the doses of the first work which is here the second, which consists in taking from our white magnesia or sublimated foliated earth, a weight and a half, from our azoth, from our earth, from our virginal milk, otherwise from our spirit, which are only one and the same thing, that is to say one and the same mercury, a weight and a half. Which makes three or two equal parts, of which three parts, mixed at first, are three nymphs who await seven others who will come later to join these three, and all together will compose the number of these ten beautiful nymphs who will come to the king's palace. So you will take three equal parts of leafy earth and air.Arrange the doses of the one and the other so well that you can have nine times more air left than you put leafy earth, because what remains must be used to make imbibitions when the child has taken and drunk his mother's milk. You will put these three equal parts together, you will enclose them in a clear and neat vase of very good fireproof glass; you will cork it well hermetically, even if you fear that the great fire necessary for the seal of Hermes cannot be made without risking your confections, seek another way of corking so that the extremely volatile spirits are retained or do not fly away; make whatever seal you want, provided it holds back the flight of spirits, it will always be good. Make the fire you want provided it is equal,of the same degree and almost imperceptible and that it only excites the natural heat of matter to set the elements in motion. It must be adjusted to the heat of spring, which is only noticeable at the beginning of this season and yet does not fail to make everything green and vegetate.

This work is called IXIR

You will wait patiently for the Ixir to drink the mercury you gave him. In this cooking if you proceed well, you must see the whole order of the colors which are described by the philosophers. The black will appear first, and if after the black a lot of green and yellow one after the other, of great brilliance, and little red. In this beginning, you will have operated well. It is the sign that matter has received its own fire and that it vegetates like herbs and flowers. When you see that the first drying or the first calcination of mercury on its own body will be perfect, which must happen in about 256 or 260 days, or nine months, you will pour the first imbibition at the weight that I will mark you below.

Imbibitions

They come into account in the number of seven, and are understood in the ten parts of mercury or water against one of sulfur or earth. In the ten weights of spirit against one of body, which the philosophers have ordered to put, which ten parts of air or of water or of mercury are not ordered at once, all at once and all at once in the egg, but little by little, successively, in the imbibitions. Here is the stumbling block of all students who first take some mineral after having coarsely triturated it by manual work, pass over twenty distillations, of some spirit of dew, with which they believe by these distillations, to open the body and to impregnate this spirit with the sulphur, salt and mercury of their mineral,put them together in a matrass to circulate until the earth has drunk up the water and the spirit of dew, of which they first put ten parts on the body and then cook it to unite them. In this process there are many faults against established principles. Here the spirit of dew and the mineral are two extremes which can never be united by art because they are separated by nature. This is a big mistake. Then this mineral with all these sulfurs can never be exalted in purity because the pure has not been separated from the impure. Second fault. Water cannot be drunk or engulfed by the earth because foreign and divergent things cannot be attracted. Third fault. Art did not come to the aid of nature to unite the pure with the pure,separate it and help it to reject any impurity like vomiting. Thus the elements cannot emerge nor unity in a pure and exact simplicity. Fourth fault. Besides that, this mineral is the real matter or it is not. If it is not, it is in vain to work on it. If it is, it is still in vain to work on it because it does not cause anything extraneous to be added. Fifth fault. But I say much more than all that I have just explained of this wicked and ridiculous, even if it were made on 1 real material, with its mercury, both exalted according to the rules that we would put ten parts of the real mercury on the real Ixir, all of a sudden, we would never succeed,because we will extinguish the Ixir that the philosophers say should not be suffocated. This is what inspired me to explain the sentiment of the philosophers and to tell you that these ten parts should only be put at various times, and especially in the number of the seven imbibitions.

How by this means philosophers come out of unity and return to it

Philosophers take matter which is one. They divide it and thus come out of unity, counting one, two, three, etc. and conduct their work until ten. They bring it back to the unity from which they emerged, that is to say, to the perfection which is found at the number of ten, where one begins to count by one. This is how they count: they take equal parts of earth and spirit, or of body and spirit, namely part and a half of one and part and a half of the other, they count three or otherwise, they count one part of body and two of spirit, supposing that one part has already been coagulated with the body or leafy earth and that which is added in equal parts with this body and on feet, they count one of this body and two of spirit, which makes three.and the seven imbibitions that are poured on it each time it dries up make ten precisely. Here is a great sophism of clarification, in which the poor apprentices can understand nothing of themselves, and which no philosopher has wanted to explain clearly. It is necessary besides that to know that the imbibitions are usually made with the milk of the virgin, which is the air because the oil is kept carefully for the imbibitions or multiplications with red.

The correct weights of imbibitions

We can here remember the magnificent loves of King Solomon who had three hundred concubines on the one hand and seven hundred queens on the other destined for his royal bed and at the service of his loves and his pleasures. They make us see the number ten in all those of three and seven hundred which relates strongly to the loves of our young king, to whom we are going to present nine hundred and forty nymphs without speaking of those of which he is already the husband. This can be considered in the weight of the imbibitions, whether they are counted by large or by grains. However they are counted, they must always be of the same thing. If in the first proportion of our work, the earth weighs four hundred and eighty grains, we must give as much virginal milk.The whole will be 960 and the parts will be equal. Nevertheless, it takes three one of body and spirit coagulated with it which passes for one part and two of spirit coagulated with the body, which counts for one part and two of spirit in equal weight with the coagulated body. This given, the first imbibition will be of 240 grains, the second of 300, the third of 375, the fourth of 468, the fifth of 585, the sixth of 732, finally the seventh, of 940 grains, which puts an end to the imbibitions.

Here, it is necessary to count seven. Join together three and seven and you will have ten. And if you calculate all the product of the imbibitions which is 3640 grains, you will find with the 480 first added to the earth which you have united, nine times more water than earth, which establishes the number ten in mercury alone. Because if you add to the nine parts of water the first equal and coagulated part that you put in first, there will be ten parts of water against one of earth, which verifies the saying of the philosophers who always order ten parts against one of earth. But this number of ten parts of mercury must be understood by counting what one puts in the imbibitions, and not all at once. As the philosophers have not explained this clearly,a thousand people have rushed into error and have never been able to reach the goal, because they have suddenly put ten parts of water against one of earth, which is an irreparable fault, even on real matter when it would be well disposed elsewhere. By putting ten parts here at one stroke, the weights of nature are broken, and the child who must be nourished according to his strength would find himself at first suffocated and suffocated, unable in his weakness to digest such a quantity of food, under the weight of which he would remain extinct, since this tender child only needs as much milk, which is his moisture, as his natural dryness and heat cannot attract, digest and convert into his substance. Thus it is easy to understand that the weights of art accommodate themselves to the weights of nature.The science that regulates is always infallible.

FOURTH PART

End of Mercury's Speech

After this long speech in which Mercury had just dealt extensively with the composition of the Xir and the Ixir, he said: “We still have to deal with the Elixir, but before passing to this third part, you must drink a shot or two. Immediately he began to play the flageolet and to the sound of this little instrument appeared the god Pan with four satyrs, dancing and jumping, and ten nymphs, both Dryads and Amadriades. They all arrived crowned with flowers. The fourteen nymphs of Juno came next. In the midst of them shone the beautiful Désoppée. Finally, all the sea nymphs, Dorids and Nereids came running with the sirens. In an instant, I saw a beautiful youth of all sexes.Heroes and Argonauts such as Hercules, Perseus, Thisbe, Castor and Pollux, Orpheus, Jason, mountain gods, the gods of the woods and forests as fauns, Sylvains, Satyrs, Apollo and the nine muses, those of metamorphoses as Hyacinth, Narcissus, Adonis. The neighboring rivers and fountains formed a numerous troop of the same populace of the gods who practiced various games in our presence while the nymphs danced to the sound of the instruments of Apollo, Orpheus and the muses. Pan and the satyrs frolicked, the Heroes examined in silence, the lovers sighed and sang their loves. At this moment, I heard the chime of the bells of our temple which lasted a quarter of an hour during which I saw a very long table being prepared.Then they set the bells in flight and immediately I saw a long procession of men dressed in various colors, crowned with laurels, and like a herald-at-arms at their head who cried: "Honor to the poets." And as they walked two by two, they formed two rows facing each other at the end of the table, leaving a large space in the middle for those who followed. At the head of the poets was Virgil, who followed another line of people dressed in white satin with gold flowers. At their head walked a herald crying aloud: "Honor and four times honor to the speakers." These did like the first, each a bow in profound silence to Mercury. I admired the majesty and modesty that shone on their faces, especially Cicero, Hippocrates, Demosthenes, etc.In the third place followed another much more magnificent line of illustrious personages dressed in real purple, whose beautiful dresses were covered with gold braid and the stockings with gold fringes. They wore three crowns, one on top of the other like a golden tiara, adorned with points of diamonds and other precious stones with pearls. The orators had no crowns, but only caps of red velvet laden with pearls, diamonds, and other gems; for the latter were preceded by a herald who cried aloud: "Honour, a hundred times honor to true philosophers." When they arrived, they sat on both sides of the table where Mercury held the upper end. Hermes was on his right and Pythagoras on his left. Plato with Hermes, Aristotle with Pythagoras.After all the philosophers were seated with the gravity of a king, and all the splendor of lofty majesty, the orators sat down according to their rank, and the poets last. Then, a number of officers, all crowned with flowers, loaded the table with very exquisite meats, in chiselled gold dishes. Each dish was interspersed with salad greens in Agate dishes. Mercury had arranged a place for me and ordered Ganymede to dress me in a costume that was a bit poetic, a bit orator, a bit philosophical. They bathed me, cleaned me of human filth. They covered me with shiny ornaments, gold and precious stones. My dress was of all colors and long like that of the poets, going down to the heels.The second was of white floral satin and came to my legs, a little shorter than those of the speakers. They put on me a third of purple which came to my knees, much shorter than that of the philosophers. Then they put on my head a crown of laurels, and a speaker's cap, and on the cap was a crown of a physical tiara. I was then given a belt of each color. One green, one white and one red. They put on me bracelets shining with jewels and because I was a priest of Diana, they put on my chest the urim and the tumin. Ten poets, ten orators, and two philosophers were ordered to take me to the ceremonies and introduce me to Mercury's table, where he himself had marked the place I was to occupy.The three heralds of the three States came by order of their prince and a satyr carried before us a standard on which was represented on one side a golden sun and on the other a silver moon. The three heralds led the way shouting: "Honor to the disciple of Hermes, honor to the favorite of Mercury and Pallas." I was conducted in this ceremony to my marked place above the last of the poets. I was recommended to Hebe and Ganymede who were there to pour the nectar. They placed beside me a nymph crowned with flowers, who was standing holding in her hand a golden cup to pour me to drink the nectar she had been ordered to present to me.However, I was much more occupied with examining the posture of the characters in whom I noticed so much wisdom and majesty, so much richness in their clothes. So much delicacy and magnificence on this divine table dazzled me to the point that I would have lost my mind from admiring if I had not been restrained by the presence of Mercury and all these powerful men. I made a sign to the nymph to give me a drink. Which she did just now. As soon as I had drunk this divine juice a sudden drowsiness made me think of losing consciousness. I would have fallen asleep if it hadn't been for the respect I owed the company. I leaned my hand gently over my head to hide my confusion from the sight of the assistants.But the goddess Hebe, to whom I was recommended, had her eyes on me knowing what was to happen to me. She came immediately and touched my forehead with her beautiful hand. The radiance of her beauty awoke my heart and all her faculties. She put in my hand a stone called Christis, to put in my mouth during such an accident. This stone had the sparkle and fire of all gems and all colors. She whispered in my ear: "It's a freezing of my fountain that I had preserved by Father Hermès to share with my friends." It dissolves in a glass of wine and even water from a fountain facing the rising sun. A single atom of this lapis will restore your strength and courage, and give you a new youth more flourishing than the first.This stone elevates nature above ordinary forces by converting darkness into light and the principles of death into principles of life, which you would easily do if you knew how to convert the watery and phlegmatic humidity into the radical. For if you had no phlegm on one side nor earthly impure on the other, you would be like the gods. This stone that I am giving you does not take away the impure earthiness from you, but it converts phlegm into radical humidity. She makes your minds subtle, volatile and luminous, purifies the blood, makes it smooth and of good color, opens obstructions, and draws all impurity, darkness and cold away from the heart and compels them out with excrements which she powerfully drives out without pain.Take courage, and fear no longer the strength of this nectar. She said, and making me for some nectar, she put on a piece of stone other than the one given to me, and which she commanded me to keep for other occasions. I saw this piece dissolve into nectar like sugar. I thanked her very humbly and in a manner which pleased her by the gallant compliment which I paid on her beauty, her beautiful voice, her graceful manners. Finally, after several new tokens of kindness she gave me, and several thanks from me, "I want you to eat and drink to make yourself even more divine," she said to me. Saying this, she presented me with a cup of nectar in which she had melted this lapis. “Drink, she said, to my health,” which I did.Then, recommending me to a nymph, she went away. that you eat and drink to make yourself even more divine”. Saying this, she presented me with a cup of nectar in which she had melted this lapis. “Drink, she said, to my health,” which I did. Then, recommending me to a nymph, she went away. that you eat and drink to make yourself even more divine”. Saying this, she presented me with a cup of nectar in which she had melted this lapis. “Drink, she said, to my health,” which I did. Then, recommending me to a nymph, she went away.

It was therefore a question of eating meats that I had not yet had time to consider. I saw that the whole majestic troop of guests were beginning to enjoy themselves, following the example of Mercury, who was encouraging them to this pleasant occupation. I cast my eyes on our Venerable Father Hermes, who, with a laughing air, showed that the meats tasted good. Each in this feast was served by a nymph who poured out their drink and a sylvan who poured their nectar into golden cups. All the nymphs were shining with jewels and hardly differed from the goddesses in brilliance of beauty and magnificence of dress. The sylvans had aprons of dark green damask trimmed with gold fringe. They wore a crown of oak leaves.I saw on this table neither ox nor veal, neither mutton nor lamb, neither bread like ours, nor game, such as we eat it. The dishes were filled with alcoholic flowers, variously prepared essences and various colors. There were some in subtle powders, in vegetables or in jellies like very pretty red, green or white ice creams: there were a number of beautiful salads of a herb called lunaire. I was told that all I saw was the essence of the very pure, separated from the earthly impure, and disengaged from its body. Indeed, I had never seen food so little material. I tasted them and found them so delicate, so excellent that I saw clearly that these meats were those of the gods. None spoke while eating.We listened to a poet who acted as a reader. The dishes began to empty when the reader said that during the year in which we had seen three popes, we had also seen three phoenixes. Everyone laughed and Mercury himself smiled, and said that it was not a marvel or such a rare event, that it had often been seen. That, as proof, we were going to serve three phoenixes, one for philosophers, one for orators, and one for poets. The reason is, he says, that from its ashes up to three are born, if at that moment there is a conjunction of the Sun, Venus and Mercury.He had no sooner finished than the officers appeared with the three phoenixes on three gold plates, on which were placed on both sides for ornaments, the two wings, the head with its collar at one end and the beautiful tail at the other end. All with its feathers and colors. Along with the phoenixes were served three pelicans, three alciones, three pheasants and three peacocks, also with their feathered extremities. The feet of these birds were straight. The superb dishes were accompanied by exquisite stews. The sight of these dishes, divinely prepared, irritated the appetite. Come, gentlemen, said Mercury, let us begin with the phoenixes, whose taste is so charming. It is a real philosopher's dish which does not burden the stomach.When we have eaten them, if there were no more on the earth, the bones of these burned, cinnamon and other scented woods, and the ashes sprinkled with the simple tears of the dawn, there would be born three others, one or more, according to the constellations. No one said a word, because it was a god speaking. The Hermes man shook his head a little and everyone smiled. But the poets in particular laughed heartily without making a splash. Mercury held his seriousness, and looking at Aristotle, "explain," he said to him, "to gentlemen poets, many of whom have not entered into our mysteries, that philosophers, more skilful than them and better physicists, often have three phoenixes when the conjunction is favorable to them. It will not be now, but when you return .Aristotle who rose to speak, sat down again, Mercury turning to the reader said to him "Continue". The reader read these words: “Copernic system. Mercury says, "Pass that." Then looking at Copernicus, he said to him: "You were dreaming, my friend, when you put this mad idea into your mind." You are none the less a clever man. Copernic bared his teeth a little, smiling. The reader continuing, read: “New Philosophy of Monsieur Descartes”. Mercury says: "Pass", there are still daydreams. But he knows quite the opposite now.And looking at Descartes, he said to him: “You have conceived beautiful ideas which have exercised you, and many others after you, but your novelty has had no hold on the waxy nose of this old man. Pointing to Aristotle: "He lets his nose be handled by the Jesuits and the Sorbonne as they please, but they couldn't tear him out." Aristotle and Descartes smiled. “Digby-qualified talisman,” says the reader. "Pass, gentlemen, pass," said Mercury. “The Divining Wand. "The author has done quite well," said Mercury, laughing. “The booklet is pretty, and brings back some pretty good experiences. Then he said, "Look for the place that deals with judicial astrology."The reader having found it, read: "Judicial Astrology condemned." “Dwell on this matter, and read distinctly, so that the company hears the absurdities of these ignorant scrupulous people who condemn what they do not understand. After we have risen from the table, we will wave this question in our avenue where there are benches to sit on. I will show you that it was wrong to condemn such a beautiful science which is reasonable, admirable and true, without making a distinction which I will show you in the form of recreations. As for now, it is a matter of feasting ourselves. Come on, drink. Read, reader. so that the company hears the absurdities of these ignorant scrupulous people who condemn what they do not hear.After we have risen from the table, we will wave this question in our avenue where there are benches to sit on. I will show you that it was wrong to condemn such a beautiful science which is reasonable, admirable and true, without making a distinction which I will show you in the form of recreations. As for now, it is a matter of feasting ourselves. Come on, drink. Read, reader. so that the company hears the absurdities of these ignorant scrupulous people who condemn what they do not hear. After we have risen from the table, we will wave this question in our avenue where there are benches to sit on.I will show you that it was wrong to condemn such a beautiful science which is reasonable, admirable and true, without making a distinction which I will show you in the form of recreations. As for now, it is a matter of feasting ourselves. Come on, drink. Read, reader. without making a distinction which I will show you in the form of recreations. As for now, it is a matter of feasting ourselves. Come on, drink. Read, reader. without making a distinction which I will show you in the form of recreations. As for now, it is a matter of feasting ourselves. Come on, drink. Read, reader. »

The symphony had moved away so as not to interrupt the reading and give the ball to the vegetable garden nymphs and the rustic and rural gods. They had sent there, through the care of Hebe and Ganymede, fifty muids of medium nectar for the whole troop, which was large enough, and food in proportion for all this populace of little gods who danced and practiced various little games. Mercury's table was beginning to live up and the vigorous nectar was operating when Hebe came to me while everyone was thinking only of feasting. No one paid attention to his return. I was delighted to see her. She said to me: “I left you longer than I wanted. But I was here in intention to serve you in all my power.I know that you are part of the favors of a god powerful enough to make you happy, but the favor of a goddess, daughter of Jupiter, is not to be despised. I want to teach you the way to my rejuvenating fountain. "Here," she said, showing me a key, made of a beautiful diamond. Here is a key to my fountain. I give it to you. Come there whenever you want. It is a place hidden from all mortals who would dry it up if they knew it. I conceived esteem for you before seeing you, because I knew that you had written a rather interesting treatise on renovation, and that you had marked my fall, which a slippery step made me do in the eyes of the gods, who laughed a lot. The memory brought a charming smile to her rosy lips.After several tokens of kindness on her part, and thanksgivings on mine, "I still have," she told me, to talk to you about particular things. Before, I will gladly drink. Drink too. I drink this shot for the love of you, do the same for me. We both drank. After several speeches, I said to her: "Madame, I swear to you that you are the only goddess to whom I confine my happiness, my fortune and my happiness." I wear it to you by your sacred fountain. That being so, she said, I accept your oath of fidelity. Count on Hebe, daughter of Jupiter and wife of Hercules. You will miss nothing, and you will enter the cabinet of my secrets.The promises of the goddesses are always accompanied by a few gifts. She took from her pocket a gold watch with a chain of the same material. She opened the watch, and showed me a certain number: "When you see the hand near this number, Hebe warns you once and for all that his arrival is near. When she reaches this figure, you will immediately have her visit, always accompanied by some favors. Here is a snuffbox that I am giving you. It is full of tobacco which you do not know; it is precious, since this snuffbox with what it contains is worth more than all the treasures of kings. nuffbox. I saw shining through a red powder.The snuff box was chiselled with great art. On the first side was engraved a fountain, at the foot of high steep rocks, bordered with verdant rushes, among which was hidden a cupid who held his bow drawn, ready to shoot an arrow against those who came to this clear fountain. On the other, Venus was seen seated on myrtles, close to this source. She held charms for those who would be struck by her son's arrows. In the distance from the fountain, you could see a troop of old people who seemed very altered, but who dared not approach for fear of falling a second time into the cruel tyranny of love which they saw hidden in these green reeds."O, Madame," I said to Hebe, "it is a great misfortune that your divine waters, which restore youth, also restore new love, new fires, new sorrows and new torments, rather than have you given them the virtue of extinguishing it. I fear for myself such a mighty tyranny. I would rather die than burn a second time with such a strange fire. "Love," she told me, "is inseparable from youth." love. Learn that love is not an evil in itself, only abuse, excess and trouble are to be feared. I have only this abuse in horror and it is not the cause. It is the effect of the bad conduct of love. I am far from being against love .He and his mother are gods of universal power, to tell you the truth, my fountain comes under their jurisdiction. And they have a primitive power over all the waters. The poets have sung enough that Venus is a goddess who takes her origin from the waters. Look to the other side, you will see the remedy. “ Learn that love is not an evil in itself, only abuse, excess and trouble are to be feared. I have only this abuse in horror and it is not the cause. It is the effect of the bad conduct of love. I am far from being against love. He and his mother are gods of universal power, to tell you the truth, my fountain comes under their jurisdiction. And they have a primitive power over all the waters.The poets have sung enough that Venus is a goddess who takes her origin from the waters. Look to the other side, you will see the remedy. “ Learn that love is not an evil in itself, only abuse, excess and trouble are to be feared. I have only this abuse in horror and it is not the cause. It is the effect of the bad conduct of love. I am far from being against love. He and his mother are gods of universal power, to tell you the truth, my fountain comes under their jurisdiction. And they have a primitive power over all the waters. The poets have sung enough that Venus is a goddess who takes her origin from the waters. Look to the other side, you will see the remedy. »It is the effect of the bad conduct of love. I am far from being against love. He and his mother are gods of universal power, to tell you the truth, my fountain comes under their jurisdiction. And they have a primitive power over all the waters. The poets have sung enough that Venus is a goddess who takes her origin from the waters. Look to the other side, you will see the remedy. It is the effect of the bad conduct of love. I am far from being against love. He and his mother are gods of universal power, to tell you the truth, my fountain comes under their jurisdiction. And they have a primitive power over all the waters.The poets have sung enough that Venus is a goddess who takes her origin from the waters. Look to the other side, you will see the remedy. »

I saw another fountain, the same reeds and the love torn from the middle of the reeds by Pallas. He was knocked down, his arrows spilled out of his quiver on the edge of the fountain. He made a sign to Venus, who seemed half irritated, half sorry, to abandon this sacred place, as not being the province of lascivious loves, but of a chaste love which only inspires an honest ardor for science and wisdom alone. Hebe figured in this disagreement which had arisen between Venus and Pallas on the subject of the fountain. She laughed to see Pallas holding a handful of rods to whip Cupid. But Venus seemed to want to snatch the rods from Pallas's hand. "What you see on this snuffbox," she continued,is the representation of what happened between us goddesses at my fountain whose possession Venus and her little enchanter wanted to usurp. See that I did not defend myself and that I left everything to Pallas who is a mistress girl and who did not bend mainly in front of Venus and her son. So you don't have to fear the love of a goddess like me so much. Because it is not a burning or carnal love but a kiss of spirit, pleasure of spirit, union of spirit. This love happens all in the spirit, the body has no part in it, otherwise it would no longer be a divine love nor a divine pleasure. It would be animal copulation, worthy of you and me. You possess the heart of a goddess. I'll see you tomorrow. Here is my portrait.Keep it. I also give you this telescope with which you will see me wherever I am. In this telescope, I will speak to you with glances and gestures. Receive this heart again, our two hearts are united there by a miracle of our love. Touch this heart and feel if it is not warm and beating; I will tell you another time how it is done. I leave you without leaving you, when I am in your heart as you are in mine. Follow me first with your glasses, when I'm gone, because if you don't see me in my new and first step, the effect of the glasses will be missing. But if you do, you will see the effect every day of your life. At these words, her inflamed eyes shed two tears which I quickly picked up.And two pearls of great beauty were formed. She said to me, “Keep them for love of me. Farewell until tomorrow. I saw her leave reluctantly, and as I looked at her my eyes shed tears, some of which fell on my plate and others on my glasses. They all froze into pearls like Hebe's, which I watched and considered carefully. This bezel was a very long and rather large gold box. At the two ends were two crystal glasses so fine and so beautiful that with this telescope I could have seen a lark on the forehead of the moon and the stars. I saw very well that I would make pleasant use of it afterwards, not being able to distract myself any longer from the pleasant company in which I found myself.I saw her leave reluctantly, and as I looked at her my eyes shed tears, some of which fell on my plate and others on my glasses. They all froze into pearls like Hebe's, which I watched and considered carefully. This bezel was a very long and rather large gold box. At the two ends were two crystal glasses so fine and so beautiful that with this telescope I could have seen a lark on the forehead of the moon and the stars. I saw very well that I would make pleasant use of it afterwards, not being able to distract myself any longer from the pleasant company in which I found myself. I saw her leave reluctantly, and as I looked at her my eyes shed tears, some of which fell on my plate and others on my glasses.They all froze into pearls like Hebe's, which I watched and considered carefully. This bezel was a very long and rather large gold box. At the two ends were two crystal glasses so fine and so beautiful that with this telescope I could have seen a lark on the forehead of the moon and the stars. I saw very well that I would make pleasant use of it afterwards, not being able to distract myself any longer from the pleasant company in which I found myself. which I watched and considered carefully. This bezel was a very long and rather large gold box. At the two ends were two crystal glasses so fine and so beautiful that with this telescope I could have seen a lark on the forehead of the moon and the stars.I saw very well that I would make pleasant use of it afterwards, not being able to distract myself any longer from the pleasant company in which I found myself. which I watched and considered carefully. This bezel was a very long and rather large gold box. At the two ends were two crystal glasses so fine and so beautiful that with this telescope I could have seen a lark on the forehead of the moon and the stars. I saw very well that I would make pleasant use of it afterwards, not being able to distract myself any longer from the pleasant company in which I found myself.

While I replenished my mind with the pleasant memory of Hebe, rather than tasting dishes from the table, I saw that our wise orators and poets had become drunk with nectar while I was with love for a goddess. We served the dessert composed of all kinds of jams, such as whole oranges, pomegranates and candied lemons, all neatly arranged in pyramids. At that moment appeared Iris, messenger of the gods and of Juno, with all her officers who placed before Mercury two porcelain dishes, one of which contained an icy milk of admirable whiteness which Iris had taken in passing in the sphere of the moon and which Diana was sending to the company. The other was filled with a tin of rosé which Iris had taken from the sunny sky and which Phoebus also sent by rarity in front of the sages to delight them.Similar dishes were also brought for all the tables. Mercury willed that the beautiful nymph of Juno honored the company with her brilliance by taking her place at the table; he had her led to an empty seat opposite me. I was struck by his brilliance both in his person and in his clothes. She was also surprised to see a young man among so many old men, and even more to see me dressed in their three suits. I said to her, "Mademoiselle, are we going to see rain?" - "Why, sir", she said to me. "Because," I told him, "the beautiful rainbow never shows its colors without giving rain." " - "You are right.It is true that I am the messenger but it will be for another country and not for this one which is today honored by the gods and the sages. So Mercury commanded the reader to close the book. He wanted everyone to join. We put on the table beautiful and big strawberries. Mercury said: “Here is a fruit which I esteem strong because it has the shape of a heart”, and looking at Ovid, he said to him: “You, learned poet, who wrote the Metamorphoses so well, do us the pleasure of reciting the story of this fruit.Ovid rose and having saluted the company, he recited this in verse: “Damon despising the love of the nymphs who made war on him by order of Venus, irritated at the contempt he made of these beautiful girls, was besieged by a troop of cupids armed with sharp features. The cupids tugged one after the other on this insensitive heart. Hard as it was, this heart was pierced with a stroke that was better shot than the others, and the shepherd remained wounded with love for the nymph Iris present here. The victorious cupids returned with their master.Along the way, tired of having fired, they rest in the cool in a forest of myrtles and as each wanted to attribute the glory of this action, their dispute grew heated and led them to bend their bows against each other, so that piercing themselves, they killed each other with their own arrows. Venus being warned, came to look for them and was reduced to weeping for them when she saw them all lying lifeless. She took all their little hearts, embalmed them with a lot of sugar, and put them in the ground. Spring gave them a second life without removing the heart shape. »

Mercury strongly praised Ovid then turning to Virgil, he said to him: “Prince of poets, oblige us to say on this subject what you please. Virgil rose and after having greeted Mercury and all the assembly, he spoke thus in flowing verse:

“Of all the nymphs, none has hurt more love or more sighed for her than fair Iris. Even the wise and all the crowned heads you see have looked at her with so much love and admiration. The wishes of the whole assembly drew her from heaven to honor us with her presence. This beautiful nymph has used her eyes with as much empire and the brilliance of her radiant colors that she gave more in the heart than in the eyes of an infinity of loves, which she reduced under her laws. Her lovers went to complain to the echoes of the woods and the rocks, of the languor of the hopeless words that the pleasant tyranny of the goddess caused them. They expired in the eyes of Iris who, to mark her compassion, covered her bow with several small clouds which,gradually removing the colors, put them in mourning, and the nymph covering her fires with a dark dress, often shed tears which gently watered the countryside and the meadows. But Venus and Cupid, favorable to lovers, wanted to satisfy the regrets of Iris, that the tears of this beautiful nymph, resurrecting such tender lovers, whose love showed itself a second time in the eyes of this beauty, were reborn in the form of hearts which were always the seat of love and the noblest interpreter of the power of this little tyrant. Also, without denying Ovid, these fruits are not only the hearts of little loves, but also those of an infinite number of lovers who have immolated themselves in the eyes of the charming Iris. »and the nymph, covering her fires with a dark robe, often shed tears which gently watered the fields and the meadows. But Venus and Cupid, favorable to lovers, wanted to satisfy the regrets of Iris, that the tears of this beautiful nymph, resurrecting such tender lovers, whose love showed itself a second time in the eyes of this beauty, were reborn in the form of hearts which were always the seat of love and the noblest interpreter of the power of this little tyrant. Also, without denying Ovid, these fruits are not only the hearts of little loves, but also those of an infinite number of lovers who have immolated themselves in the eyes of the charming Iris. and the nymph, covering her fires with a dark robe, often shed tears which gently watered the fields and the meadows.But Venus and Cupid, favorable to lovers, wanted to satisfy the regrets of Iris, that the tears of this beautiful nymph, resurrecting such tender lovers, whose love showed itself a second time in the eyes of this beauty, were reborn in the form of hearts which were always the seat of love and the noblest interpreter of the power of this little tyrant. Also, without denying Ovid, these fruits are not only the hearts of little loves, but also those of an infinite number of lovers who have immolated themselves in the eyes of the charming Iris. »favorable to lovers, wanted to gratify the regrets of Iris, that the tears of this beautiful nymph, resurrecting such tender lovers, whose love showed itself a second time in the eyes of this beauty, were reborn in the form of hearts which were always the seat of love and the noblest interpreter of the power of this little tyrant. Also, without denying Ovid, these fruits are not only the hearts of little loves, but also those of an infinite number of lovers who have immolated themselves in the eyes of the charming Iris. »favorable to lovers, wanted to gratify the regrets of Iris, that the tears of this beautiful nymph, resurrecting such tender lovers, whose love showed itself a second time in the eyes of this beauty, were reborn in the form of hearts which were always the seat of love and the noblest interpreter of the power of this little tyrant. Also, without denying Ovid, these fruits are not only the hearts of little loves, but also those of an infinite number of lovers who have immolated themselves in the eyes of the charming Iris. were reborn in the form of hearts which were always the seat of love and the noblest interpreter of the power of this little tyrant.Also, without denying Ovid, these fruits are not only the hearts of little loves, but also those of an infinite number of lovers who have immolated themselves in the eyes of the charming Iris. were reborn in the form of hearts which were always the seat of love and the noblest interpreter of the power of this little tyrant. Also, without denying Ovid, these fruits are not only the hearts of little loves, but also those of an infinite number of lovers who have immolated themselves in the eyes of the charming Iris. »

The whole assembly was charmed by the story of his two great men, and Mercury, after giving Virgil high praise as the prince of poets, gave Ovid a silver crown and a crown to Virgil. Then turning to Iris, he said: "It is true, beautiful Iris, that your baits are so fatal to your loves that you do not know how to have pity on them until after death." »

Meanwhile, the last course was brought. They served three chameleons, three salamanders, and three Echeneis, or Remores, divinely arranged. In this moment. Iris asked for a drink and only wanted pure water. She told me that she only drank water. I told her that was why she only poured water. She told me that she had fire and water at her disposal so equally balanced, as she appeared from her colors, that is why she is a sign of peace and reconciliation, which the Almighty God showed after the flood, resuming the fury of the elements under the power of my bow which bears the standard of various colors. Red marks fire, blue marks water, yellow air, and green land. I have enough fire to resist the water and push it to its limits.I have enough water to contain the fire within its bounds, and the air, which is my abode, is a medium which holds me between its two enemies, seated on my bow as on a trunk. I chain their fury and reconcile them and send them home, gentle and submissive. These are my functions between heaven and earth to keep them at peace. “ These are my functions between heaven and earth to keep them at peace. “ These are my functions between heaven and earth to keep them at peace. »

"Mademoiselle," I said to her, "since you are the plenipotentiary of peace between the elements and the steward of love, it is you who disarm the thundering Jupiter, why don't you disarm love to pacify souls alarmed by the furies of love. I believed that, as a reconciler, you could give peace to the heart. I see that I was mistaken since so many lovers have died of love for you, without your having had pity on them, except after their death. They are well rewarded, you have changed their hearts into strawberries." I then gave him a few gallant speeches which made him believe that everything I had just said was pure gallantry on my part. As a reward, she gave me a two-sided mirror set in gold, adorned on the right and left with jewels ;

on the mirror side were two malleable glasses. We saw in perspective Argus, with his hundred eyes, killed by Mercury. On the other side, Juno seated on a beautiful rainbow, attaching the eyes of Argus to the tail of Ispaon. Iris said to me: “This mirror will make you see new things every day according to your desire by washing it with a drop of pure water, you will wipe it with a piece of green tafeta. You will see there any story you want by pronouncing these words: "Shine, beautiful Iris." You will see there the top and the bottom of the universe to all natures, and like the world emerging from an immense cloud called Chaos. Buried, all the most hidden secrets and sciences will appear uncovered to you, looking at this mirror.I thanked her as gallantly as I could, and at that moment Hebe clapped me on the shoulders and asked me what we were saying. We said, replied Iris, "that divinity is only fire and love in the goddesses." “I had to add, says Hébé, in the nymphs. After several small disputes of this kind, yielding to the empire of hearts one to the other. Iris kissed Hebe and said to me: Hebe clapped me on the shoulders and asked me what we were saying. We said, replied Iris, "that divinity is only fire and love in the goddesses." “I had to add, says Hébé, in the nymphs. After several small disputes of this kind, yielding to the empire of hearts one to the other. Iris kissed Hebe and said to me:Hebe clapped me on the shoulders and asked me what we were saying. We said, replied Iris, "that divinity is only fire and love in the goddesses." “I had to add, says Hébé, in the nymphs. After several small disputes of this kind, yielding to the empire of hearts one to the other. Iris kissed Hebe and said to me:

"Monsieur, love this beautiful goddess, preserve her, for her merit is infinite. Give her your heart, but she will want me to have my little share of it as much as she pleases." Hebe looked at me and said, "Where are you?" I said to her, "Madame, I love Hébé like a goddess. Iris like a nymph. s. Iris herself drinks from the fountain of Hebe and mixes its waters with it. I am therefore no longer surprised if you are in love, for you reign over the waters like Venus, and I believe that in your absence one could easily caress the dawn. Flora and Pomona, who are quite similar to you and are more or less of the same temperament. "

"Very well," said Hebe. Tomorrow I will tell Ganymede that he sends you two or three mugs of nectar which gives you so much spirit. You know that a muid is the divine measure, and is worth ten times yours. Iris said, "As for me, I have only strawberry water and colors to offer you." If you would like some emeralds, I will gladly give them to you. Hebe went on: "I don't advise you to disdain the water that Iris offers you." It is good to mix with your nectar which is a bit strong for a human temperament. You cannot conceive of the riches concealed by these luminous waters which are so many pearls, precious stones and molten stones. She carries the soul and the spirit of the waters and the stars with her.She waters the earth to cover it with greenery. We will give you the knowledge of the dawn, of Flora and Pomona, of Spring, of Galathée and of all the flowers, some of which are boys and others nymphs. And I want this beautiful nymph who pours you a drink to serve you with her satyrs. Because in the future, you will be a little more than a man if you use celestial favors well. »

Having said that, Mercury knocked on the table to get up. Each one had nectar or drank poured to thank Mercury who said that we had to go in ceremony in his temple, to give back to the great and only God our thanksgiving. No sooner had he ceased to speak than all the bells of the temple were put into flight, and after each having taken a glass of liquor which Diane sent for Ratafia, and after having taken a little tobacco powder, we got up and walked straight to the temple where thanksgiving was rendered to the Great God and sung to music. After which everyone went free. All three troops of sages admired the temple. Virgil and Ovid promised to describe it. I was going to greet them, as well as Cicero.These old friends congratulated me and showered me with honesty. In this moment, there arose a great noise among the rustic gods and the nymphs who laughed, played and frolicked together. Mercury says, "Let's go forward. The nymphs who for fun sued Apollo for having flayed Thyresias alive (it would rather be Marsyas - Note of LAT), who made them dance to the sound of his flute were present. The god Mercury and the general council of satyrs condemned him to be thrown into the bath after being stripped, and that for this purpose the bath would be prepared .At the same moment, the satyrs threw a bowl of boiling water into a large marble basin full of cold water, and the basin having become lukewarm, they threw themselves on Apollo, stripped him of his golden hair. Then the god of light was seen without any ray or splendor like an eclipsed sun. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Despite his resistance, they put him naked on the edge of the pool and threw him in. He found the bath very good and gentle. He liked it and fell asleep there. At that moment, loud cries arose and their games were changed to sadness because it was believed that Apollo was dead. Diana, her sister, hearing this news was frightened and ran to the bath all alarmed.Seeing that he was only in a lethargic sleep, she held out her hand. This god raised his, took her by the arm and squeezed her, drew her to him in the bath where she fell asleep likewise. The cries redoubled because the lights disappeared. Hence it was judged that these gods suffered and that their sleep would be followed by death, which made one tremble. We cast our eyes on Mercury to find out what he was thinking. But he was only laughing at it himself. Pan, the nymphs and the satyrs, all stunned by this accident, fled as quickly as possible, for fear of the death of the god. All this populace of playful gods disappeared in an instant.And there remained only Ganymede, Hebe and Iris who gave the orders to have the tables and cutlery removed by the nymphs and sylvans on duty. Who had had no part in what had happened, and consequently, neither in the fear nor in the pain of others. Mercury was delighted to find himself alone with the sages and scholars who strolled down the alley and avenue. Knowing well what was to happen to Apollo and Diana, they didn't bother much about it. Mercury gave the order to stretch the bow of Iris over their bath and begged Hebe to feel their pulse and give them each a drink from the fountain. After which they would be left to rest because seven hours later they would be reborn much more beautiful.Hebe and Iris immediately went to carry out Mercury's orders and took me to see the mystery. I saw these two large luminaries as if extinguished and their bodies reduced like the sort of black silt which one saw floating at the bottom, at the whim of the water. I left to return to Mercury. Hebe took me by the arm and said, "I'll go see you tomorrow." I'm not sorry that you love Iris. We need her, provided that by loving her you still love me. I teach you that you will never succeed in the paths of wisdom and in the acquisition of its greatest secrets if the love which governs nature and by which she allows herself to be entirely led, both in higher things and in lower things, is not your guide.Then she kissed me and kissed me and squeezed my hands. I went to Mercury. Everyone sat down when I arrived. I also sat down, not far from Mercury, in order to better hear what was going to be said. Mercury says: Everyone sat down when I arrived. I also sat down, not far from Mercury, in order to better hear what was going to be said. Mercury says: Everyone sat down when I arrived. I also sat down, not far from Mercury, in order to better hear what was going to be said. Mercury says:

“I have postponed the question of judicial astrology to be decided at this time. I cannot understand why there are people so inconsistent as to condemn a science so true and so beautiful. I beg you, gentlemen, to recall here your sublime geniuses to decide with me against the ignorant. Will you tell me that a man or any other creature who will have received in the time of his generation the triplicity of fire and will have been formed of these emanations, all of fire and consequently will be endowed with a robust and martial temperament will not have a greater advantage of nature than one who will have received the triplicity of water who can only form a phlegmatic and ill-disposed temperament.If with this igneous triplicity, or the Sun, or Venus, or Mars, were in Leo or Aries or Sagittarius, this man who has this advantage will not be a hero. If Jupiter is in Leo or in Aries or Sagittarius, can we not judge that this man will have a fortune with kings or princes and will at least be an army general? If Venus is in one of the three, that man will make his fortune through the love of the greatest ladies. If Venus finds herself particularly fortified in a planet which gives her spirit, if my planet of Mercury is either in Aries or in Leo or in Sagittarius, who will not judge that this man, provided he is not demoted or saddened by Saturn, will lodge wisdom, science and eloquence in a robust and well-composed body.Would we want a man who has had only these two signs of fire, to have as many advantages as one who has all three, let him have the same temperament and carry himself to the same actions, as the one who has only one is equal to the one who has two. It must be concluded that the term of the generation being nine months, it is possible that the child be conceived, formed under these three signs, Leo, Aries and Sagittarius which form the igneous triplicity. In which case it can be judged that the individual will carry out beautiful and heroic actions if the course of the planets is in favorable aspects, which actions can be prejudged as to the species but not as to the individual. This is the distinction under which this question must be understood.You can apply this principle to any other triplicity whose effects are known. It must be concluded that the term of the generation being nine months, it is possible that the child be conceived, formed under these three signs, Leo, Aries and Sagittarius which form the igneous triplicity. In which case it can be judged that the individual will carry out beautiful and heroic actions if the course of the planets is in favorable aspects, which actions can be prejudged as to the species but not as to the individual. This is the distinction under which this question must be understood. You can apply this principle to any other triplicity whose effects are known. »It must be concluded that the term of the generation being nine months, it is possible that the child be conceived, formed under these three signs, Leo, Aries and Sagittarius which form the igneous triplicity. In which case it can be judged that the individual will carry out beautiful and heroic actions if the course of the planets is in favorable aspects, which actions can be prejudged as to the species but not as to the individual. This is the distinction under which this question must be understood. You can apply this principle to any other triplicity whose effects are known. »In which case it can be judged that the individual will carry out beautiful and heroic actions if the course of the planets is in favorable aspects, which actions can be prejudged as to the species but not as to the individual. This is the distinction under which this question must be understood. You can apply this principle to any other triplicity whose effects are known. In which case it can be judged that the individual will carry out beautiful and heroic actions if the course of the planets is in favorable aspects, which actions can be prejudged as to the species but not as to the individual . This is the distinction under which this question must be understood. You can apply this principle to any other triplicity whose effects are known. »

Mercury then speaking to Hermes, tells him to decide the question. This wise philosopher stood up and said: “The principle is so natural, so consistent with reason, that it must be consecrated in accordance with the opinion of the wise god who honors me with this commission. With the distinction brought by him, which is not contrary to the dogma of the Catholic religion, since this feeling is in conformity with good sense and right reason. When Hermes had stopped talking . Mercury dismissed the company, which applauded his manners, and each departed according to his rank as he had come, that is to say, with the gravity which befits wise men.

Mercury and I were left alone in the avenue. Hebe and Iris were at the edge of the basin where Apollo and Diana were asleep. Mercury said to me: "Let's go to the fountain to see Apollo and Diana." When we arrived, we saw the bright rainbow over the fountain and Iris sitting on it in a dewy robe. Mercury says to me: “Look carefully. If you have the subtlety of sight, you will see the souls of the Moon and the Sun flying out of their rotting bodies. See this black silt floating on the waters like molten pitch. It's their bodies. As he said this to me, we saw coming out of this silt a white light and another a little redder which flew over the waters.But Iris, who was sitting in the bath, received them in her rainbow, which seemed brighter and more purple. "I must," said Mercury, that these waters hover for a long time among these colors. Let's go back to the avenue so that I can explain to you all the mysteries you've seen. »

Curtain drawn by Mercury, or explanation of all this fabulous story in relation to science

“If you have any sense,” said Mercury, “you must have recognized by what we have just seen and heard, the divine mysteries of our work. The troop of philosophers, orators and poets gives you to understand that our science has always been the object of the researches of the greatest men. The magnificence of this table marks the rich impressions of their physical scriptures. The flowers, jellies, sweet ice creams of various colors show you not only that they have treated this matter delicately, not only in theory but also in practice, where one should only handle flowers, jellies, ice creams and spirits. These precious dishes mark the learned books of the sages where they served the meats,and in another sense signifies the neat and clean vessels which are used in practice. I don't think it necessary to tell you what the three Phoenixes we served mean, it means that our Phoenix is ​​reborn three times above its ashes. You will often hear the allusion of the Alciones and the Pelicans which restore life to their young by their own blood, as well as that of the pheasants and the peacock. You will no doubt also have understood that these pomegranates, these candied oranges and lemons signify the last days when the work reaches its perfection and that this frozen milk, served by Iris or the rainbow, and the can of dew mark the work with white and red which is not long in calcination when the rainbow appears, or soon after. As for strawberries,although they may have no relation to the work, we have taken the liberty of reciting a few metamorphoses of them to serve as an ornament and to brighten the spirits. The chameleon marks the variety of colors of the work, the echeneis or remora, the fixation and finally the salamander signifies our perfect work which no longer fears the fire in which it remains constant, permanent and fixed. By the nectar that you have drunk in long drafts in this feast, understand the juice and the very sweet flavor of the physical writings, or else of the material, the exuberant work or taken in medicine. By the nymphs and sylvans the waters and the fire which are employed in this marvelous work.This dance, these games, these amusements, these outbursts of Pan and satyrs, nymphs frolicking together, mark the works and operations that the artist must do as if playing with himself, and mixing fire with water, very appropriately, according to the existence of nature. But these gallantries and conversations, so tender and so loving, hide a mysterious meaning that I am going to explain to you. As all your conversations have no other subjects than love, the goddess and the nymph excite you and lead you themselves to the love of which you pretend to be afraid, although it was to your taste and in accordance with your inclinations. You must develop this rather beautiful mystery.You, who have been bathed and washed after having stripped you of your ordinary clothes to dress you in magnificent clothes, represent the body of matter that is first stripped, washed, and given a new and physical form in the first work . But in the second, where the elements untie and separate, the soul separated from the body rises to heaven, that is, to the top of the vessel, where the spirit accompanies it, and paints together various colors like the rainbow, adorning itself with beauty and light. The soul is represented by Hebe, goddess of youth, and the spirit by Iris.As the soul is more celestial than the spirit, it is well marked under the name of goddess, and as the spirit is more elemental than celestial, and airy in nature, it is well compared to Iris because it is the reconciler of soul and body, as well as Iris is a sign of reconciliation. Now the body, the soul and the spirit of matter have a great appetite to join together. This marvelous inclination to their reunion is well expressed by all the tender, loving and passionate things that have been said and done between you, Hebe and the nymph Iris. Now, it is certain that the soul aspires to rejoin its body by means of the spirit.Also in the work this soul, which is only a celestial vapor and the vehicle of the tinctures and of the astral fire, condenses in the form of brilliant tears which roll over the body. The elementary spirit, inferior to the soul, and from a lower region, also does the same thing, and pressing the body on their wings, rises in the air, mixes with it, rarefies it, subtilizes it, dilates it into vapours, makes it spiritual and inspires life in it. What is sufficiently expressed by the tears of Hebe and Iris, by the kisses they gave you, even trying to take you to heaven.This heroic Hercules, whom Hebe calls slayer of monsters, as if with contempt, testifying that he is a burden to her, is the fire to which she has been married since she left the body, to which fire she preferred society and union with her body, for this fire will only lead her from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven until she is fixed in the heart of her dear lover, that is to say in the body which she does not visit without bringing him every day new favors as Hebe promised you, not to come to see you without bringing you new presents from heaven. "But why," I said to her, "is Hebe employed here rather than another goddess?" "It is," he told me, in relation to renovation, which is one of the most admirable effects of our work.For this renovating virtue is not in the elements dilated and rarefied in vapour, subtle as the sky itself. This virtue infused from heaven itself, and united with the soul, is our Hebe and our very pure and very subtle elements which cause their purity to shine in the colors of the rainbow, which elemental purity, is fit to receive and indeed receives this celestial and renewing virtue which is infused into it, for the elements thus purified and shining are represented by the nymph Iris, messenger of Juno, goddess of the air. So our beautiful Iris shines in the air of our ship. Here is the secret of this kind of amorous dialogue among you, Hébé, Iris, explained quite clearly by this equivalence of the love of the body,of the soul and the spirit, so that one does not believe that by the preceding speech one has any intention lascivious and immodest. Finally we throw Apollo in the bath. He lures Diane there. It is the Sun and the Moon which are dissolved to be employed in fermentation. The satyrs and nymphs who strip them are the fires and the waters which are used to strip them of their form of gold and silver. The satyrs and the nymphs flee, that is to say, the foreign waters are separated and the fires of calcination are changed into that of cooking. Explanation of the dances of the goddess Hebe It is the Sun and the Moon which are dissolved to be employed in fermentation.The satyrs and nymphs who strip them are the fires and the waters which are used to strip them of their form of gold and silver. The satyrs and the nymphs flee, that is to say, the foreign waters are separated and the fires of calcination are changed into that of cooking. Explanation of the dances of the goddess Hebe It is the Sun and the Moon which are dissolved to be employed in fermentation. The satyrs and nymphs who strip them are the fires and the waters which are used to strip them of their form of gold and silver. The satyrs and the nymphs flee, that is to say, the foreign waters are separated and the fires of calcination are changed into that of cooking. Explanation of the dances of the goddess Hebe

The first present she gave you was a gold watch with a chain of the same material, where you were to know the precise time of the visits of our goddess when the hand of the watch touched a certain point. This watch was only the philosophical vase where the egg, which was of a very clear crystal, shows all the movements or circulation of the soul, that is to say of the volatile part which makes itself known to the eye of the artist in the form of a splendor which shines at the side of the vessel in the form of a dew or a small cup of very brilliant water which grows little by little and shows that it is going to visit his body as many times as these drops fall on him by small rivulet to imprint him with a new life and fill him with the celestial favors which he has acquired in this new elevation.The golden chain signifies two things: it marks the inclination of the soul to reunite with its body, which is reciprocal between the body and the soul. Michel Maïer in his emblems depicts these loves by a net which at one end is attached in the ground to a toad and at the other to a vulture flying in the air. The vulture represents the soul, the toad the body. It also represents the assiduity with its work which one must contemplate unceasingly and to adore there the hand of God which one must recognize there. You have to get rid of all other business to give yourself up entirely to such sweet servitude which leads to so much happiness and honors, as the goddess Hebe says.The second present is a snuffbox of a beautiful emerald full of powdered tobacco which shines through it. She tells you that this present is worth more than all the treasures of kings; this means that the soul in its movements and circulations shows a great burst of verdure, in which consists the force, the virtue and the energy of vegetability. Oh ! Blessed greenness, cried the philosophers. Hermès titled the first of his writings on this science: the emerald tablet. It is in this sparkling green that the vigor of all nature consists.Virgil, decrying the strength of Caron, who does not age in passing souls, says a good word which explains well this constant youth of the immortals by these words: A growing strength, a green youth, by allusion to the spring which renews everything by its greenness. Green is therefore in nature a principle of vigor and vegetation. This color in our work contains all the force and the virtue of the elements and represents the work of the earth which is adorned with greenness and flowers in the time that it conceives fruits. Now, this blessed greenness marks that our fruit is alive and promises us the precious red tobacco powder or the red stone. The Fountain of Youth etched on one side among the rushes in which Love is hidden,setting up traps for old people who have worked who want to come and drink there, signifies one of the properties of the stone which restores youth and consequently the sensitivity of love. Another love and another Venus exercise here a new empire, that is to say a second madness which is reborn with youth, as if one could not be young without being mad, what a fatality!

This is the danger that made many sages renounce the advantage of becoming younger. Finally this new Venus and this second Love guarding their waters beside which they are in ambush, "why," I interrupted, "do you say their waters?" "It is," he says, "because Cupid and Venus have their origin in water, Cupid and a humidity which constitutes youth while old age is in the drying up of the humors." Why is wisdom therefore the prerogative of old age when it would be so necessary at the beginning of life to lead us by its celestial torch instead of enlightening us only at the end, to show the approaching death. Poor mortals, whom we are to be pitied. Young people, we cannot be wise, old we are only because we can no longer be strong.From which we must conclude that if by prolonging our life, we prolong our madness, it is wise to despise the favors of Hebe and to retire slowly from the fountain where Love is in ambush with his dangerous mother. On the other side of the snuffbox one saw Pallas tearing Cupid out of the middle of the rushes, and throwing him to the ground with his bow and his darts, chasing away the mother and the son with blows of rods, this marks the triumph of wisdom over Cupid, but this triumph is reserved only for heroes such as Samson, David and Solomon. What am I saying, hasn't love led these very heroes to triumph, and what should we not fear from this tyrant to whom we surrender so willingly. Oh ! Weakhumans,your fragility is well marked by these green reeds which obey all the winds. The portrait of Hebe signifies the soul, although separated from the body above which it flies towards the sky, still retains the metallic form and the idea of ​​its first nature which it imprints again with lines more brilliant than the first on its glorified body when it comes to unite with it. And the body for her part, which here is the patient, also retains this impression depicted by the portrait of Hébé, which she recommends that you keep with care. Which can also be understood as matter and form which are united by such a close link that the body never loses the idea of ​​its specific form although separated from the soul and is re-simplified and restored to its first general elements.What I find difficult to conceive, it is that the mixtures decomposed by the spagyric art and reduced to salt, sulfur and mercury, cannot after this reduction be further simplified. In these states, we see that the principles keep their character and their specific impression, as it appears in the salt of the mixtures where one sees with the aid of the microscope the figures of the mixture from which it is extracted. Which marks that the knots made by the hand of God are eternal. The telescope given by Hébé, through which we can see her everywhere without losing sight of her and thanks to which Hébé must speak with laughs, glances, gestures and signs,means that the glass vase through which we see the splendours of the Moon or of the soul which flutters and makes these movements to acquire perfection by traversing the twelve signs of the zodiac under the different planets because soon it resembles Mercury, sometimes like Saturn and at other times it shines like Jupiter. Then white like the Moon, then separated from the colors of Venus, then of Mars, finally she shines with all the purple and the radiance of the sun; and while she shows her different faces, she passes under various signs for nine months because first she is conceived under Aquarius, which is a windy, aerial and mercurial sign, from this sign she enters Pisces, an aquatic sign which converts her into water by dissolution.It is exhaled at the sign of Ariès where the gentle warmth of this sign adorns it with the flowers of spring. From there, she passes into Taurus, the home of Venus where her amorous nature takes on fertility. It passes from there into Gemini, a sign as the highest in the sky, and very hot, sublimates it, exalts it and gives it all celestial fires. From there, it passes into the sign of the Crayfish, an aquatic sign where the sun takes a retrograde movement. Also, in this sign, our soul, unable to fly higher, takes this retrograde movement to return to its body by a rolling of waters which descends and rain on this body in large drops, like Jupiter in golden rain, so this sign is aquatic. After these abundant rains, it passes into Leo all on fire.It then passes into the sign of Virgo, a cold sign, terrestrial and constricting. Here it tends to freeze and to tighten itself in its terrestrial body to make with it only one immortal and glorified body. It passes from there into Libra where the body and the soul, perfectly pure, have become entirely celestial by the resurrection, uniting in the point where the elements are found, and consuming themselves in unity by their perfect equality. From Libra, the mercurial sign, she enters with her body into that ugly sign of Scorpio, the aquatic sign, within her becomes scabby venom and true basilisk. In this fatal sign, she arms herself and takes on the features against death, over which she gains victory and causes life to triumph by virtue of her virtue.Finally it passes and is accomplished in the noble Sagittarius, domicile of Mars. It is there that it takes its last fires in the igneous sign. And this luminous sign by its javelin of fire fixes it and gives it its perfection. It is there that she takes on the soul of fire more subtle than lightning, that she herself becomes an arrow of fire that nothing can resist, and that she can be called the force of all force.

The Artist who is assiduous has considered what is happening in his ship and will see all of Hebe's steps, that is to say the various movements and mutations of the metallic soul. The heart that Hebe presents to him with which another heart is found united, both being one and the same heart, is the radiance of the body and the soul, united and glorified by the resurrection, which is a miracle of the love of Hebe, that is to say of the soul for his body, to which his natural inclination leads him. This is what philosophers call divine and adorable, saying that the hand of God triumphs in this part of the work. It is quite true that God operates there because this resurrection is done by the love of nature, and God is found and operates wherever love is. For God is the author of love.He himself is of himself and of his nature all love, and love originated from the heart of God. I believe that the philosophers were right to say in this sense that God himself works in that part of the work which is done by the first laws, by the laws of nature, to which God is united by his help which gives him the precious mark of all conjugal alliances. Here Hebe, that is to say the soul, united with his body, giving him this ring which signifies the double faculty which she communicates to him, namely that of gold and precious stones. As for the letters which must appear in the gemstone and form a word between two commas to have by this writing the words and the thought of Hébé, although it is only an author's playfulness,we can say that we must understand by this the examination of gold and precious stones that we make by the projection where the soul of the gold is recognized by the tests; after which examination, the letters taken, that is to say the goodness of the gold, one forms of these letters, a word from commas to commas. This word is expressed in each ingot or golden rod that is made. One says:

This is good gold. These are the good news that we must learn from Hebe, that is to say that this golden soul must respond well to the trials. The tears of Hebe which are formed into pearls as well as the diamond key which gives free entry to the fountain, it is the mercury of the sages, by means of which pearls can also be made, and which is the key to the fountain of youth which the philosopher possesses. Hebe further says: "I would make myself seen and heard at the end of your telescope, it is as if it were saying: at the end of your work, I would make myself known for the true efficient cause of gold without it being necessary to come to the tests.

The mercury of the sages is well compared to diamonds by its brilliance and color, its purity, its diaphanity and by the fires which shine therein and finally by its price, one being no less precious than the other. The mirror set in a gold frame strewn with jewels given by the nymph Iris represents on one side the shepherd Argus with his hundred eyes, killed by Mercury, and on the other side of the same mirror a rainbow and Juno seated on this arc, attaching the shepherd's eyes to the tail of her peacock, represents the part of the work where the rainbow shows itself, as well as the peacock's tail. The work in this state is a real mirror where we see all the beauties of nature.

The philosophers say more: they affirm that one contemplates there even the glory of the resurrection and the future life. The certainty that they have drawn from these great mysteries, objects of our faith, in the glorification of the physical body has inspired them with such a great contempt for death that, far from fearing it, they rejoice in its approaches which make them glimpse the blessed term of their final perfection. It is a truth recorded in the most pious writings of the most famous among them. Some, in order not to delay their happiness, did not want to prolong their life by means of the stone. I said that by consulting this mirror often, we will see new metamorphoses every day.We will even see the creation of the world born of the dark night, and all the most hidden secrets of universal science. In truth, when the work is pushed to this dazzling operation of the rainbow and the colors of the peacock's tail, we see uncovered the true meaning of the fables and the metamorphoses invented to hide it. We see there the truth of science, and of philosophical writings. It recognizes that there is a truth in nature which belies the stupid denial of the ignorant. We see in this secret work that nature imitates the creator in its works, by bringing out of the belly a dark and dark cloud, a bright light separated from darkness. Finally this science, once acquired, gives the key to acquire all the others whatever they are.This mirror was in a frame of gold and precious stones because during the duration of the rainbow, the earth drinks its soul and its spirit which fall on it in drops of gold, and in that time the earth begins to dry up and only shows gold and precious stones, which makes the little peasant say that in this place all kinds of fruits come to grow and vegetate like lemons, wedges, orange trees, pleasant to the sight, coming out of a soil all hyacinths, and as a mark that this author speaks of the time of the rainbow, we see a little before the passage which has just been reported these words: "The peaceful and graceful sign of the rainbow seemed to shine with all kinds of rejoicing and a mark of good end. But as the Moon comes to be seen and to show itself a little ,however dimly still, the Sun begins to shine brighter until the Moon is full and shines clearly as if all were pearls and diamonds lightly polished. »

Judge by the terms of this author if when Iris appears in her brilliant finery, this work is not a pleasant mirror of all that nature has received from the bounty of the sovereign creator.

Third part of this memory of fermentation

Our winged virgin, otherwise our mercury, marries two males, without losing the flower of her virginity: Knowing one spiritual and one corporeal. The first male is the body to which mercury units at the time of birth. This male is nothing other than his own body from which is drawn the own earth which serves him as a vase, and which philosophers like Zachaire have qualified as ferment because, as leaven converts its dough into its nature and makes bread from it, so this ferment or this body by its nature or rather by its fermentative virtue, converts mercury into its bodily force by congealing and fixing it.They called him the first male, because in the term of the birth of the child this body rises and sublimates itself like a spirit, letting itself be carried away by its volatile part after which it flies like a bird. This virgin having married the husband who is her own brother with whom she was created and formed without being soiled with this first almost all spiritual alliance, convolated in second marriage to have a bodily line that the spiritual husband cannot give her, she takes a second corporeal husband who will not defile her virginity and who will suffer society and union with the spiritual husband are of the same origin and from the same blood. Without being jealous of each other, they have in common the same wife who, through this double alliance, knows how to combine fertility with virginity.Now this second bodily husband is the common gold and silver which are added to him as bodily ferment. Thus in this place the term ferment means one of the perfect luminaries introduced into the work as a kind of leaven, which passively received the spiritual and coloring virtue of the stone, converted it into its form and corporeal matter of gold or silver to communicate it corporeally to the imperfect metals. Which bodies only receive the spiritual and transmutative virtue by the corporeal means or vehicle such as it is in gold and in vulgar silver.

This granted, I say that gold and vulgar silver are ferments, one to white, the other to red. It is an axiom that every agent operates according to the form in which it is clothed and imprints its form and its nature on the patient. If this axiom is false, all science of chemistry would be a chimera. It is therefore true that it is not without admiration and astonishment that we have seen that even the perfect stone, fermented with lead and projected, only transmutes mercury into Jupiter. Consequently, if you want it to transmute into gold, ferment with gold, into silver with silver, because in this fermentation gold has received its virtue from the stone as a patient.

He becomes an agent, and a very powerful agent on all the metallic mercury to which he communicates his corporeal form and which was sterile before and remained such if he had not received from the stone the multiplicative virtue of his species. This is why we must marry a second time our virgin to a corporeal male of her nature, namely gold for red and silver for white,in order to make her produce legitimate children and not bastards as she is forced to do, when she is joined to imperfect metals by fermentation as it happened in the time of Lully, who seeing lead, tin, iron, and copper made by projection exclaimed: "Does nature walk backwards", not conceiving that the virtue of the auric stone which is entirely spiritual was dominated and prevented by the impure form of the imperfect metal from which it was fermented, being able to act only according to the imperfect form to which it is joined. As, on the contrary, it gives the form of gold, fermented with gold, because it can only give a perfect form when it is joined to a perfect form. For if the virtue of the stone were as much bodily as it is spiritual, we wouldn't need to use corporeal gold to leave it.Although she appears in bodily form when she is perfect, she is gold in essence and nature. But it is spiritual gold, and the pure essence of gold can only impart the form of gold spiritually and not bodily. It perfects gold by giving it the tinting and multiplicative virtue of its species which it did not have as corporeal gold.

This foundation established, one must know how gold and silver should be prepared for fermentation. For this purpose, it is necessary to call the satyrs and the nymphs, that is to say the fires and the liquors to strip Apollo and Diana, to throw them quite naked in the bath. It is no small task nor a small undertaking to purge vulgar gold and silver to employ them in fermentation. For this purpose they must not be united to the stone in their corporeal and gross state. They must be destroyed by a radical destruction which is not easy, which makes philosophers say that it is easier to make gold than to destroy it because the philosophical mercury does not dissolve it if it had not received a preparation by which one tears off its big purple coat,which is done by perfect calcination in burning fire, as Philalethes says, by the burning Vulcan. You mustn't have fun dissolving it, she would smoke. It must be started with vulgar mercury with which it is amalgamated by triturating it. Then it is passed through a cloth or chamois and the mercury is then removed by distillation until the gold or silver lime remains alone and clean at the bottom of the vessel. Then the lime must be ground on the marble until it is an impalpable powder. In this state, it is calcined for thirty days in the furnace of a glassmaker, it is given several lotions, finally it is given the lamplight. This work of Hercules finished,it is presented to the philosopher's mercury, which dissolves it by putrefaction over a long period of time and reduces it irreducibly to its first principles; being dissolved, it must be coagulated in leafy earth and proceeding through the same period as for the formation of the philosophical child; this work being long, it must be started as soon as the first finished and the confections are put in the Egg.

Process fermentation

The stone being finished and this imbibition dried up, one takes three parts of the white or red stone, one part of the ferment, knowing of the air if it is white, of the natural fire if it is four parts red. That is, parts equal to the whole. We amalgamate and we put this mixture in a clear and well sealed crystal vessel. This precious material is cooked over the same fire using the same method as stone. In a short time we see the order of the colors pass. This excellent Work is called Elixir. It is in this beautiful work that we see the beautiful and rare marvels or the great miracle of nature and the hand of God. According to it we see only rubies, diamonds, emeralds, steep mountains, sometimes all of gold, diamonds, pearls and emeralds.It is there that we see the apples of paradise, wedges, lemons, oranges, pomegranates, peaches and all kinds of fruits coming out of a soil of hyacinths and trees of life planted in the middle of the earthly paradise for the health of nations. »

When Mercury had finished these lessons, he showed me Apollo and Diana resuscitated, and these two luminaries restored in the sky doing their ordinary functions. Hebe and Iris came to embrace me, and told me that for love of me they had both put themselves in a crystal prison, where they guarded the divine source of earthly paradise by cultivating this charming place which they had placed in my power. In this little solar land where a thousand rubies shone, I could converse with them. Then Mercury said to me: “Leave the quagmire and the dregs of men, break with the age, often remind your mind of the modesty of the sages with whom you ate divine meats and drank the nectar in long drafts, think of Wisdom who is your spouse, must be your counsel, your torch and your light.Don't do anything low or unworthy of a Christian philosophizing. You will lack nothing that is required of science. Give thanks to the great God, Father of Lights. Love with all your heart and his only son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who gave birth to them as well as the glorious Virgin Mary whose very pure womb received the divine Word, who spoke and everything was done. Who says: “And everything came out of nothing. “Love God and everything will succeed for you, and the love of God will transform you into God if you use this great treasure in the love of God by sharing the poor first. »Love with all your heart and his only son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who gave birth to them as well as the glorious Virgin Mary whose very pure womb received the divine Word, who spoke and everything was done. Who says: “And everything came out of nothing. “Love God and everything will succeed for you, and the love of God will transform you into God if you use this great treasure in the love of God by sharing the poor first. Love with all your heart and his only son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who gave birth to them as well as the glorious Virgin Mary whose very pure womb received the divine Word, who spoke and everything was done. Who says: “And everything came out of nothing.“Love God and everything will succeed for you, and the love of God will transform you into God if you use this great treasure in the love of God by sharing the poor first. These were the last words of Mercury, after the geniuses of the sages had sung the Te Deum to music in the temple where we attended in respectful silence. I found myself in the place where I had left and I immediately wrote this thesis for fear of forgetting the learned instructions of Mercury.

PRAISE TO GOD AMEN