From Sir Bernard Count of the Marche Trévisanne
By invoking the Name of God, without whom no help is given: for all good comes first from him, and comes to the Soul of good will, and to the Man of bad will and traitor, Never will Sapience enter into it, no help will be given to him.
That so many Inquisitors of this precious Science and venerable Art may be reduced from darkness to light, and leave so many transverse paths, to which there is no profit, by any means whatsoever, nor by labor that can be put there; less by so much expense that one can make there, never one finds there profit, nor any appearance of truth.
Therefore, so that this worthy Art is not so trampled by the Deceivers and Sophistics, and that the Inquisitors taste the fruits of this Science, fitted out for them and those who are its Fus, and follow the great path that Nature holds in all its Creations, Operations and Compositions, and that they may be informed, both in Speculative and in Practice, by reason necessary and approved by true experience which I have touched with my hands and seen with my eyes. For four times I have composed the benoîte Pierre, who is reviled by the Ignorant, considering some to be impossible, others that she is so difficult to do, that no one can ever achieve it; and rather cross the oblique paths, and depend on their goods and those of others by the Sophistic Recepts and Books, as Geber, Archelaus, Rasis, the Semite of Albert the Great, the Tramite of Aristotle, the Canon of Pandecta, the Light of Rasis, the Epistle of Demophon, and the Great Testutal Summa, and other infinite Erratic and wandering Books, making infinite pecuns and goods dependent, and in the end never one finds anything in these Books.
And also so many Sophisticated Receipts and so many painful Regimes, fresh and great expense that the Deceivers make, as long as everywhere the benevolent Science is found for truffle. And the Ignorant in common vulgarity say thus: As they have been deceived, they want to deceive others, and this is a foolish reason: For a Sage desires to do facts and things, that afterwards he may have perpetual praise. How then would they want to put lies, which could not be for any natural reason? But the Ignorant, if they don't hear a Book the first time, they say badly about it, and don't want to read it again; why few people come to it: For better would be the mere imagination of a good Intelligence of any kind, but that he should know a little the Principles of metallic Nature, and would rather come to the end, than by so many Books to read them, without taking a liking to hearing them.
And for this, so that I can make a good and brief Treatise, and follow the congregation of the Sages, who have spoken well in this Science; and also that by my Book the Disciples may be well informed, both in Theory and in Practice and in Operation; I will divide my Book into four Parts.
In the first, I want to speak of the Inventors of this worthy Science, and of the Sages who had it, how and according to which I knew it.
In the second Part, I will speak of myself, of my time, and how, from beginning to end, I knew it, and how I did everything and everywhere. Without any envy, the toils I had in pursuing her.
In the third Part, I want to talk about the Principles and Roots of Metals, and put obvious and philosophical reasons.
In the fourth Part of my Book, I want to speak about the Practice, which I will put a little Parabolic; but not so much that if you put effort into it, you don't understand it well.
And by the other Parts you will be able to be instructed marvelously: And if you do not understand the Work by my Book, truly I believe that you will never come to this Art. But don't expect to hear it the second time, nor the third time, nor the tenth time; but always more to hear it by repeating it: And I say nothing in my Book, that I do not prove by obvious reasons and experiments; and also by the authority of the Masters, speaking in this Art and Science very reasonably and with great reason.
A Man should take pains and labor at it: For by this Art and Science all pain and accursed poverty can be avoided: For poverty kills not only the Body, but the Spirit, and the Soul, and the life, and all strength, sense and understanding. Also this Science cures of any disease whatever it is, physical or spiritual, are Men suddenly; so that Nature has substantiation. As I myself have, in my God, experienced in many Wretches, Deciduous, Dropsical, Ethical, Apoplectic, Iliacs, Demonics, Insane, and Furimonds, and any other illnesses, which would be long to narrate, and not do not cuideroye , if seen not had it and done.
Also one should like it: For, by this Art, one can have all the other Arts and Sciences. He administers the necessities for life: where otherwise there is great difficulty, and one cannot attend to it with the student spirit. Item, This Art and Stone, truly composed, adorns the Soul with all virtues: And may one do many alms, by which one may have holiness and salvation of the Soul, and do works of Mercy; such as ransoming Captives, providing for Widows and poor Orphans, and curing the poor Sick. We ought to take pains there: For in studying Law, in Decree, in Theology, in Medicine, or learning a Mechanical Art, a Man is really six or seven years old: And in this precious Science, we only want to put a month, or five or six. Alas! All the others are nothing compared to her. It is so easy, that if I told you, or showed the Art by effect, you could hardly believe it or hear it, so easy is it; but it is a little difficult to hear our words, and to know their true intention.
The first Inventor of this Art (as we read in the Facts of Memory, and in the Books of Ancient Gestures, and in the Imperial Book, and in the exposition of Clavetus on the Emerald Table, and the other Books) was Hermes the Triple; Because he knew all triple natural Philosophy, namely Mineral, Vegetable and Animal: And for what he was Inventor of the Art, we call him Father, as well as in all the Books of the Peat, from Hermes before Pythagoras in is spoken, that whoever will have this Science, he is called his Son. This Hermes was the one of whom is written in the Bible, who after the Flood entered the Valley of Ebron, and there found seven Tablets of marble stone, and in each of the seven Tablets was imprinted one of the seven Liberal Arts in Principles; and these Tables were inculcated before the Deluge, by the Sages who were then. For they knew that the Deluge would come over the whole Earth, and that everything would perish there: and so that the Arts would not perish, they inculcated them in these Marble Stones. The said Hermes only found the said Tables, which are the foundation of all the Arts and Sciences. And this Hermes was before the old law. But there were many People at that time who knew this Science: Mount Sinai, this Science was given and revealed to some of the Children of Israel, to decorate and perfect the work of the Temple, and the Ark of the Old Testament; as it is written in Ezekiel the Prophet, and in Daniel, and in the Book of Josephus.
And so the Work was given of God to none, as I said. The others have found it as if by nature, without any Revelations or Books, or Experience; like the Phitomea, Rebecca, Solomon, Ambadagesir, and Philip Macedonian. But Hermes, after the Flood, was the first Inventor and Probator of this Science of Philosophy, and found the said Tables in the Valley of Ebron, where Adam was put, being driven out of the Terrestrial Paradise. And after Hermes she came through him to other infinities. And the said Hermes made a Book of it, which said so.
It is true and without lie, and very certain, that the high is of the nature of the low, and the amount of the descending. Join them by a path and by a disposition. The Sun is the Father, and the white Moon is the Mother, and the Fire is the Governor. Make the big subtle, make the subtle thick, so you will have the glory of God. Here is all that Hermes says in that Book. This Book is very brief; but nevertheless these are big words, and the whole Work is written in them.
King Calid had it through Bendegid the Ternary, and his Son, Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras, who is the first called Philosopher, who was a Disciple of Hermes, and made a Congregation, where there are several who call it The Right Book of the Code of All Truth. For the truth is safe there, no superfluity or diminution, however obscure it may be to the Lisans. Alexander had it, who was King of Macedonia and Disciple of Aristotle. Item, Avicenna who also speaks of it, and Galen and Hypocrates. And in Arabia this Science was known to many, as of King Haly, who was ruler Astrologer, and taught it to Morien, and Morien to Calib, King of Arabia: And Aros had it, and taught it to Nephandin his brother; and Saturn to Luncabur and its Extraction, and to its Sister Madera. And infinite People have had it in Arabia. Several People have had it, and have made several Books under metaphorical words and figures, in such a way that their Books can only be heard by the Children of the Art. So much so that I say well, that the Disciples, by such Books, are led astray rather than addressed to the right path; and hide it and excite it more by their Books than they reveal it.
Also in France several have had it, like the Escot, Doctor very subtle. Master Arnaud de Villeneuve, Raymond Lulle, Master Jean de Meung, the Hortolan, and the Truthful: And a great multitude of others everywhere knew it. But seeing by these Books so many damnations and despairs, which come to the Students, I wanted to plow for better in my capacity and small engine to provide them, so that they pray God for me.
The first Book I read was Rasis, where I spent four years of my time, and cost me a good eight hundred crowns trying it; and then Geber, which cost me a good two thousand and more, and always had People who set me on fire to destroy me. I saw the Book of Archelaus by three years, where I found a Monk, where he and I plowed by three years, and the Books of Rupescissa, and the Book of Sacrobosco with Water of Life rectified thirty times on the dregs, so long as in my God we made it so strong that we could not find anyone who suffered it to work on it, and depended on it for three hundred crowns.
After I had spent twelve or fifteen years like this, and had depended so much, and found nothing, and had experienced infinite Recepts, and in all manners of Dissolving and freezing Salts, such as Common Salt, Armoniac Salt, of Pine, Buckwheat, Metallic Salt, dissolving and congealing, and calcining more than a hundred times per two years: in Alums of Rock, of Glace, of Scaiole, of Plume; in all Marks, in Blood, in Hair, in Urine, in Man's Dung, in Sperm, in Animals and Plants, as Herbs; and after in Coperoses, in Atramens, in Eggs, in Separation of Elements, in Athanor by Alembic and Pellan, by Circulation, by Decoction, by Reverberation, by Ascension and Descension, Fusion, Ignition, Elementation, Rectification, Evaporation, Conjunction, Elevation , Subtiliation, and by Commixion, and by infinite other sophistical Regimes: And was there in all these operations twelve years; so that I was well thirty-eight years old, that I was after the extraction of the Mercury of the Herbs and the Animals: as long as I depended on it, as much by Deceivers, as by me, to know them, about six thousand crowns.
Afterwards, always searching, I began to lose courage, but always I prayed to God that he would give me grace to reach this Science. It happened that there came a Lai, Bailiff of our country, who wanted to make the Stone of Common Salt and dissolved it in the Air, then froze it in the Sun, and did many other things, which would take a long time to tell, and in this we persevered for a year and a half, and nothing did, because we did not work on Materia due. And as the venerable Peat says, called the Code of all truth, You cannot find in the thing what is not there. But, as is quite clear, Common Salt is not the thing we are looking for, and we saw that fifteen times we started again, and saw no alteration in nature, and so we left this work.
And then we saw others, who made very good Etching to want to dissolve very good Fine Silver, and Copper and other Metals, and dissolved in one Vessel fine Silver, and Quick Silver in another, and all with the same Water and very violent, and left them there for twelve months, and then took the two Vials, and put them in one; And then they said it was marriage of Body and Spirit. Then they put hot ashes on it, and evaporated the third part of the strong water; and what we had left, we put into a very narrow triangular Cucurbite; and the Vessel, we put it in the Sun, and then in the Air, as long as we said they would create little crystalline Lapils, melting like wax, and frozen. And said that it was Pierre in white, and that that of the Sun, thus made, was in red.
And we made in this manner twenty-two Vials, all half full; and they gave us three. And we all waited five years for these crystalline stones to be created at the bottom of the Vials; and in the end found nothing of our intention, and never would: For (as the venerable Peat says) We want nothing strange in our Stone; but of itself it perfects itself, and completes itself in its unique metallic Matter. As long as I was forty-six and over.
Afterwards we, with a Doctor Monk of Cisteaux, named Master Geoffroi le Leuvrier, wanted to make the Stone for him: Because we knew well that anything other than the only Stone was false, and therefore we were only looking for the only Stone , and knew it was the truth. And here's what we did. We bought two thousand Celine's Eggs, and we boiled them in water, until they were very hard; then we separated the hulls apart, and the aubins and the reds apart, and calcined the hulls until they were white as snow; and the aubins and the reds we rotted them all by them in horse manure; and then distilled them thirty times, and drew from them White water, and then Red oil apart, and Finally we did things that would take a long time to say, and in the end we found nothing of what we asked for, and persevered in it two years and a half, as long as in despair we left everything; for also we do not need due Matter. We stayed, my Companion and I, and learned there to sublimate the Spirits, and to make Etching, to dissolve, to distil and separate the Elements, and to make Furnaces, and Fires in many ways; and were well eight years in these Operations.
Finally, after came a Theologian, a great Cleric, who was Prothonotary of Bergues, and with him we wanted to work, and to make the Stone, which he wanted to do with a single Coperose. And first, we distilled good Vinegar eight times, then we put the Coperose in there, first calcined by three months, then took out and put back the Vinegar, and the Coperose remained at the bottom, and then we put the Vinegar back, then pulled and put back, and did so every day fifteen times; so much so that I had quartan fevers for fourteen months, and nearly died of it; and left everything for a year, and found nothing; because we know about Strange Matter.
Afterwards came a man, a nice clerk, and told us that the Emperor's confessor knew of a certain stone, who was called Master Henri. And then we went to him, and depended well on two hundred crowns before having had the acquaintance of him: And in short, by great means and great Friends, we had his acquaintance. And here is how he did it. He put Fine Silver with Quick Silver, and then he took Sulfur and Olive Oil, and melted everything together on the fire, and the Sulfur melted with the Oil, and then cooked it, very slowly. , in a Pelican, very strong lute with two fingers from above, all dressed in Lut fort, and with a stick we incorporated everything together, and our Matter never wanted to be taken, nor mixed well. And when we had mixed everything well for a good two months, we put it in a Glass Vial lute with good clay, and then dried it, and put it in hot ashes for a long time, and made fire all around the Vial. , to near the mouth, and we said that in fifteen days or three weeks, by virtue of the Body and the Sulphur, they would be converted into Silver. And after the time of our Decoction, he put Lead in the Vial, as it seemed to him, and melted everything on a strong fire, and then drew it out and made it refine. Then we had to find our Multiplied Third Party Money. And to this Work I put for my share ten marcs of Silver; and the others had put thirty-two marks in it; of which we had a good hundred and thirty marks of silver or more, and had everything refined, and of the thirty-two marks, which the others had put in, found only twelve marks; and I of my ten marcs, I had only four. And so, as in despair and pain, we left everything. And I who wanted to have all the Secret, I lost in all, to have the acquaintance of the said Confessor, as much in Money that I had put there, as in other things, well four hundred crowns.
And so I forsook everything, well two months, that I didn't want to hear about it; for all my relatives blamed me and tormented me so much, that I could not eat or drink, and that I became so thin and so disfigured, that everyone waited that I was poisoned. And in short, I was still so animated and inflamed to work more than before a thousand times; for I doubted my time, which was passing, and I was over fifty-eight. Alas! I did not work on the right Way or Matter. For as Geber says: Of any imperfect Bodies, such as Lead, Tin, Iron, Copper, to mix them with Bodies perfect simply by nature, they do not make themselves rather perfect. For the Bodies perfect by nature, have only simple perfect form for their degree and nature, and Nature has only worked there as to the first degree of perfection: And so they are as if dead, and can give nothing of their perfection to the imperfect Bodies, for two reasons. First, because they themselves remain imperfect, therefore they have only that perfection which is necessary and required of them. Secondly, because they cannot mingle the Principles of themselves together; as it is written in the Thirteenth Digest of Pandecta, and in the Book of Calib, and in the Book of Geber, and in the Natural Work, and in Master Daalin, and in Arnaud de Villeneuve; all these reasons are clearly stated there. But as it is written in the Mirror of Alchemy, and also in the Address of Wanderers, which Plato composed, and in the Epistle of Euvral, and also in the great Rosary desired, and by Euclid in his brief Treatise, and also in all the true Books, saying thus: The vulgar Bodies that Nature only in Mining has completed, they are dead, and cannot perfect the Imperfect; but if by Art we took them and perfected them seven or ten or twelve times, so much would they tint ad infinitum; for then they are penetrating, entering, tingen, and more than perfect and lively in the eyes of the Vulgar. And by this, says Rasis and Aristotle, in his Light of Lights, and Aulphanes in his Pandecfe, and Daniel in 5. Chap. of its Retreat, That our full Gold is more than lively. And that our gold is not vulgar gold; neither is our White Silver (which is a whole thing) Common Silver, for they are alive, and the others are dead, and have no strength. And also as one can see in the Golden Code of all truth, and in several others.
And thus we have seen and known many and infinite working in these Almagamations and multiplications in white and red, with all the Matters, that you could imagine, and all the pains, continuations and constancy, that I believe is possible. ; but never did we find our Gold, nor our Silver multiplied either by a third, or by a half, or by any part. And if we have seen so many Bleachings and Rubifications, Recepts, Sophistications, by so many countries, so much in Rome, Navarre, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Alexandria, Barbary, Persia, Messina, in Rhodes, in France, in Scotland, in the Holy Land, and its surroundings, in all of Italy, in Germany and in England, and almost all over the world. But we only ever found People toiling over Sophisticated things and Herbal, animal, vegetable and plantable Matter, and Mineral Stones, Salts, Alums, and Etchings. Distillations and Separations of the Elements, and Sublimations, Calcinations, Freezings of Quicksilver by Herbs, Stones, Waters, Oils, Manure and Fire, and very strange Vessels, and we never found Laborers on due Matter.
We found many in these countries, which knew the Stone well; but we could never get to know them. And so I depended on these things, as much for seeking, as for going, as for testing, as for anything else, well thirteen thousand crowns, and sold a Guardian, which was worth me well eight mule German florins, as long as all my parents dismissed me, and was in great poverty, and had hardly any money left; also I was already sixty-two years old and more: And still whatever misery I had, pain and suffering and shame, that I had to leave my country; always trusting in the mercy of God, which never fails those who have good will and work, I went to Rhodes, for fear of being known, and there, always I sought if I could find anyone who would could comfort.
And one day I found a great Cleric and Religious, who was said to know the Stone, and I went to him, and with great difficulty I had his acquaintance, and cost me a lot, and I borrowed from a Man , who knew mine, well eight thousand florins. And this is how he worked. He took very well beaten fine gold, and very well beaten fine silver, and put them together with four parts of sublimated mercury, and everything put into horse manure for a good eleven months, and then distilled at very high heat, and came a water. , and at the bottom remained an Earth, which we calcined with great fire, and cooked it by it in its Vessel: And the Water which we had distilled from it, we distilled it still six times; and all the Earths that remained at the bottom, we assembled them with the first, and thus we distilled until there was no more Earth. And when we had assembled all our Earths in a Vessel, and all our Waters in a Urinal, we put back the Water little by little on the Earth; but never for the trouble that we could put in it, the Earth would not take its Water, but always the Water swam above. And left it there well seven months, that we did not see any Conjunction or Alteration whatsoever. And then we made bigger fire, but never any Conjunction was made there, and thus all was lost. And on that I was there a good three years, and depended on it a good five hundred crowns.
He had beautiful Books, namely the Great Rosary, and so when I had been desperate, I went to read and study Master Arnaud de Villeneuve, and the Book of Words, which Marie the Prophetess composed, and other several, and I looked and studied, and I clearly saw that all that I had done was worth nothing, and so studied well by eight years long in these Books, which were good and beautiful, and full of good reasons philosophical, obvious and very good; and knowing clearly that all my Works of the past time were worth nothing, and I looked at the Code of all Truth, which says so well: Nature makes amends in its nature, and Nature rejoices in its nature, and Nature overcomes nature, and Nature contains Nature. And the said Book instructed me mightily, and delivered me from my Sophistications and wandering Works, and studied before I labored, and argued, and passed many sleepless nights. Because I thought in myself, that by Man I could not achieve it; hence if they knew it, they would never want to say it; and if they did not know, what would be the use of frequenting them, and depending so much on them, and spending so much time and goods, and I despaired; and so I looked where more the Books agreed; so I thought that was the truth: For they can only tell the truth in one thing. And thus I found the truth. For where more they agree, that was the truth; how many that one names it in one way, and another in another; however it is all a Substance in their words. But I knew that falsity was in diversities, and not in accordance; because if it were true, they would only put a Matter there, some names and some figures which they yawned.Wherefore, Fus, for you have wanted to take pains to make this Book, which I have composed, so that you do not despair, and that you are not deceived like me. For the clearest and most beautiful example there is; it is because one sees others happening, governing themselves. And in my God, I believe that those who have written parabolically and figuratively their Books, speaking of Hair, Urine, Blood, Sperm, Herbs, Vegetables, Animals, Plants, and Stones and Minerals, as are Salts, Alums, and Coperoses, Atramens, Vitriols, Borax, and Magnesia, and any Stones, and Waters; I believe, I say, that it has never cost them much, or that they have taken little trouble, or that they are too cruel. Because, in the name of God, I who have had so much pain and misfortune, I still have great pity, and great compassion for Surveners.
Who then, out of fraternal love, wants to believe me, that he believes me, because it is his profit, and mine is only trouble; and whoever does not want to believe me will not feel himself in his Operations, and of himself will be punished, if by the example of others he does not want to be punished. Do not blame yourself for false Alchemists, nor those who believe in them. For all that by chance you will be able to find in your Books is that they will deceive you with their affronts and false Sacraments, saying, when they no longer know what to say: I did it, so it is. And I say if you don't run away from them, you'll never taste good. For what the Books grant you on the one hand, they take away from you on the other by their affirmations and oaths. And in my God, myself, when I had this Science, before I had experienced it, and implemented it, I knew it by Books well two years before I made it. But as I tell you, when by any adventure these Deceivers came to me, these hangable and detestable thieves, by their great oaths, they led me astray from the good opinion, where the Books had placed me, and swore from no time of some things which were not true, of which I knew quite the opposite: For already in my follies I had experienced it: And thus could I never come to affirm my opinion, until I I left them at all, and devoted myself to studying more and more on this matter: For whoever wants to learn, must frequent the Sages, and not the Deceivers; and the Sages, by which one can learn, are the Books: Asked that they show him in strange names and obscure words: For know that no Book declares in true words, except by Parables, as figure. But the Man must advise there and often revise the possible of the Sentence, and to look at the Operations that Nature addresses in its Works.
By which I conclude and believe me. Let Sophistications and all who believe in them Flee their Sublimations, Conjunctions, Separations, Congelations, Preparations, Disjunctions, Connections, and other Deceptions. And keep silent those who lease another Tincture than ours, not true, bearing no profit. And those are silent who go saying and sermonizing other Sulfur than ours, which is hidden within Magnesia, and who want to draw other Quicksilver than from the red Servant, and other Water than ours, which is permanent, which in no way joins together. only to its nature, and does not wet anything else, except something which is the proper unity of its nature. For there is no other Vinegar than ours, no other Diet than ours, no other Colors than ours, no other Sublimation than ours, no other solution than ours, no other Putrefaction than ours.
Leave Alums, Vitriols, Salts, and all Atramens, Borax, Any Strong Waters, Animals, Beasts, and all that can come from them; (Hair, Blood, Urine, Sperm, Flesh, Eggs) Stones and all Minerals. Leave all Metals alone: For how many of them be the entrance, and our Matter, by all the sayings of Plulosophists, must be composed of Quicksilver; and Quicksilver is in other things only metals (as it appears by Geber, by the Great Rosary, by the Code of all Truth, by Plato, by Morien, by Haly, by Calib, by Mary, by Avicenna , by Constantin, by Alexander, by Bendegid, Efid, Serapion, by Master Arnaud de Villeneuve, by Sarne, who made the Book, which is called Lilium, by Daniel, by S. Thomas in Breviloque, by Albert in his Tramite, by the Abbreviation of Escot, in the Epistle of Seneca, which he writes to Aros King of Arabia and of Hemus, and by Euclid in his seventieth chapter of the Retractions, and by the Philosopher in the third of Meteora, where all clear without any Parable is said: That the Metals are nothing but Quicksilver congealed by way of degree of decoction; yet are they not our Stone, while they remain in metallic Form: for it is impossible that a Matter has two Forms How then do you want them to be the Stone, which is a worthy Medium Form between Metal and Mercury; if first icelle Form is not removed and corrupted? And for this, say Aristotle and Democritus in the Book of Physics, in the 3rd Chapter of Meteora: Do great dear to the Alchemists; for they will never change the Form of Metals, if there is no Reduction made to their first Matter: And so say it all the Books speaking of Metallic Nature.
But to understand that that is to say, to change them and reduce them to their first Being, you must know that Matter is that thing of which a Form or something is made; as the first Matter of Man is the Sperm of Man and Woman. But the Ignorant want to hear this word, Reduction to the first Matter, that is, to reduce it, as they say, to the four Elements. For the four Elements are the first Matter of created things. They say true that the first Matter are the four Elements; but that is to say, they are the first Matter of the first Matter; that is, the Elements all four, these are the things of which Sulfur and Quicksilver are made, which are the first Matter of Metals. Reason Why? For the four Elements are as good for making a Donkey and an Ox as for making Metals. Because first it is necessary that the Elements are made by nature Quicksilver and Sulfur, before the Elements can be said to be the first Matter of Metals. As, for example, when a Man is composed, he is not composed of the four Elements, which are still four Elements; but already Nature has transmuted them into the first Matter of Man. Also when Nature transmuted the four Elements into Mercury and Sulphur; then is the first proper Matter of Metals. For what ? Because make Nature after all what she wants on this Matter, that is to say Mercury and Sulphur, it will always be Metallic Form. But before and during that they were still four Elements, and that it was not yet Quicksilver nor Sulphur; Nature might well have made of these four Elements an Ox, a Grass, or a Man, or something else. Thus it clearly appears that the four Elements, which they mean, are not the first Matter of Metals: but Sulfur and Quicksilver are called the proper and true first Matter of Metals. And if what they say were true, it would follow that Men, Metals, Herbs, Plants, and brute Beasts would be all one thing, and would make no difference. For if that were true, the Metals would only be the four Elements: And so everything would be one thing, which would be to concede a great inconvenience. And thus, it appears clearly that the four Elements remaining thus, are not the first Matter of Metals. I still want to prove it thus: For if this were true, that the four Elements were the first Matter of Metals, it would follow that Metals could make Men: for Men are only made of the four Elements. And thus, it would follow that of one thing, each thing could be done; and like would not beget like, no more than Metal; for all would be only the four Elements. And as you know, all things are made of the four elements.
Thus there would be no Generation, no proper Seed, and there would be no difference when everything was made of the four Elements, and everything would be a Substance. Example. The Sperm of the Man apart, and that of the Woman apart, are not the first Matter of the Child, because Nature can do something else with them, while they are thus apart; like converting them into Verminous Matter. But when once they are conjoined and united together in their virtues, if one has faith in the virtue of the other, and the other likewise his own: Then Nature cannot do anything but this 'Child: For it is the end of this Matter, and no other has fled. So this spermatic union is called first Matter: for after this Matter is made, Nature, working on it, only makes the Form of a Child: And Nature cannot give another Form to the Matter on which she works, that the thing to which this Matter is inclined and disposed, and is the whole end; And thus, this spermatic union made, Nature laboring, cannot give it any other Form than Human, and this Matter is disposed and has no power to receive any other Form than that.
Big example for the ignorant. When a Man wants to go to some path, and he is at a crossroads, he is not yet on his own path to the place where he wants to go, rather than on another; but when once he is on the path which is addressed to the path, do afterward what he wills, always continuing the straight path, he will come there. Thus it clearly appears that each thing has its own Way, and its own Matter of which it is made, and not that each thing is made of each Matter.
Item. If this were true, neither Heaven nor Clarity would be needed: For the four Elements never walled up their nature, and everything would always be a thing, which is an erroneous thing.
Item. It clearly appears afterwards, by experience, that each thing has its similar thing, of which it is made naturally, and nothing else can be made of it. As to make a Horse, one must have a horse nature transformed into Sperm, united by two contrary Matters; however of a genus equine. And to make a Man, Nature does not primarily take a horse nature; For each thing has its principal Seed, of which it is made and Multiplies itself, and not otherwise.
Item. This appears: For in the Creation of Man, God made Man and then Woman, and said to them: Make your Substances similar to you. Then said of the others that he had made: Bring each one her fruit, and multiply, and make her like. For if of one thing all could have been made, God would not have made so many things; but he made each kind, that each might be his like. Item. Does not God even in the Bible say to Noah before the Flood: Make an Ark long and wide, and put in it a pair of each Animal, namely Male and Female; so that after our past ire, each multiple according to his Kind, and not otherwise. Thus, then, you see clearly that each thing requires its like, to be made and begotten: For thus has created God the Roots of the various Creatures, so that each might multiply its Substance.
Now, I want you to prove my point by the authorities of the Philosophers: for the Escot clearly says that coagulated quicksilver and sulphurous quicksilver are the first Matter of Metals. Item. In Peat, a man called Noscus, who was King of Albania, said thus: Know that from Man comes only Man; of Volatile than Volatile, nor of Brute Beast than Brute Beast, and that Nature improves only in its Nature, and not in any other. Similarly, says Master Jean de Meun, in his Testament: Each Tree bears its fruit; a pear tree, pears, a pomegranate tree, pomegranates; and thus Metal makes and multiplies Metal, and nothing else.
Item. Géber says in his Somme, which Géber duly speaks in no place; how much his whole Book is Sophisticated and Erroneous: We have experienced everything, and for spectacular reasons; but we neither have nor can find anything abiding, neither static, nor permanent, but the only viscous Humidity, which is the Root of all Metals: for all other Humidities, by the fire slightly go away, and are evaporate, and separate one Element from the other; like Water through fire, one part will go away in smoke, the other in Water, and the other in Earth remaining at the bottom of the Vessel. And thus separate the Elements from all things: for they are not well united in homogeneity, and whatever little fire you make, whatever you put in it, will burn up and. will separate from its natural composition. But the viscous Humidity, that is to say Mercury, is never consumed there, never separates from its Earth, nor from its other Element: for either everything remains, or everything goes away, and thing whatever there is no reduction in weight. And so with these words expressly concludes Géber, That for this worthy Stone, only this Substance of Mercury is needed, by Art very well mondilated, penetrating, tingent, stant in the battle of fire, not allowing itself to be separated into various parts; thus always standing in its mere Essence of Mercuriosity. A therefore, he says, is a thing which conjoins with the profound radical of the Metals, and corrupts their imperfect Form, and introduces into them another Form according to the virtue of the Elixir or tingent Medicine, according to its color.
Item. Aros, the great King, who was a very great Cleric, says: Our Medicine is made of two things, being of one Essence, that is, of the fixed and non-fixed Mercurial union. Spiritual and Bodily, Cold and Wet, Hot and Dry, and more cannot be done. Because the Engine of the Art does not introduce anything new in Nature in its Root; but Art duly aided by Nature in teaching him: and Nature aided by Art in fulfilling his deepest desires, with the intention of being a good Worker. Item, Morien said: Mix and cast Medicine upon the Diminished Bodies of Perfection, and say It is none other than Quicksilver, by exalted Art on the imperfect Quicksilver. And so they clearly show that it is none other than Quicksilver. Item, Master Arnaud de Villeneuve says: Your whole intention is to digest and cook the Mercurious Substance, and according to its dignity, it (will lignify the Bodies; which are nothing other than decooked Mercurious Substance.
It could be proved by infinite reasons that the double Mercury is the only next first Matter of the Metals, not the four Elements. And I wanted to prove it, to silence a multitude of Wanderers, who, to confirm their errors, affirm the four Elements to be the first Matter of Metals. But one could also argue and oppose my whole answer against me. Well, they will say, we reduce the four Elements afterwards by our Art into Mercury and Sulphur, which are the first Matter of Metals: And thus, they will have been better reduced to this simplicity and subtlety of the four Elements. , than to be only reduced to their first and next Matter; that is, in Mercurial Substance alone.
Now, I want to prove this to be wrong and false, by several obvious reasons, so that at all I nail their mouths, and put an end to their evil intention; and that it is not said that I correct others out of my will, but for good reason.
So I tell you that if that were true, there shouldn't be any Nature. For what ? For Art would make the Sperms of all things, and would make Men of the Elements only, without any other Nature, and without alteration. He would do the Principles of Compositions; which thing is against all good understanding: for Nature produces and has produced Matter, from which Art helps it afterwards. It would therefore follow that a Physician by his Art, or by Herbs, would bring a Dead man to life; or that a Man, who would be dying, he would heal him. Which is against the saying of Avicenna and Rasis, where they say thus: Medicine is only helping Nature: because if Nature is not there, it cannot have effect. Also a laxative put in a dead body, does not let go: for it is not addressed by Nature, And as Hippocrates says in his Aphorisms: Art presupposes a thing by Nature created alone, and then helps it, and Art helps this Nature, and Nature the Art. What Hippocrates clearly shows; which Hippocrates of Natural Principles was more divine than human, and as a spiritual Angel without a body. It therefore appears that Art, in working, must have a Matter, which has already been by Nature, and not by Art: And if it were by Art, Nature would not be required there, because it would be the her work, and she would put nothing new in it. Thus it clearly appears that Nature of herself makes the sperm natures and creates them; then Art, working on top, conjoins them by following the end and the natural spermatic intention, on which it works, and not otherwise.
I still want to prove it for another reason. For when they would be reduced, if it were possible, into four Elements; shouldn't these four Elements be reduced afterwards once again to Mercury and Sulphur, which are the first Matter of Metals, as I have said and already proved? Thus you would first have to reduce the Bodies into Quicksilver and Sulphur, and then this Quicksilver and this Sulphur, into four Elements: then again these four Elements, into Sulfur and Quicksilver; for that purpose that you can make metallic nature of it; what would be madness to do so.
For since everything is but one and the same thing and a Substance, and does not acquire a new Nature, nor Matter, by this reduction; so that there is always only what was first there: of what use are so many reductions to him? For as much Substance was there while they were in the form of Sperm, Quicksilver, and Brimstone, as after he is reduced to the four Elements, and acquires nothing new, either in virtue or in weight, quantity or quality. Reason, because there is no newly conjoined Matter which dignified it, nor that between them they come true; but always is only one Matter carried here and there, without point of addition; and therefore it is worth as much in the form of own Sperm, as in the form of the four Elements.
But if you were to oppose our Stone, saying that it also acquires nothing. I say to you that if fact: because we reduce it, so that in here Reduction is made Conjunction of new Matter of the same Root; and without this Reduction cannot be done: But there is addition of Matter. Thus of these two Matters one helps the other, to make a Matter more worthy than they were, when they were all alone apart. And so it clearly appears that our Reduction is required: for by it Matters take new form and virtue, and New Matter is put there: But in such Reductions, as we say, no New Matter is put there either. , for something they do: for what they do is nothing other than to circulate a Matter bare of Form, without innovating or exalting anything, by no acquisition of Matter or Form. And thus it clearly appears that their Reductions are only crazy and erroneous fantasies.
Item. I want to prove it by Master Guillaume le Parisien, a very great Cleric, who was wise in this Science, and touches on it well, and says so. In the creation of the Child, there is first the commixtion of two Sperms different in quality, one cold and moist, and the other hot and dry, in the Maternal Vessel; and the warmth of the Mother, digesting and mixing the virtues of the two Sperms, and increasing their virtue by sanguine Humidity, which is of the Substance of which the female Sperm is, increasing it by enlarging and activating the active virtue of the male Sperm, and feeds it until the medium Substance is perfectly made, holding of the nature of both totally, without diminution or superfluity. And as he expressly says: Nature creates Sperm and not Art.
Because Art cannot, but afterwards, Art puts them in the maternal womb. And as he says: there is indeed Art helping Nature to mix them, like keeping warm, hardly moving, eating good things and light digestion. But Art only helps Nature, in tasks already done by Nature itself. And since he says: Thus similarly in our Art. Art cannot create the Sperm by itself. But when Nature has created them, therefore Art, with the natural virtue, which is within the already created Sperm Matter, conjoins them as Minister of Nature. For it is clear that Art puts nothing of Form, or Matter, or virtue into it; but only it helps of what is, and is not done. And yet is there with Nature and help.
Thus it appears clearly by this notable Character, who is the Head of the Schools of Paris, that Nature creates the Materials, and not the Art. But afterwards, when they are created, Art makes them be and conjoin them with natural virtue, which is the principal Cause, and Art is the secondary Cause of this thing. And so note well that Art does nothing without Nature. For enough can a man sow and plow the earth, before he reaps any good; if first there is no Matter that Nature has created; namely, the Grain of Wheat, and thus Art is aided by Nature, and Nature by Art. And by this it appears very clearly that Art cannot create the Sperm nor the Materials of Metals: But Nature creates them, and then Art administers: And by this, can you see, that neither Man nor his Art , cannot reduce the four Elements to a reductive, alterative, or attractive Sperm Form, for this end tending and disposed to receive action nor Form.
And if you argue with me that the Philosophers say that in our Work, there must be the four Elements: I tell you that they understand that in the two Sperms are the four Qualities of the four Elements; that is to know. Hot and Dry, which are Air and Fire, into ripe Quicksilver, which is masculine Sperm; and Cold and Moist in raw and imperfect Quicksilver, when in the end, which are Earth and Water, in the feminine Sperm. Not that currently there are four separate elemental things, as are the four Elements that we see. For they would no longer be the Raw Material of Metals, nor would Human Art know how to alter them, to make of them the two Metallic Sperms, which are the first Matter of Metals. As Calib Philosopher, who was King of Albania, says this expressly and quite clearly, in this way: Know that at the beginning of our Work, we only have to deal with two Matters. We only see two, we only touch two, so only two enter neither at the beginning, nor in the middle, nor at the end. But in these two, the four Qualities are virtual there. For to the major Sperm, as to the most worthy, the two most worthy Elements are there in Quality, which are Fire and Air: and to the other Sperm, which is raw and imperfect in its nature, are the other two Qualities, and the two other imperfect and less worthy Elements, which are Water and Earth. So by this Calib you can clearly see that in this Art there are only two Spermatic Matters of the same Root, Substance and Essence; that is, of only mercurial substance viscous and dry, which does not join with anything which is in this World, except with the Body.
Item, This very plainly says Morien in his Book, saying; Make it hard aquatic, to that end that Water joins itself to it: and seal the Fire within cold Water. That is to say, conjoined the masculine sperm, which is nothing other than Mercury cooked and ripe, which holds within it in digestion the element of fire; and mixes it inside the female sperm; that is to say, the Living Water.
And on this subject says Isudrius in the Peat: Mix Water with Fire, and therefore is it a Spermatic Union, and is in very near power to receive and come to the perfection of the most noble Stone. Even within the same Book, which is the Code of all truth, says a Philosopher named Atefimalef. Put the red Man with his white Woman in a round Chamber, circled with fire of bark, with continual heat, and leave them there as long as the Conjunction of the Man in Philosophical Water is made, but not vulgar; that is to say, in Water holding all that is required to its perfection; which is then the first Matter of the Stone, and not otherwise. Because it has in itself the nature of the fixed, which fixes it, and the spiritual nature, and worthy Substance of very noble Stone. Briefly know that all the Philosophers, for whoever understands them, are all concordant. But those who are Ignorant, and are not the Children of Science, find them different.
Now I have proved to you and spoken of the first Matter of Metals, and I have said that it is Mercury and Sulphur: But in order that we proceed in our Book for the profit of the Hearers, and that they do not pass unknowingly what is to say Mercury and Sulphur, and what thing it is; I will say it in the subsequent third Part of my Book, and how in the Earth are created the Metals, and of their differences, by necessary reasons and by authorities of my magistrates the Philosophers, from whom I learned and knew it by the will of GOD my Creator.
To have an understanding of this Matter, one must first know that God made in the beginning a confused and unordered Matter without any order, which was full, by the will of God, of several Matters. And from it he drew the four Elements, from which he made Beasts and various Creatures, by mixing them. And no Creatures he made Intellectives, other Sensitives, other Vegetatives, and other Minerals. The Intellectives and the Sensitives are created from the four Elements; but the Fire and the Air have more dominion there than the others: nevertheless in the Sensitives the Fire is lowered there, for what the Air is as much Lord in this thing as it, as are the brute Beasts, Horses, Donkeys, Birds, and all Sensitive Creatures. The others are created from the four Elements, which are called Vegetative Creatures, which grow and feed, and have life; but they have neither Sense nor understanding, and those are composed of Air and Water, which have dominion there; but already the Air is lowered there of its dignity by the Water, and the Water by a single vaporous terrestrial Substance. And so are after the Minerals, which are created of Earth and Water; but the dignity of Water is more earthy than aquatic. And in these Minerals there are various Forms, and can never be multiplied, except by Reduction to their first Matter.
The other Creatures, before said, have their Seeds, in which is all the multiplicative virtue, and all the final perfection of the Thing composed: but the Metallic Matter is made of cold and moist Mercury alone crud. Nevertheless, as I said, all Things have the four Elements.
Also, in the Mercury, which is the veins of the Earth, there are the four Elements; ie, Hot and Wet, Cold and Dry: But both have dominion, ie, Cold and Wet, and Hot and Dry are subject. Thus, when the heat of the Celestial Movement penetrates all around the Earth within its veins; the heat of that Celestial Movement, which is within the said veins of the Earth, is there so small, that it is imperceptible, but is continued there. Because, even if it is night, the natural heat does not cease to be there: And here heat does not come from the Sun, but comes from the Reflection of the Sphere of Fire, which circuits the Air, and also from the Movement continual Celestial Bodies, which make continual heat so slow, that it is hardly possible even to imagine nor to hear. And if the Sun were the cause of mineral heat, as Raymond Lully and Aristotle say, still it would always be continual heat; for the Earth is surrounded by the Sun day and night. But this opinion, whatever Raymond Lully and Aristotle say, is false and erroneous. For the Sun is neither hot nor cold; but its movement is naturally hot.
To, therefore, this heat, conducted by the Movement of the Celestial Bodies, goes continually through the veins of the Earth; not that it heats up, as some Fools cook, that it does, they say, Mine hot: perfection of Sun Mercury, which is more than six hundred years in it; well as it is all clear. Because the Earth is cold and dry, and the Miners are at the center of the Earth. It would therefore be necessary, before the heat passed to the Mines of the Earth, if they really had and felt the heat of the Sun, however small it was; that we who are in the Air would die of the heat that we would have: because it would have to be very vehement, to pass the Water and the Earth, to go to the Mineral Places: because the coldness of the Water and the thickness of the Earth would kill her if she wasn't strong. And therefore no Beast or Creature would live on the Earth, if what they say were true.
But this must be heard naturally, because the said Minerals are composed of the four Elements, namely Mercury. When the Elements move and heat the Mercury, this Motion makes the natural heat. And thus the Fire, which is within the Mercury, and the Air move and rise little by little: For they are more worthy Elements than are the Water and the Earth of the Mercury: Heat dominate. And for what the heat and dryness are more worthy Elements, they want to overcome the others; namely, the Coldness and the Humidity which dominate in Mercury: for what the natural Movement and heat caused by the Movements of the Celestial Bodies, also move the Movements of Mercury; that is to say, its Qualities. And for a long time first the Dryness of Mercury overcomes a degree of its Humidity, and becomes Lead. And then afterwards she overcomes yet another degree, and becomes Etain. And then the heat of Mercury begins to consume some of the Humidity and Coldness, and becomes Moon. And then the heat dominates even more, and becomes Brass. And then Iron, and Perfect Sun. And so the two Qualities, before said, which were drunk to be succumbed by Coldness and Wetness, now consume and succumb the others, and Heat and Dryness dominate. And these two Qualities, which at first succumbed, namely Hot and Dry, when they begin to awaken themselves, is Sulphur: And the Coldness and Humidity of the same Mercury, is Mercury. Thus must it be understood, namely that Sulfur is not a thing which is divided from Quicksilver nor separated; but is only that Heat and Dryness, which do not dominate the coldness and Humidity of Mercury, which Sulfur, after digested, dominates the two other Qualities, that is to say Coldness and Moisture, and imprints its virtues there. And by these various degrees of Decoctions, the diversities of Metals are made.
And to experience, look at Lead; it is volatile by continued fire; for the two Qualities, namely the Cold and the Humid Mercury, have not yet been othered by the Hot and the Dry: And the Hot and the Dry do not dominate in any way. And if they dominated, they would not in any way go from above the strongest fire in the world. For the Mercury would not go away for the fire; ain would rejoice in his fellow man. But all the other Metals flee it, except the Sun; for still are cold and moist, some more than others; according as they hold even less Cold and Humidity. A therefore they flee their Opposites, and cannot suffer them, and fly away. For each Thing flees from its opposite, and rejoices in its like.
Thus, it follows that the Sun is only pure Fire in Mercury. For never, no matter how big a fire, does he flee, where all the others cannot bear it, some more, others less; according as they are further away or closer to the complexion of Fire. And so we can hear of the complexion of Metals and Mining. For Sulfur is nothing other than pure Fire, that is, Hot and Dry, hidden from Mercury, which is for a long time in the Mining, excited by the natural Movement of Celestial Bodies, and which is also carried on others ( Cold and Moist of Mercury) and digests them, according to the degrees of the alterations, in various Metallic Forms. And the first is Lead, the less hot and moist; the second Pewter; the third Silver; the fourth Brass; the fifth Iron; the sixth Sun, which Sun is in its perfection of Metallic Nature, and is pure Fire digested by Sulphur, being within Mercury.
And so you can see clearly that Sulfur is not a separate thing out of the Substance of Mercury, and that it is not Sulfur vulgal. Because if thus were, the Matter of Metals would not be of a homogeneous nature, which is against the statement of all the Philosophers. But the Philosophers called this Sulphur; because of the Dominant Qualities, it is an inflammable thing; as Sulphur; hot and dry, like Sulphur. And for this similarity is it called Sulphur; but not that it is Sulfur vulgal, as some Fools do.
So you can clearly see that the Metallic Form is otherwise created by Nature, pure Mercurial Substance, and not strange. And Géber says it clearly in his Somme, thus; Deep in the nature of Mercury is Sulphur, which is made by long waits in the veins of the Earth Mine. Item, very clearly say it Morien and Aros: Our Sulfur is not vulgal Sulfur, but is fixed and does not fly, and is of Mercurial nature; and not anything else. And so, they say, do we like Nature; for Nature has in Mining, no other Matter to work with, but pure Mercurial Form; as appears by reason, authority, and experience. And said Mercury is the fixed and incombustible Sulphur, which perfects our Work, without any other Substance being required, except pure Mercurial Substance. Similarly, Calib, Bendégid, Jésid and Marie all say it clearly. Nature makes the Metals of Heat and Dryness, overcoming the Coldness and Dampness of Mercury, altering it; not that anyone else perfects it. Thus it appears clearly by all the Philosophers, who would take a long time to recite. But some lunatics believe that in the procreation of Metals, there happens a Sulfurous Matter.
Thus it clearly appears that in Mercury, when Nature labors, is enclosed Sulfur; but it does not dominate there, if not by the warm Movement, where the aforementioned Sulfur is altered, and the two other Elements of Mercury. And Nature, by this Sulfur (the veins of the Earth) made according to the degree of the various Alterations Forms of the Metals.
So likewise we follow Nature. We put nothing strange in our Matter. But in our Quicksilver is fixed, incombustible, mercurious Sulphur; which however does not yet dominate: for the Humidity and Coldness of the volatile Mercury still dominates. But by continual action of heat, on this our persevering Quicksilver, the fixed mole by all the Volatile dominates, and vanquishes the Coldness and Humidity of Mercury: And the Heat and Dryness of the Fixed, which are its Qualities, begin to dominate; and according to the degrees of this alteration of Mercury by its Sulphur, various Metallic Colors are made; neither more nor less than Nature does in Mining. For the first is the Saturnelle blackness; the second is Jovial whiteness; the third is Lunar, the fourth Brazen, the fifth Martial, the sixth Soldic, and the seventh we lead her one degree by our Art, more than does Nature. Because we make it a degree in Metallic perfection more perfect in blood redness and very haughty. And because he is thus more than perfect, he perfects the others. For if he were not perfect, except only to the degree that simple Nature the perfect; Of what use would the length of this time of nine and a half months be to us? Because we would just as well take this Body as Nature created it. But, as I have shown you before, the male Body must be more than perfect by Art, by following Nature. And so with his Beyond perfection, he can perfect the other Imperfects, with his abundant and planetary radiation in Weight, in Color, in Substance, in Roots and in Mineral Principles.
And yet, who would be so windy to perfect it, as we ask, by other strange things, where there is no Commixion in its Roots? For, as Peat says, where vanity is lifted up from all falsehood; and by Arisleus, who was Governor sixteen years of the Universal World by his great learning and understanding, who was Greek, and was Assembler of the Disciples of Pythagoras, who, as we read in the Chronicles of Solomon, was the wisest, after Hermes, who onques was; and if one reads, that he never lied, and because he was called in some Books of Astrology the Truthful; and we find in his Book, That Nature only improves in its nature. How then do you want to amend our Matter, if not in its own nature? Take a good look, too, at Parmenides how he talks about it. For I tell you, in my God, it was he who was my first Addresser of my errors.
Thus it appears that Metallic Nature only improves in its metallic nature, and not in anything else, whatever it may be. And by our Art, we will complete in a few months, where Nature takes thousands of years. Because first the Heat in Mining is zero, therefore if it were there, it would happen suddenly: but in our Work, we have Double Heat; that is, Sulfur and Fire, aiding each other. Not, as Constantine and Empedocles say, that Fire is of the Substance of Matter, which augments the Work; for it would follow that it would break through day by day more, which is a thing full of error. But only the Fire is all the Art with which Nature is helped; because we couldn't do anything else about it. And for this know that strong fire does not alter them one another, and also strong fire keeps them from having movement with each other.
But make Fire vaporizing, digesting, continual, non-violent, subtle, surrounded, airy, enclosed, incombustible, altering. And (in my true God) I have told you all the way of Fire, and summarize my words, word for word. For Fire is everything, as you can see by all the sayings of the Code of all truth. Item, In this regard, look at what the Great Rosary says: Keep that you do not please perfect your Solution before the required time, because this advancement is a sign of deprivation of Conjunction. And for this, he says, be your Fire persevering and gentle in the degree of Nature, and amicable to the Body, digesting coldness.
Item, In this regard also says Mary the Prophetess. The strong Fire keeps from making the Conjunction; Strong Fire tints the white into the red of Poppy Field. And so you can imagine yourself, as I did. Because I put it in heat of dung, and in nothing was worth, and in Coal Fire without any means, and my Matter sublimated me, and did not dissolve. But in Fire, as I told you, vaporous, digesting, continuous, not violent, subtle, surrounded, airy, clear and enclosed, incombustible, altering, penetrating and lively. And if you are a man, as a true student must be, you will hear, by these words, what it must be. And even, look at what Peat says, without any desire: Artificial experience shows you what it will be. Look also, as Aristotle's Light says: Mercury must bake in a triple Vessel, and this is to evaporate and convert the activity of the Dryness of Fire into the vaporous Moisture of Air circulating Matter. Look in this regard at what Geber and Seneca assert.
Fire does not digest our Matter; but its altering and good heat, which is esteemed dry by Air, which is the medium where Fire serves to move and to half.
But I didn't want to talk about this. For it is the Fire which perfects it, or which destroys it. And as Aros and Calib say. In all our Work, our Mercury and Fire are sufficient for you in the middle and at the end. But in the beginning is it not so, because it is not our Mercury, which is good to hear. Item, Morien says: Know that our Leton is red, but we have no profit from it, until it is white. And know that the lukewarm Water penetrates it and whitens it, as it is, and the moist, vaporous Fire does it all. Item, Look at what Bendégid, Master Jean de Meung, and Haly say: Also between you, who every night and day seek and depend on your pecuns and consume your goods, and waste your time, and break your understandings, and study in so many subtlety of Books: I certify to you and let you know in charity and pity, as the Father would do to his only Son, that whiten the red Leton, by the stifled and lukewarm white Water: and break so many Sophistic Books, and so many Diets, and so many subtleties, and believe me. Because otherwise it's only a brain-breaking, and everyone comes to what I say. And so you can clearly see that this word is one of the best words ever spoken. Look also at what the Code of all truth says: Whiten the red, and then redden the white: for that is all the Art, the beginning and the end: And I tell you that if you do not blacken, you will not can bleach. For blackness is the beginning of whiteness; and the end of blackness is a sign of putrefaction, and alteration, and that the Body is penetrated and mortified. And concerning me, says Morien, the Wise Roman Philosopher: Unless it be rotten and blackened, it will not dissolve; and if it does not dissolve, its Water will not be able to completely penetrate or whiten it: and thus there will be no Conjunction and Mixtion, and consequently no Union. For there must be Mixtion before there is Union; and must Alteration before Mixtion: and must Composition before Alteration. And thus, by these degrees, our Matter is made after the example of Nature, in all and by all, without adding or diminishing anything to it; as you can see from my words.
But for what some could speak and ask about the Weight of our Matter, also how Nature takes this Weight: I answer them that in Places of Mining there is no Weight, as I tell you: Because Weight is when There are two things. But when there is only one thing and only one Substance, there is no regard to Weight; but Weight is when compared to Sulfur which is in Mercury: For, as I told you, the Element of Fire, which does not dominate in Mercury crud, is that which digests Matter. And for that, which is good Philosopher, knows how much the Element of the Fire is more subtle than the others, and how much it can overcome in each Composition of all the other Elements. And so the Weight is in the first elemental Composition of Mercury, and nothing else.
It is therefore necessary that first the Composition or Conjunction be done, then Alteration, then Mixtion, then the Union will be done. And for those who want to resemble Nature in everything, and by all their Facts, must proportion their Weight to that of Nature, and not otherwise. And on that note, look what the Code says of all truth: that if you do Confection without Weight, there will come retardation, whereby you will be discouraged if you do.
Item, says very well on this subject Abugazai, who was Master of Plato in this Science: The earthly power on its Resistance, according to deferred Resistance, it is the action of the Agent in this Matter. Which words are golden words on the foundation of Weight, and I have epilogized them well in the past: And who will not be Cleric, will not hear them soon: Now, if you are not Cleric, have them exposed to you by a Wise and Discreet. I myself would expose them to you; but I have vowed and promised to God, to Reason and to the Philosophers, that never by me, in clear and vulgar words, would Weight, nor Matter nor Colors be put, except in parabolic Words, which you will shortly have. And I tell you that this Word is completely true, without any diminution or superfluity, following the custom of the Sages.
But I didn't want to talk about this. For it is the Fire which perfects it, or which destroys it. And as Aros and Calib say. In all our Work, our Mercury and Fire are sufficient for you in the middle and at the end. But in the beginning is it not so, because it is not our Mercury, which is good to hear. Item, Morien says: Know that our Leton is red, but we have no profit from it, until it is white. And know that the lukewarm Water penetrates it and whitens it, as it is, and the moist, vaporous Fire does it all. Item, Look at what Bendégid, Master Jean de Meung, and Haly say: Also between you, who every night and day seek and depend on your pecuns and consume your goods, and waste your time, and break your understandings, and study in so many subtlety of Books: I certify to you and let you know in charity and pity, as the Father would do to his only Son, that whiten the red Leton, by the stifled and lukewarm white Water: and break so many Sophistic Books, and so many Diets, and so many subtleties, and believe me. Because otherwise it's only a brain-breaking, and everyone comes to what I say. And so you can clearly see that this word is one of the best words ever spoken.
Look also at what the Code of all truth says: Whiten the red, and then redden the white: for that is all the Art, the beginning and the end: And I tell you that if you do not blacken, you will not can bleach. For blackness is the beginning of whiteness; and the end of blackness is a sign of putrefaction, and alteration, and that the Body is penetrated and mortified. And concerning me, says Morien, the Wise Roman Philosopher: Unless it be rotten and blackened, it will not dissolve; and if it does not dissolve, its Water will not be able to completely penetrate or whiten it: and thus there will be no Conjunction and Mixtion, and consequently no Union. For there must be Mixtion before there is Union; and must Alteration before Mixtion: and must Composition before Alteration. And thus, by these degrees, our Matter is made after the example of Nature, in all and by all, without adding or diminishing anything to it; as you can see from my words.
But for what some could speak and ask about the Weight of our Matter, also how Nature takes this Weight: I answer them that in Places of Mining there is no Weight, as I tell you: Because Weight is when There are two things. But when there is only one thing and only one Substance, there is no regard to Weight; but Weight is when compared to Sulfur which is in Mercury: For, as I told you, the Element of Fire, which does not dominate in Mercury crud, is that which digests Matter. And for that, which is good Philosopher, knows how much the Element of the Fire is more subtle than the others, and how much it can overcome in each Composition of all the other Elements. And so the Weight is in the first elemental Composition of Mercury, and nothing else.
It is therefore necessary that first the Composition or Conjunction be done, then Alteration, then Mixtion, then the Union will be done. And for those who want to resemble Nature in everything, and by all their Facts, must proportion their Weight to that of Nature, and not otherwise. And on that note, look what the Code says of all truth: that if you do Confection without Weight, there will come retardation, whereby you will be discouraged if you do. Item, says very well on this subject Abugazai, who was Master of Plato in this Science: The earthly power on its Resistance, according to deferred Resistance, it is the action of the Agent in this Matter. Which words are golden words on the foundation of Weight, and I have epilogized them well in the past: And who will not be Cleric, will not hear them soon: Now, if you are not Cleric, have them exposed to you by a Wise and Discreet. I myself would expose them to you; but I have vowed and promised to God, to Reason and to the Philosophers, that never by me, in clear and vulgar words, would Weight, nor Matter nor Colors be put, except in parabolic Words, which you will shortly have. And I tell you that this Word is completely true, without any diminution or superfluity, following the custom of the Sages.
So I spoke to you in my Book of the Inventors of this Science, and of those who had it, and I told you and revealed to you how, myself, had it from the beginning to the end, and also Misleading and my costs and pains. And I tell you that I was sixty-four years old before I knew it, and if I had started since I was eighteen. But if I had had all the Books that I have had since, I would not have delayed so much, and only delayed for lack of Books: And had, if not, some erroneous, false and false Books; and if I only communicated and lectured to false people and ignorant thieves, cursed of God and of all Philosophy. But after I knew this Science, I indeed had the acquaintance of fifteen Characters, who really knew it. But among others, there was a Barberin, which, as we were talking about it together, and yet I already knew it two years before, but I had not done it, and so by chance it escaped me, in us disputing, to say that I had not done it, he wanted me since to mislead and divert. So that for this cause I left him: For I knew it as well as he. But we were arguing about it as Brethren, and the greatest thing we were talking about was hiding that precious Science. And so, as I tell you, after I knew it, I had the acquaintance of enough of those who knew it, by even before I had made it, and spoke clearly. But as to the manner of the Fire, some were different from others, however much the end was one thing. So, as the Peat tells you: Let the Flee not fly before the Pursuer, though the Fire is done in many ways, as it will be done.
Thus I conclude and understand myself. Our Work is made of a Root and two Mercurial Substances, taken raw, taken from the Mining, clean and pure, joined by fire of friendship, as Matter requires; baked continuously, until two make One; and in this One, when they are mingled, the Body is made Spirit, and also the Spirit is made Body. A therefore vigor your fire, until the fixed Body dyes the unfixed Body in its color and in its nature. For know that when he is well mixed, he overcomes everything, and is reduced to himself and his virtue. And know that afterwards he dies and overcomes a thousand, and ten times a thousand, and a thousand times a thousand. And whoever has seen it believes it: And also it multiplies in virtue, and in quantity, as the venerable and very true Pythagoras, and Isindrius, in the Code of All Truth, very evidently speak of.
And know that never in any Books did I find Multiplication, except in these; namely in the Great Rosary, in the Pandect of Mary, in the Truthful, in the Testament of Pythagoras, in the Benoîte Tourbe, in Morien, in Avicenna, in Bolzain, in Albugazar, who was Brother of Bendégid, in Jésid, who was from Constantinople City. And other Books, if it was there, I could never learn it. And if I saw well one of the March of Ancona, who knew the Stone very well; but the Multiplication, he did not know it: and pursued me well by sixteen years; but he never knows it from me, for he had the Books like me.
I have spoken to you of all Speculative, and informed you of the Mineral Principles, and necessary reasons, by which you can raise your understanding to know falsities from truths; and to be informed and assured in this Work. Now I want you to practically put the Practice into obscure Words, as I have done it four times and composed it. And I tell you that whoever will have my Book, he will be or must be free from all anguish, and must know the truth accomplished, without any diminution: For (in my God) I cannot speak to you more clearly than I have told you. spoken, if I did not show it to you; but reason does not want it. For you yourself, when you know it (I tell you the truth) you will seal it even more than me: Besides this, will you be angry at what I have spoken so openly: For it is the will of God that it is hidden, so as Peat says everywhere.
Now you must know that when I had studied so much, that I felt a little Clerc, I began to seek true People of this Science, and not erroneous: Because a learned Man asks for another learned man, not the contrary. In conclusion, everyone asks for his fellow man. On my way, I passed by the City of Appullée, which is in India, and heard that there was there one of the great Clerics of the World in all Sciences, who had hung for Joïel es Disputations, a beautiful little Book of very -end Or, the leaves and the cover, and all the said Booklet. And that was hanging to all comers who could argue about it. Alofs, me going through the City, always wanted to achieve something of honor. But knowing that without putting myself forward and having courage, I would never achieve loss and honor, for Science that knew: If did I take courage, by the encouragement of a valiant Man. So that, being on the way, I set out to go to the Disputations, where I won the said Booklet in front of everyone to argue well: which was presented to me by the Faculty of Philosophy, and everyone began to look very hard. So I went thinking through the fields, because I was tired of studying.
One night happened that I had to study, for the next day to argue: I found a little Fontenelle, beautiful and clear, all surrounded by a beautiful stone. And that stone was over an old oak hollow, and all around was lined with walls, lest Cows or other beasts, or Birds, bathe in it. So I had a great appetite to sleep, and sat down above the said Fountain, and I saw that it was covered over and was closed.
And there passed an old and old Priest: And I asked him why is this Fountain thus closed above and below, and on all sides. And it was gracious and good to me, and began me to say just like this: Lord, it is true that this Fountain is of terrible virtue, more than any other that is in the world; and is only for the King of the Country she knows well, and he her. For this King never passes by here without her pulling him to herself. And is with her inside this Fountain to bathe for two hundred and eighty-two days. And she makes the said King so young that there's no Man can defeat him. And so it goes.
And so this King caused the said Fountain to be closed, very first of a round white Stone, as you see. And the Fountain there is so clear as fine Silver, and of celestial color. Afterwards, so that it would be stronger, and that Horses would not walk there, nor other brute Beasts, he raised in it a hollow of Oak, cut in the middle, which guards the Sun, and the Shadow from it. Afterwards, as you see, all around it is a thick, well-enclosed wall; Because first it is enclosed in a fine and clear stone, and then in hollow Oak. And that is because Fontaine is of such a terrible nature that she would penetrate everything if she were inflamed and angry. And if she ran away, we would be lost.
So I asked him if he had seen the King there. And he answered me that yes, and that he had seen him enter: But that since he entered there, and that his Guard locked him up, never one sees him, until one hundred and thirty days . Then he begins to appear and to shine. And the Porter, who guards him, continuously heats his Bath for him, to keep him his natural heat, which is massaged and hidden within this Clear Water, and heats him day and night without ceasing.
So I asked him what color the King was. And he answered me, that he was dressed in Cloth of Gold on the first floor. And then had a black Velvet Doublet, and the Shirt white as snow, and the Flesh as sanguine, as blood. And so I always asked him about this King.
Afterwards I asked him when this King came to the Fountain, if he brought a large Company of strange People, and of small People with him. And he answered me amiably, in himself smiling: Certainly this King, when he prepares to come, he brings only himself, and leaves all his strange People; and approach no one but him to this Fountain, and no one dares to go there except his Guard, who is a simple Man; and the simplest Man in the World could be Keeper of it: For there is no use for anything else, except to heat the Bath; but he does not approach the Fountain.
So I asked him if he was Friend of her, and she Friend of him. And he answered me: They love each other marvelously, the Fountain attracts him to her and not him her: because she is like Mother to him.
And I asked him what Generation was this King. And he answered me: We know well that he is made of that Fountain: and this Fountain made him such as he is, without anything else.
And I asked him: Does he hold hardly any People? And he answered me: That six Persons, who are waiting, that if he could die once, they would have the Kingdom as well as he. And thus serve him and minister, for they expect all their Good from him.
So I asked him if he was old. And he answered me that he was more than the Fountain, and more mature than any of his People, who are under him.
And I said to him: Why then do his six Companions and Subjects kill him, and put him to death, since they expect so much Good from him by his death, and also since he is so old? And so he answered me: How very old he is, if there is none of his People or Subjects, who endured so much cold and hot like him, neither rain nor wind, nor any sorrow.
And I said unto him, At least that they do not kill him, and put him to death? And he answered me that all six, neither all their strength together, nor each one separately, could kill him.
And how then, say I, could they have the Kingdom which he holds, since they cannot have it until after his death, and they cannot kill him? So he said to me: All six are from La Fontaine, and have had all their Goods from it, as well as he: And so, for the love that they are of him, she takes him and draws to her, and kills him, and put him to death. Then he rose again by himself. And then from the Substance of his Kingdom, which is very small parts, each takes his piece. And each, however small a coin he has, he is as rich as he is, and one like the other.
And I asked him: How long do we have to wait? And he began to smile, and to say thus: Know that the King enters there alone, and no one. Stranger, no one of her People enters the Fountain: How much she loves them, they do not enter. Because we haven't served it yet. But however, when the King has entered, first he strips off his Robe of Cloth of fine Gold, beaten into very fine sheets, and gives it to his first Man, who is called. Saturn. So Saturn takes it and keeps it for forty days or forty-two at the most, when once he has had it. Afterwards the King takes off his fine black Velvet doublet, and the second Man, who is Jupiter, and he keeps it for him for a good twenty days. So Jupiter, by command of the King, yawns him to the Moon, who is the third Person, beautiful and resplendent, and keeps him twenty days: And so the King is in his pure Shirt, white as snow, or fine fleur de Sel flowered . Then he undresses his White and Fine Shirt, and yawns it to Mars, who likewise keeps him for forty, and never forty-two days. And after that, Mars, by the will of God, yawns it to the yellow, and not clear, Sun, which keeps it for forty days. And after comes the very beautiful and bloody Sun, which soon takes it And so that one keeps it.
And I said to him: And then, what becomes of all this? So, he answered me, the Fountain opens, and then so as she gave them the Chemise, the Robe, and the Doublet; she, in a pinch, and at a stroke, gives them her bloody, vermilion and very haughty Flesh to eat. And so do they have their desire.
And I said to him: Do they wait until that time, can they not have anything good until the end? And he said to me: When they have the Shirt, if they want, four of them will make it big: but they would only have the half-Kingdom. And so, for a little more, they prefer to wait until the end, until they are crowned with the Crown of their Lord. And I said to him: Does no Physician or anything ever come there? No, he said, No one comes there but a Guardian, who below is continual heat, surrounded and vaporous, nothing else.
And I said to him: Does this Guardian hardly have trouble? And he answered me: He has more pain at the end than at the beginning; because the Fountain ignites.
And I said to him: Have many people seen it? And he said to me: Everyone has it before their eyes, but they don't know anything about it. And say to him: What are they still doing afterwards? And he said to me: If they want, they can still the six of them, purge the King for three days in the Fountain, circulating, and containing the place to the contents of the container contained; by giving him the first day his Doublet, the day after his Shirt, and the day after his Flesh-blood. And I said to him: What is this for? And he said unto me, God made one and ten, a hundred and mule, and a hundred thousand, and then multiplied all ten times.
And I said to him: I do not hear him. And he said to me: I won't tell you any more, because I'm bored. And then I saw that he was bored, I too had the appetite to sleep, because the day before I had studied, and escorted him. This Old Man was so wise that all Heaven obeyed him, and everything trembled before him.
So I went back to the Fountain quite secretly, and began to open all the closings, which were very tight; and began to look at my Book, which I had won, and from the splendor of it, which was so fine, (also that I had an appetite for sleep) it fell into the Fountain before said, and I was so angry that was a great marvel. For I wanted to keep it for the praise of my honor, which I had won. So I started to look inside, and I totally lost sight of it. And I, to begin to draw the said Fountain, and drew it so well and discreetly, that there remained only the tenth part of hers, with the ten parts.
And I, cuidant to draw everything, they were strong together. And struggling to do this, People quickly came up, and I couldn't get any more out of them. But before I left, I had closed all the openings very well, so that they did not see that I had drawn the Fountain, nor also that I had seen it, and also that they did not leave me. ignite my Book. Then the heat of the Bath, which was about to bathe the King, warmed up and kindled, and I was in prison for a mischief forty days. So when at the end of the forty days I was out of the prison, I came to look at the Fountain. And I saw black and dark clouds, which lasted for a long time; but in short, in the end I saw all that my heart desired, and had little pain in it. Also, you will not have, if you do not go astray in this wrong and erroneous path, not doing the things that Nature requires.
And I tell you, in my God, whoever reads my Book, if he does not hear it by himself, never by others will hear it, whatever he does. For in my Parable everything is there, the Practice, the Days, the Colors, the Regime, the Way, the Disposition, the Continuation; all the best that I could do for your worthy Reverence, in pity, in charity and in compassion of the poor Laborers in this precious Art.
Thus is finished my Book, by the grace of God the Creator, who gives to all People of good will, grace and power to hear it. For, in my God, there is hardly any difficulty in understanding it to those who have good sense, without imagining so many fancies or subtleties. Because so many subtleties (I say it to you) are not of my intention, nor of those of the Sages. But the full natural path, as I have already told you and declared in my Speculative.
Wherefore, my Children, to whom this Book will reach, after the one to whom I am addressing it, be sure to pray to God for my Soul. Because by my Book I pray quite truly for your Bodies and for your Goods; but that you watch him believe without error, and flee from Errants and their opinion, also their company. Because you cannot think of the damage that can be done to you in the future, from the total deviation.
END
Quote of the Day
“Its grossness is clearly perceived in an actual experiment: for first it is black and looks like lead or antimony; then it is of a whitish colour, and is called Jupiter (or tin, or magnesia), and this also before it has attained true whiteness, but when it has passed the white stage, it is called Mars and Venus; after that it becomes perfect and red.”
Anonymous
The Golden Tract Concerning The Stone of the Philosophers
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