The Golden Fleece

Flower of the Treasures

Solomon Trimosin

Prologue

Alphidius rightly esteemed one of the most famous and recommendable to posterity among the ancient and wise Philosophers of his time, offers us in his divine writings, that the ordinary contemplation, mysterious consideration and continuous reading of approved, renowned authors, sufficiently recommended for such, and who have divinely treated us of this work, sung or revered by the rarest minds, who out of curiosity worthy of such a subject, or out of compassion to see so many blinded souls consuming their time there, have very wisely deigned to produce in the daylight some brilliant spark of the excellence of our Lion who knows himself by the paw, as a deposit only for the ardent light that 'they removed from it, or to judge at least roughly, from the precious stone by the examination of this sacred sample; this wise I say and far-sighted doctor says that the search for this terrestrial Sun brings as much or more fruit and contentment to infants learnedly raised under the provident tutelage of this superhuman and undoubtedly celestial science, amicably nourished by the pleasant milk of her udder is loving and tasty; how much contempt and discontent it can bring to the bijear ears of these learned ignorant people, who do not have the understanding sufficiently mature to judge pertinently and understand the effect of a mystery so lofty, so serious and serious, their sight subtle enough.

to see the subject, nor the brain of oneself sufficiently crazed to stop the price of this priceless pearl: but only fed, raised and relieved, satiated, or better to say maintained with the bitter juice of ignorance, make themselves incapable of meats more solid to digest at the right time and to return to everything as an object before the eyes, the art of the Stone of the Sages which we call the Heaven of the Philosophers.

But to these I will never advise them to entangle themselves further in the vague folds of the Golden Fleece, not even to touch with the slightest tip of the finger or with the lips only this inexhaustible Daedalus of their weak reach; for the fact that these foolish brains are not called to the glorious triumph of this degree of honor, promised and assured to souls only philosophers, not to all comers, nor to confuse their minds, quite capricious moreover, dare to suck the honey from the delights of our judicious writings: being more appropriate, useful and profitable for these ignorant heads to prefer the memory of the cost to the merit of the taste without exercising it in this labor, nor doing any test so puny that whether, of our divine operation; but rather to remove from the green orchard of our precious Hesperides the fruitless nose of their insufficiency, incapable of proposals too subtle for their leader, of our excellent work, in disproportionate regard for their weak thoughts. Our celestial Muse does not also delight in the indifferent whims of everyone on the whole, but in detail considers some to despise others, making a sortable choice of her most favorite and those whom she can recognize as true children of the science, calling them benignly to the happiest rays of its golden branches, instead of keeping others as far away as possible from its homes:

Profane people do not approach our sacred treasures.
To the elect only who are holy consecrated.

Rhasis thinks no less of the treaty he made on the light of lights. No one should, he says, presume so much of himself, without certain hope of incurring, through certain blame, the shame he deserves, extending his desires beyond the imprudent limits of his capacity to draw at will from the weak springs of his feeble mind, the pure and clear essence of the admirable mixtures, although unknown to them, of the perfect elements. Also that to tell the truth, such kinds of people, putting in more than they will get, prepare themselves for more confusion than contentment, more ridicule than relief, a thousand times more subject to the apprehension of a sad punishment, only for the gain of the premeditated fruit; without remembering the rod of Apelles, who took up in two words the scientific presumption of a rogue cobbler with the rod of his rigor, at the moment when he thought properly to spread his importum speech outside the straight fences of his simple shoe, to resume imprudently, and like a venerable censor, the features and portrait of his serious painting:

You could, he said to him, speak of your slipper,
But not of a doublet, of an arm or a mitten.

Therefore, it is very appropriate for Propriety to avoid the venomous blame and the censure of a suspicious public,

And there is one in noise who cannot stutter.

With this other column which serves as a prop and solid support:

Simply practice what the knowledge
of your Art has given you, and experience
what you know.

But what, everyone from now on in this miserable time believes so much, and flatters himself so much in his opinion, that he no longer finds anything too hot, that his hand of arrogance will not take with impunity, thinking well to meet in this century of iron, a few golden shekels, and more assuredly than the bean in the cake:

The ignorant overwhelmed in his ignorance,
Now wants to discourse on a learned science,
Even thinking he knows everything he does not know.

So exhausted, that taking a large part of the whims of the moon, they break their heads to think of it bringing down with its influences on the body of the earth, mother of the elements, even by a path that they never knew; only based on the natural appearances of a concupiscible curiosity and desire for novelties. But if indeed, ignoti nulla cupido, according to the Philosopher, what appearance can they conceive of the transcendent effects of our good genius?

Their spirit lighter than a light cloud Cannot speak well of an unknown thing.

And no more than the blind who cannot judge colors, being deprived of sight, so the ignorant can only speak stuttering or with their feet under the table, from the heaven of philosophers: Si te fata vacant, aliter no, says Augurel in his Chrysopée:

If from Heaven the favor is given to you,
Give yourself over to this precious Art
Since moreover it is only ordered
To the most learned by the Gift of both.

So I would begin to take more stock of their good judgment, if they developed this onerous research, which cannot easily be handled by the importunity of these sudden abortions of science. All those who implore him and present their skiff at the mouth of this gulf do not arrive on board; and most of those who sail there or embark at this port, meet shipwreck in the middle of the way. After a thousand labors the wise Argonauts, led between the waves by the powerful hand of long destinies, finally alone conquered this rich Fleece, at the height of their valor, armed and aided by industry, experience and patience, true conductors of the bonace expressly required for this divine effect:

... Pauci quos aequus arnavit (A few whom the fair one has caught)
Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus,
God does not give it except to his most favorite
And to those whom Heaven has tenderly nourished.

So, to approach this renowned Isle, which we call our Colchos, we must better predict the shipwreck, and noticing the point of natural causes, know at the tip of our finger the most famous writings that the best Philosophers of our centuries have developed. past, and judge the truth by the concordance of their separate paintings; otherwise I see them all bandaged for a narrow prohibition to even let all these ignorant people open their books:

Do you dare to leaf through with a sacrilegious hand
The price of our notebooks without our privilege?
No, no, withdraw, your baits are not
To surprise the bird which serves us as a meal.

Philosophers are curious to communicate with their fellow men, so they only speak for the most learned; thus the Complaint of Nature maintains it for us: "If you know it, I have told you everything, but if you do not know it, I will not advance you in any way." This is precisely why they censor their books, on It is difficult to understand nothing but a juice of confusion and waste of time, if they are no longer capable of picking the sweet honey among so many other flowers.

Rosin, in conformity with the previous authors, does not approve either of the time they use there, baptizing them with the name of imbeciles of mind, for applying themselves so abruptly to this essay without the knowledge of the things that the Philosophers in have put in writing. Where there is agreement, there is the truth, say the Count of Treviso and the great Rosary: "Concorda philosophas et bene tibi erit" (Agree with the philosophers and you will be well):

If of all your discords you want to see the concord
Of the Sages the agreements grant without discord.

Who have established as the foundation of this Art, a natural principle, not yet familiar but by a hidden operation and science: although it is manifest and clearer than the day, that all corporeal things take their source and their being from the land mass, Terra enim est mater Elementorum; of terra proceeding and ad terram revertuntur (For the earth is the mother of the elements; of the earth proceeding and returning to the earth), says Doctor Hermes

The earth is the mother Element of all things
That nurse, it encloses in its enclosed matrix.

Like the vase of generations, as well as their properties according to the order of time, by the influence of the Heavens, (which serve as seed and formative heat to germinate and produce matter), of the Planets, of the Sun, of the Moon or the stars, and so of the others consecutively with the four qualities of the Elements, which serve as a matrix for one another, move constantly, and to which all growing and nascent things relate with an origin and particular form in their own substances, in accordance with all divine power and will,

All metals also placed in the rank of created things have their origin from the earth, mother of the elements and nurse of all things, as we have already declared above, with a clean and individuated matter derived as and when from the four properties of the elements, by the influential competition of the force of the metals and the conjunctions of the constellation of the planets.

Aristotle, in book IV of his Meteora, is of the same opinion, when he maintains and says that quicksilver is indeed a common material of all metals, but that nature first collects and unites together the materials of the four elements alone, to then compose a body according to the effect and property of the matter, which the Philosophers call Mercury or Quicksilver, not common or made by natural operation, but having a perfect form of gold and silver, or rather deriving from the two perfect metals. Naturalists curious to know the state of minerals speak of it quite clearly in their books, without there being any need to write more at length here, except that on this assured and solid basis the principle and the artifice are properly founded. of the stone of the wise, the beginnings of which are found in the center and the perfect body of Nature, which does not depend on any living being; and from herself we also see him borrowing the only means of his perfect form and the greatest contentment of his final perfection.

I call you all, Sweet Ones of Nature,
I call you all with the sweet sound of my voice.
Come, with a discreet eye, judge the painting
that I give you here as I see it.
If it were better (the company of others cannot be better
), you would have it with all your heart
Let a theater of love make this game appear
Modestly sucking the flowers of my mood.
There you will be able to pick from the golden vine
Of my sacred orchard, a few grains of verjuice:
But if the vine is prepared for a long time
These sours will go away and never come back.
I will not prevent the world from slandering,
Rather I want to evoke this cause near them;
I call them to witness that I do not want to say anything
that is not in good taste, and not to provoke them.
Whoever does better, he must publish it
And give this Treasure to posterity:
But discretion does not mean that he is allied
With a slanderous vice full of temerity.
To take it back is easy, the best is difficult,
And always the censor has some passion.
But all things considered, let them bite file by file;
Firm, I will appear to have good intentions.
and how artfully it can be reduced to its perfection.

This Stone of the Sages draws the pure Elements of its essence by the assured path of a fundamental nature, in which it amends, according to what Hali reports, when he says that this Stone is influenced and imbibed entirely on things growing and deep, conglutinating, congealing and resolving on nature, which makes this thing better, more perfect and more effective, according to their order and ordered time. On the path and model of such an artifice each one must apply and rest on these natural principles if he wishes to receive help and aid in his operation by the art of Nature, which is maintained if long and preserves itself from itself until by its natural art time comes to perfect the right form of its intention.

Now, this artifice is nothing other than a single operation and perfect preparation of the materials, which Nature, wise and provident in the mixing of this work, has made: to which also suits the mediocre proportion and assured measure of this operation with a mature judgment and considered caution. For however much art can attribute the Sun and the Moon to a new beginning to make like gold, if it is only necessary for the art of the natural secret of mineral materials, and to know as they have to bowels of the earth the foundation of their first principles: but it is very certain that art observes another path than not Nature, having for this purpose an entirely different and diverse operation.

It is also appropriate then that this artifice coming from the previous natural roots at the beginning of Nature produces exquisite things, which nature could never of itself procreate: for it is true that it is not in its power to to be able to generate the things of oneself by which the metals of nature come to procreate themselves almost as imperfect, and which nevertheless immediately afterwards and as if in less than nothing can be perfected by the rare secrets of the ingenious artist: which comes from the temporal matter of Nature, and which serves the artifice of men when it relieves them of its free means; then again the artifice helps it by its temporal operation, but in such a way that this accomplished form can then subsequently correspond and become suitable to the first intentions of Nature and to the final perfection of its designs.

And although with great artifice it must be kept silent, let the above-mentioned Stone return to the proper point of its first form, the being from which it draws treasures of Nature, also that all substantial forms of each thing increase by two various ways, brutally or by metals; if they all come from an interior power of matter, apart from the soul of man which is in no way bound and does not come, like other things, from this earthly and temporal submission. But also be careful that the substantial form does not relate and cannot condescend to matter, were it not that it is made by a certain operation of some accidental form: not, however, that this happens from its particular force, but rather rather of some other operative substance, such as fire or other similar heat approximately responding to it, perfectly combined, which must operate there.

We will take the similarity of a chicken egg, to explain ourselves better and make our proposition more intelligible, in which exists the substantial form of putrefaction without the accidental form, namely is a mixture of red and white, by the particular force of an internal and natural heat which operates in this egg, as for brooding hens: but although this egg is the material of the hen, the form however is not substantially or accidentally understood, but only potentially, because putrefaction which is the principle of all generation, is generated with the help and by means of heat.

Calor (Heat) agents in humidity first decrease and in sicco albedinern (that's right).

All the same is the case with the natural matter of the aforementioned Stone, in which neither the substantial nor accidental form exists without the putrefaction or decoction, which renders it potentially what it subsequently is in effect. It now remains to understand and make known what habit this putrefaction so necessary for procreation can have and where it mainly comes from. Rot or putrefaction is sometimes caused by external heat, preserved in a certain place from its warm nature, or from the heat which is attracted by some means producing humidity. This putrefaction occurs similarly to superfluous coldness, when natural heat comes to wither away and disperse, debilitate and corrupt with superabundant coldness, which is properly deprivation, because each thing abstains from natural heat, and certainly makes such rot in cold and damp things. The Philosophers do not deal in any way with this putrefaction, but with rot, which is nothing other than humidity or dryness, by means of which all dry things come to resolve by joining fire with water, as the Trevisan says, to return again and resume their first being, on what they claim, then afterwards according to the nature of their nature to stop the perfection of their final form.

In this rottenness the humidity comes together with a dryness, not however so arid that the humid part does not preserve pell-mell that which is dry in itself, and yet it is properly a compression of spirits or a certain freezing of materials. But when the wet comes to disunite and completely separate from the dry, the drier part must immediately be distracted and reduced to ashes. Thus the Philosophers understand that their decay, dryness, disruption or dissolution and calcination are done in such a way that the natural humidity and dryness come to join, dissolve and reunite together by an abundance of humidity and dryness, and by an equal temperature proportion; so that superfluous and corruptible things more easily evaporate and are drawn out like useless vapors and sooty excrement: neither more nor less than the meat taken in the stomach is properly assimilated and converted into the same substance of nature nourished, when it is there by a digestive and praiseworthy seasoned concoction, and that from the preparation and digestion made in the ventricle it attracts a certain substantial virtue and suitable humidity.

Now by means of this radical humidity nature is preserved and increased, their sooty parts superfluous and superabundant like corrupted sulfur, rejected from them. But it should be noted that each of the said parts wants to be nourished according to its own nature, in which it enjoys and desires to remain and preserve its individual in its same species. What we must understand as well of the Stone of the Sages as of the human body, which changes into the purity of its substance the lower forms and of different conditions, by means of this natural and temperate fire, which is the true governor and the only conduct of our great ship, minor ignis omnia terit. It is the pilot and the humid radical where diverse natures live peacefully, where several contrary qualities and different discords compose chords of harmony, assembled by the industry of a necessary concoction and a humid heat, which act of an equal proportion on these metallic bodies:

The body disguises everything in its own nature.
What we want to give him serves as food.
Our work thus makes them imperfect metals
That it is equal to the equal of its more perfect kings.

SECOND TREATISE REPRESENTING THE WORK OF PHILOSOPHERS BY MEANS OF TWO FIGURES

figure i

It is necessary to know, says Morien, that our operation and the Art with which we wish to treat at present, are divided into two principal doctrines, the ends and the means of which are closely attached, adhering so closely to each other, that the immediate end of the first is allied with an indivisible link to the beginning of the later, and mutually succeeds one another, the last being amicably provoked in imitation of the same actions which it has was able to notice and attentively consider the previous model of that which preceded it by some space of time; and then the whole magisterium is entirely made and perfect, but they cannot be accommodated in any other body than in their own matter.

Now, to understand this better and more assuredly, it is necessary to notice first of all that Nature, according to Geber, comes from the first essence of the metals composed of Mercury and Sulphur: which opinion is followed by the authority of Serrarius in his question of alchemy cap. 25, namely that Nature proceeds from the source and pure essence of natural metals, which takes from the fire a water of putrefaction, which it mixes with a very white and subtle stone, reducing it and resolving like a broth into certain high vapors in the veins of the earth, which it beats with continual movement to make it cook and vaporize together with humidity and the same dryness, which come together and coagulate, so that a certain substance is produced which we call commonly Mercury or quicksilver, which is nothing other than the source and first material of metals, as we have already said above.

And for this the same author further certifies in the 26th chapter that those who want, as far as it is permissible and possible, to follow Nature, must not use quicksilver only, but quicksilver and sulfur all together, which again must not only be mixed, but also prepared as and when and seasoned with prudence what Nature has produced and reduced in perpetual confluence. Now is it that with such a kind of quicksilver, Nature begins her first operation, and ends with the naturalness of the metals with which she was satisfied for the entire perfection of her work, because she completed what was of his duty and all conceded to artifice, in order to be able to accomplish his intention to perfect the Philosophers' Stone and form it entirely from its last period and more perfect luster: thus it is certain that we begin the work on the places where Nature has placed her goal and the last glory of her ambition.

All Philosophers hold the true principle of their operation from the last end of the sun of metals, all freely confess that he who claims something to the knowledge of this work, or who perfectly desires to proceed to the height of this natural art, must absolutely and without scruple begin with the end and cessation of Nature and where finally she rests having acquired the perfection of her pretensions, withdrawing from the final enjoyment of her actions ordinary. We must therefore take this sulfur and this quicksilver that Nature will have reduced to the number of a very pure and very clear form being accomplished and endowed with a union so subtle, that no other could so naively prepare it, whatever artifice that he brings to it, although Nature, as said is, ultimately possesses this matter through the formal generation of metals.

Now, this matter thus informed by Nature will lead the worker to the perfection of his point, and the artifice by this means will succeed in carrying the salvation of his designs, by the force which it receives properly imbibed and applied in such matter ; to which the Alchemists add Sol to make it dissolve and distinguish elements, until it has acquired a subtle and spiritual nature, with the purity of quicksilver and in the nature of sulfur: so that this there therefore is the closest material, and which draws the most by its proximity and proximity to gold, to receive the pure form of this occult Stone, which material we call Mercurius Philosophorum, since the two aforementioned are joined and closely allied. 'to each other.

Aristotle's opinion is not repugnant to this, but is at all consistent with it by the opinion he gave to the Great Alexander.

Do you want, he said to him, to add gold with the other precious things, with which kings are usually adorned and richly crowned, to the merit of our Peter?

I warn you that this Mercury is the only material and unique thing to perfect our science, although the means of the operation is enveloped in so many knots and diversities that very few people can be sure of having a safe conduct of our King to reach the center of this tortuous labyrinth through the favorable net of a gentle Ariadne. Now, this obscure diversity shaded by a thousand ambiguous paths, and veiled by an infinity of thick clouds, is a true stroke of the hand of the Philosophers and quite deliberately wisely disguised: this is how Rosin, the Count of Treviso, and all the others unanimously hold it. , so that everyone, through the ease of the work, does not reach this supreme step indifferently, and does not come to despise such a precious jewel, having acquired it so easily, and as if without difficulty reached the honorable period of our perfect work on all the other works, which we call for this purpose a collection, because of the multitude put together, and a firm representation of all the things which Nature understands.

This is why the Philosophers speak thus: Make sublimated what can remain of it, then being distilled and communicated, make it rise and fall, drying it from the outside and from the inside, and other infinite doctrines intertwined with the same ambiguities and figures amphibological, which must however be all together and by conjunction followed and absolutely accomplished to finally reap the nectarean fruit of our golden harvest: although it seems that Alphidius in no way wants to oppose this in these terms: "It is necessary to know that when we weld and freeze, we also sublimate and alchymize without interval of time, joining by this means and purifying our work."

And even more clearly in what follows: "When our body is thrown into the water and it comes to being redeemed it will immediately be rotten, black, shady and obscured, then it will vanish and become like lime which sublimates and exalts soon after "; being thus sublimated and dissolved with the spirit, it purifies itself which is a principle and origin very worthy of being compared to all things in the universe, which have life, or soul, spirit or not, whether living minerals and emerging, the elements and their compositions, cold and hot things, birds, and summarily everything that can be produced from the earth to the sky, is contained and cooperates in potential with our Art.

figure ii

These two doctrines mentioned above signify according to the Philosophers this black and obscure woman who serves as the key to the whole work, and who must dominate in the strength of our Stone, namely in darkness, the assured basis of the entire foundation , or else this man who is the form of our matter, which we very aptly compare to the sun. This is enough said for a beginning of the first doctrine of this Art.

Third treatise of said work

figure III

This great genius of our science and father of the highest and rare philosophy, Hermes, rising in himself, and entertaining his mind on the operation of the work of the Philosophers, finally hatched these words: "This can be said like an end of the world, in that heaven and earth produce well together, but no one can through heaven and earth know our two previous doctrines, veiled with so many hieroglyphs "Several also who have reached labor have had much sweated before to catch this perfection, which having reached, they explain afterwards, but with more amphibological ambiguities, and so confused that we cannot understand them, by their figures and shadowy similarities, but too obscure for those who think follow their steps, curiously embracing this same fortune, to be crowned with a similar palm, since they want to run such a risk.

The first similarity shows us that God, by his omnipotence and the infinity of his goodness, created the earth completely equal, rich and fertile, without arena, without stones, without mountains, without valleys, through the influence of the stars and operations of Nature, and nevertheless we now see that it retains nothing of this ancient luster, but is so disfigured from its perfection that we can hardly know it anymore from what it wanted to be, changed into various forms and figures, externally, of strong stones, high mountains and deep valleys, internally, of terrible things and colors like brass and other metals.

Although all these confused and diverse things are now found in the body of this earth, whether it comes entirely from its first form, when from being very broad, thick, deep and long as it was before, it is reduced into a large and vast space by the continual operation of the sun and that the heat has always remained vehement, ardent and vaporous, mixing confusedly to the bottom of this large mass with the coldness and humidity which it encloses in its body, from which cold, nebulous and aerial vapors sometimes rise, which are born from the mixture of these two contrary regimes, of which enclosed and stopped in the earth, several other consecutive vapors are born over the length of time, so strong at the end, that she is often forced to make way for them to let them exhale through the opening of her belly, giving them free passage despite herself, when she would have really liked to be able to retain them in the natural dungeons of her deepest caverns, where several at the long one finding itself together pell-mell, sometimes caused several parts of earth to pile up in one place by the combined force of its exhalations, and several others in other places.

But as the mountains and valleys have been reduced to their certain end, there mainly we also find the earth at the best temperate point of the four qualities, heat, coldness, humidity and decoction dried, boiled or in no way diminished; but in these places we see the best and purest brass. For this reason it is easy to believe that in places where the earth is flattened, there is not such a large quantity of vapors nor so many sulphurous exhalations, which keeps it more calm and at rest. That which is greasy, muddy and where the humidity from above withdraws downwards and within, becomes more tender and soft, changing into an extreme whiteness, mainly by means of a dryness caused by the heat of the sun, which makes it stronger, more cooked and more hardened after a long period of time.

But a corruptible, frangible, sandy earth which is still in no way tender hangs piece by piece like bunches of grapes, is usually leaner, and consequently having less food for the maintenance of its substance, is later and has received too much little humidity or nourishing vigor, which makes it much more difficult to cook, only maintaining itself as in the form of rolls or other poorly arranged material. Now, this earth cannot easily be reduced to stone if it is not extremely vaporous and filled with great humidity, but it is very necessary that with the drying up of the waters which comes from the vehement heat and continual heat of the sun, the humidity of the earth always remains there: otherwise this Earth would remain as gloomy and corruptible, and would easily fall apart in pieces. That which, however, has not yet been in it at all hardened and perfect, can in the long run become and be reduced to hard and strong stone by the continual operation of nature assisted by the heat of the sun and a long, continuous and without decoction. intermission.

Thus the aforementioned fumes and vapors enclosed in the pores of the earth, when they come to join the aquatic vapors with the substance of some very subtle earth, digested and well purified by the virtue and influence of the sun, of the other planets and of all the elements together, quicksilver can be reduced and implemented. more cooked and more hardened after a long period of time. But a corruptible, frangible, sandy earth which is still in no way tender hangs piece by piece like bunches of grapes, is usually leaner, and consequently having less food for the maintenance of its substance, is later and has received too much little humidity or nourishing vigor, which makes it much more difficult to cook, only maintaining itself as in the form of rolls or other poorly arranged material.

Now, this earth cannot easily be reduced to stone if it is not extremely vaporous and filled with great humidity, but it is very necessary that with the drying up of the waters which comes from the vehement heat and continual heat of the sun, the humidity of the earth always remains there: otherwise this Earth would remain as gloomy and corruptible, and would easily fall apart in pieces. That which, however, has not yet been in it at all hardened and perfect, can in the long run become and be reduced to hard and strong stone by the continual operation of nature assisted by the heat of the sun and a long, continuous and without decoction. intermission. Thus the aforementioned fumes and vapors enclosed in the pores of the earth, when they come to join the aquatic vapors with the substance of some very subtle earth, digested and well purified by the virtue and influence of the sun, of the other planets and of all the elements together, quicksilver can be reduced and implemented. more cooked and more hardened after a long period of time.

But as much as it could draw from some subtle and flamboyan hardness, we can well make use of the sulfur of the Philosophers, from the strength and energy of which this great Hermes concludes very well, when he says "that virtue will be received of the upper and lower planets, and that with force it surpasses and penetrates all other forces, even down to precious stones.

figure iv

Hermes the greatest worker and the first master of this art, says that the water of the air, which is between heaven and earth, is the life of each thing, because by means of these two particulars and natural qualities, hot and humid, it unites these two contrary elements, water and fire, as a necessary medium to bring these two ends into harmony.

And the sky begins to clear immediately on the earth, as this water is infused from above serving as second seed introduced into the neck of her belly, from which she conceived a sweetness like honey, and a humidity certain, which make it produce diversity of colors and fruits, from which rose again and grew as if by succession of lineage in the vestiges of their secret ways, a tree of admirable height and size with an Argentinian trunk, which extends widely and widely through the places and cantons of the world.

On the branches of this tree rested various kinds of birds, which all flew away towards the day, then crows appeared in abundance, infinity of others and even rare properties were found there, for it bore many kinds of fruits, the first of which were like small seeds, and the other is called of all Philosophers Terra Foliota, the third was of the purest gold, intermixed with many fruits which are called health, warming what is cold , cooling what is hot, and what has contracted some excessive heat through extraordinary bad weather, making the dry humid, and the damp dry, softening what is hard, and firming what is soft. Now, all these conversions of opposite essences are the surest pillars of the hope of our work, nostra operatio est naturarum mutatio, they commonly say.

Make the body spirit and the spirit give body,
The living make the dead die and revive.

It is the Magnet Stone, the perfect circle where the point of the magisterium rests, and the beginning of the supposed end of all our artifice.

This maxim is true, that the assurance of a good principle serves not a little to console assured minds, who nevertheless embark in fear of not being able to emerge in the haven of salvation of a good hope, seeing themselves assailed by so much hard reefs that most often make the best sailors abandon their hold. If, however, we envisage some gentle Alcyon in the midst of our torment, we at least ensure that we have still remained on the true path of our intentions, and by this good omen we begin to recognize ex ungue Leonern, the Lion on the paw, as they say, breathing under the hard burden of our greatest labors cheerfully overcome by the hope and assured aspect of a good, happy and favorable beginning.

Dimidium facti qui bene coepit habet. (What is well begun is half done.)

The black key of the reciprocal mutations of these various forms opens the cabinet of natural secrets, to probe the sweetness and maturity of the fruit of the Colchicum Island, which are guarded by the Dragon, and the devouring Lion, compared to the continuation of our work.

To achieve the goal of our sacrifice,
we must follow the lists in stages,
advancing little by little.

figure v

Salienus speaks sufficiently of the variety and difference of this fruit, giving us ample mention of an herb which he names after several Lunatica, of a stem quite different from the common ones, and which draws its root from an earthly metal", reddening in part, but surrounded by a black color, or properly spotted, easy however to corrupt and disfigure itself, as if wanting to abandon its ordinary strengths to be reborn much more beautiful and more perfect, in the renewal of its most rich flowers come just in time, which seventy two hours later meeting under the angle of Mercury, changes to the perfect white of a very pure Moon and converted again, allowing itself to boil a little longer by decoction, into gold of such so that it changes in its nature the hundredth part of mercury; but gold much more perfect than the force of the earth can produce in its metallic minerals.

Virgil says as much in the sixth of his Aeneids, speaking of a tree with golden branches that he presents to his Trojan prince during his long navigations; tree of such excellence that it never died, without another being continually reborn from it, and succeeding the first by the multiplication of itself like another Phoenix, returning to its place.

Avicenna, dealing with humidity and all its effects, says that we first perceive some darkness when heat operates on some moist bodies. This is why the ancient sages, without otherwise developing the ambiguity of their enigmatic figures, say they saw from afar a fog which rose, surrounding the whole earth, and making it humid; they also say they have foreseen the great impetuosity of the sea and the abundant concurrency of swimming waters over the entire face of the earth, so that form and matter stripped of their original force and filled with putrefaction, will be seen among the darkness even shake the King of the Earth, whom they will hear cry out and lament in a pitiful voice full of compassion.

He who will redeem me from the servitude of this corruption, must live with me in perpetuity and very content, and reign glorious in clarity and brilliant light above my Royal seat, even surpassing in price and honor the precious radiance of my golden scepter. The blindfold of the night put an end to his lament with a charming sleep, but at daybreak a very resplendent star was seen emerging from above the king's person, and the light of the day illuminated the darkness, the sun seemed radiant between the clouds decorated and embellished with various colors: the brilliant stars penetrated, with a very odoriferous odor which surpassed any kind of balm, and from the earth came a beautiful clarity shining with dazzling rays; everything that can finally serve as contentment or pleasant pleasure for a great king who wants to delight in rare novelties.

The sun with rays of gold, and the Argentine moon surrounding this excellent beauty caused several spectators to admire it, and this king, delighted in the contemplation of a sweet resentment, made three beautiful and magnificent crowns, with which he adorned the head of this great beauty. , one of which was of iron, the other of silver, and the third of gold: then we saw in his right hand a sun "and seven stars around it which gave off a very clear light; his hand sinister held a golden apple, on which rested a white pigeon, which sparkling nature further embellished with silver, and decorated its wings with gold. Aristotle says that the corruption of a thing is the life and the renovation of another: what can be understood about the art of our Magisterium and preparation of corruptible humidity, renewed by this humid substance, to always aspire to more perfection, and to the continuation of a longer life.

Menaldus obviously demonstrates the necessity and close communication that living things have with dead things, in these words. I want, he said, and intend that all those who devote themselves to our serious study, and who desire to follow absolutely the same order and the track that we have kept there and duly observed to our contentment, to ensure that spiritual things become corporalized, and that the corporeal ones are also spiritualized by a reciprocal conversion and dissipation of their first forms, in order to acquire a more excellent one, rising from this death, which is putrefaction, much more glorious than before by a slight and only decoction.

figure vi

Several other of the best Philosophers, unanimous in this proposition, pay us all with these or similar words, Solve et gela, dissolves et congele, or of the

Si fixum solvas faciasque volatile fixum (If you pay the fixed and make the flying fixed)
Et volucrem figas, faciet te vivere tutum, (And if you catch a bird, it will make you live safely,)
says the Fountain of Lovers,
Make the earth light, and give weight to the fire
If you want to encounter what is rarely encountered.

As already above we have shown it in various places: again imitating in this Senior who invites us as do all the others to the necessary nuances of contrary matters: "The spirit, he says, delivers the body, and by this deliverance the soul draws itself out of the bodies, then these same bodies are reduced into the soul: the soul therefore changes into a spirit and the spirit again becomes a body.

"For if it remains firm to the body and that it once again renders the earthly, massive and gross self-bodies spiritual by the force of these spirits, this is the aim of our work: that if the same does not happen to these metallic bodies, that they will not lose their first and natural being, to regain more luster and perfection in our work, the first material destroyed by introducing another by generation, it is in vain to work and dissipate its watches and its oil to bark after the wind.

An unfortunate man, deprived of the sweet zephyrs of his happiness and sent back to the cruel torments of a very ordeal cesspool, seemed as black as a confirmed Moor, palpitating in his illness, and out of breath, for the harsh efforts he borrows from himself, sparing nothing of his strength until he uses them for the salvation of his life, and for the deliverance of his body relegated to the foul prisons of this muddy quagmire full of filth.

figure vii

But his too weak power not being able to second the wish of his desires to leave this place, and seeing himself in vain having bothered Heaven with cries, and the help of his industry to develop from such an ugly dungeon, he had all the leisure to await in his misery the last blow of a cruel death, without begging further for the favorable help of some benevolent soul full of charity to attract him to the pitiful compassion of his pitiful disorder; so he could well resolve, although by force, to end sadly the summary of his days fatally followed by the darkest misfortunes of this filthy and dark sewer, since each one made himself deaf to the bay of his complaint, showing towards him a heart more hardened and full of felony than an insensible rock would have made.

Of a desired salvation, hope being vain,
His goal only aspires to the inhuman Fate,
When just in time a young beauty
came to his aid full of humanity.

This lady was beautiful par excellence in body and face, enriched with superb clothes of various colors, having beautiful white but variegated feathers like those of a peacock which also spread over her back, at the mercy of a benign wind and favorable zephyr, the fins were of gold intertwined with beautiful little seeds. On her well-appointed head, she had a very beautiful golden crown, and on it a silver star; around her collar she wore a gold collar, in which was richly set a precious ruby of excellent craftsmanship, the fairest price and value of which the greatest revenue of some powerful king could not have paid. : she also had golden shoes on her feet and a sweet and very odorous smell emanated from her. The first time she saw this poor desolate man, with a cheerful countenance and a joyful appearance, she held out her hand to him, and relieved him of his extreme weakness, already so deprived of his initial strength, that he could not could no longer bear, nor guarantee his pusillanimous body already feeling the earth: at the eminent peril of the salvation of his life he no longer hears and expects nothing assured than the true rejection of miserable misfortunes, ... nullam sperare salutem (to hope for no salvation).

Having recognized the imbecile actions of our languor, this lady comes forward moved with compassion, and benignly removing him from such an infection, she cleans him pure and clean, presents him with a beautiful purple garment, and takes him to heaven with her.

Senior speaks about it all the same, dealing with this subject, even in much clearer terms: "There is, he says, a living thing which is no longer mortal, having once been confirmed and assured of its life by an eternal and continuous multiplication."

figure viii

The philosophers, in order to leave nothing behind what they must honestly discover about this art, attribute two bodies to it, namely the sun and the moon, which they say are the earth and the water.

These two bodies are also called man and woman, which generate four children, two little men whom they call heat and coldness, and two little women signified by dry and humid: from these four qualities comes a fifth substance, which is white Magnesia, which bears no wrinkle of falsity on the forehead. And Senior pursuing this same figure further concludes it in this way: “When,” he says, “the five are assembled together, and come to be the same thing, the natural stone is made during all these equal mixtures, which we call it Diana.

Avicenna in this regard says that if we can reach the fifth, we will obtain what all authors call the soul of the world. The philosophers explain to us under the bark of this similarity of the essence and the model of their truth by the demonstration of an egg, for that in its enclosure there are four things assembled and joined together, the first of which is the top which is the shell, signifying the earth, and the white which is the water; but the skin which is between the water and the shell is the air which divides the earth from the water: the yellow is fire and has a very thin skin all around itself: but the one -there is the most subtle air, which is here at the innermost of the very subtle, because it is more adherent and closer and neighboring than is the fire, repelling the fire and the water in the middle of the yellow which is this fifth substance, from which the chicken which grows afterwards will be formed and generated. Thus are in an egg all the forces and vigor with matter, of which perfect and accomplished nature comes to be exhausted: but it is likewise necessary that all these things are found perfectly in our operation.

figure ix

The speeches of the most discreet are always ambiguous, and their serious writings always mixed with some obscurity, all getting along so well in this solemn oath, that their will is no better expressed by the first than by the others. And this is even why Rosinus, in this point consistent with the Philosophers, only explains in the enigma following the operation of the work, by the face that he says he saw of a dead person, mutilated in several places. of his body, and all the members of it divided: but the bulk of the mass and the trunk of the said body which still remained whole appeared white as salt, its head separated from the other parts of the said body was of a beautiful gold, compared to which was a very black man, poorly composed of his limbs, haggard in his eyes, and quite frightening of sight, who stood upright, his face turned towards this dead body, having in his right hand a cutlass sharp on both sides in no way mixed with blood, which as cruel and from all times nourished to carnage and the shedding of blood human he took for his greatest antics and for the most voluptuous delights of his pleasures, the violent murder and the voluntary assassination, even in cold blood, of all kinds of people.

He showed in his left hand the shape of a bulletin where these words were written: I bruised you and tore your body into pieces, in order to beatify you and make you live a longer and happier life than you did. I felt that death had conspired against you by the edge of my sword; but I will hide your head so that humans cannot know you, and no longer see you in the same mortal crew that you were before, and will bury your body in an earthen vessel where I will bury it, until it is there. in a short time rotten, it can multiply more and yield quantity of better fruits.

Figure X

these old wise men, who wisely curious about the renewal of their outdated days, virtuously opposed themselves with a sovereign antidote and counterpoison of death, to the envenomed darts of these proud Eumenides, cruel plagues of life, and of the preservation of the human race, voluntarily having their body dismembered into many and many pieces, which were thus boiled, until a perfect and sufficient decoction, to change the weak consistency of their feeble age into the natural state of strength and vigor, making them rejuvenate more robust as they die, and their members scattered and put into so many pieces, more closely joined and united together.

WHAT IS THE PROPERTY OF NATURE BY WHICH IT TAKES ITS OPERATION

fourth treatise

The prince of peripatetic philosophy and great inquisitor of natural research and curiosities, says in what he treated of generation, that man and the seed produce another man being more than certain that each and all things generate their fellows by the animated and secretly particular force of each seed, which makes every form alive each in its essence by several and diverse means, but mainly by the operative and temperate heat of the sun, without the infused help and immediate assistance of which this vivified operation would have no effect. The philosophers, also regulated on the perfect mold of a wise nature, are forced and constrained to beg for assistance favorable to their designs and in the search of their work,

No thing was ever perfect in every way
without the support of others, and was never seen to be well done.
Thus says nature in her lament:
If you help me, I will help you;
As you do, I will do.

If the artist does not second the designs of Nature, although she is full of good intentions, if she cannot nevertheless bring to light and make apparent the will she has to relieve men, and make them in every way at the height of their perfection: all our artifice also cannot prosper in its vain searches, but remains fruitless and useless without the favor given to it by Nature. Which shows us clearly that they always need mutual assistance from each other, and that our art must govern the heat with the temperature of the sun, to produce this aforementioned Pierre: but the pursuit and good success of all these things must be considered by our wise emulators in seven different ways, which will open the door for us to benignly introduce us to the necessary prolegomena of the perfect heats.

figure xi

Firstly, it is necessary to practice such heat that it can soften, soften and melt the strongest of the earth, cooking together both the thick and the hard by the tempered fire of a corruption, which is the beginning of the whole work, confirmed by the good authors. Si putridum non fuerit, fundi aut solvi non poterit, et si solutum non fuerit, ad nihilum redigitur (If it is not rotten, it cannot be found or paid off, and if it is not paid off, it is reduced to nothing), says Morien very well.

Plato, Nota quod sine corruptione penetratio fieri non potest (Note that penetration is not possible without corruption), this is what, he says, you must strive to achieve, only putrefaction. After which the philosopher says he has never seen an animal grow without putrefaction: et opus Alchymicum, he continues, in vanum erit nisi antea fuerit putridum (it will be in vain unless it has previously been putrefied).

Parmenides also says the same thing: "If the body is not ruined, demolished, completely broken and corrupted by putrefaction, this occult and secret virtue of matter will not be able to be drawn out or united perfectly with the body. The great Rosary holds this opinion of so many good authors very assured, supporting it as infallible by this metaphorical figure: "We hold as a true maxim, that the head of our Art is a raven flying without wings in the darkness of the night as well as in the light of day. "But by what means it can be done, Socrates gives you good advice, speaking thus of the first heats suitable for corruption: "The slits and the little holes which are the meatus and the pores of the earth, will open , so that it receives within itself the strength and vigor of both fire and water. "

Figure xii

Secondly, such heat is necessary for us by virtue of which darkness is expelled from the earth, all relating to Senior's proverb. Heat, he says, makes all things white, and all white things then become red: water similarly by its virtue also makes things white, which fire then later illuminates, but the color then penetrates and translucent the stolen earth. , like the ruby by the tinting spirit of fire. To which the authority of Socrates also agrees in these words: "Rejoice when you see an admirable light emerging from the obscure darkness.

The "heat" disposed brings each thing to its greatest perfection, by the secret force with which it can animate bodies by means of an agent of decay. This is why Morien says that nothing becomes animated until after putrefaction, and that all the force of the magisterium can do nothing if this corruption has not preceded, as we do this is assuredly affirmed by the Peat of the Philosophers, which by common consent attributes to this heat the jurisdiction and the power to make bodies animated, by giving them a living essence, after this putrefaction; to make full of humors and aqueous this which was previously firm and solid, or other similar and contrary operations, because heat contains this property of fixing and resolving, and in this is the knot of matter, in which the perfection of the worker clearly consists .

Figure xiii

In this connection must we closely observe as a precept of assurance to conceive a gentle apprehension of being able to obtain the precious and premeditated salary of our black earth, the Solve et gela, which the good authors so often say, and already of us sung so many times. It is no small thing to know the fire which causes this putrefaction and several beautiful diverse effects on which the entire entry and conclusion of our Saturn depends.

If you want to quickly shorten this work,
Make soft what is hard, and make it light,

because the essence of our work draws its strength from opposite qualities perfectly united. Rasis says as much in the treatise on enlightenment, speaking of the necessity of this metallic mixture. No one, he says, can make a heavy thing light without receiving the help of a light thing, any more than transmute a heavy thing into a light essence without the agency of a heavy body.

In the fourth, the heat purifies, chasing from its home the slightest object of any impurity. Calid, on this subject, says that it is necessary to wash the matter with a hot fire, to make an apparent mutation: also it is necessary to know that the minerals assorted and alloyed together quickly fall from their first habits through the reciprocal communication of each of them. their own influence in the infusion also dispersed by the total mass of their community, stripping themselves of a particular garment to make it then after an equal and measured proportion to the whole bulk of the mining, and leaving the bad smells of their infection by means of our renewed Elixir, of which Hermes speaks very aptly, when he says that it is very necessary to separate the gross from the subtle, the earth from the fire and the rare from the thick. It is appropriate for me to report here the conceptions of the treatise of Alphidius which in no way contradicts what we say about it. You will know, by the exact reading of his learned writings, the same opinion that he has of the whole, similar to so many good and renowned authors, who have left us all hesitating on the same path.

figure xiv

The earth, he says, comes to melt, like water, from which fire emerges. Yes, since the earth contains fire in itself, just as air is contained in water. Rasis also warns us that certain softnesses "of art must precede the perfect operation of the work, which we ordinarily and very aptly call mondifications, for what must first be melted to make the thing more manageable, and that matter is reduced to water which is soft and principle of all things, Ex aqua omnia fiant (All things are made of water), which is done by putrefaction: because from the beginning of this worlding we can draw some good prognosis and firm resolution from the Stone of the Sages , if the dirtiest and most deformed parts, as excrement harmful and superfluous to the purity of this beautiful work, are entirely excluded and separated.

figure xv

In the fifth the heat rises by the virtue of fire, and the hidden spirit of the earth will be returned to the air. This is what Hermes says in his Emerald Tablet in these terms. He ascends smoothly from earth to heaven, and again from heaven he descends to earth, where he then receives the strength of all strength. Then in another place: Make the big subtle and the subtle thick, and you will have glory. And Riplea, in its 12 gates, says no less in another figure: Take the birds from the nest, and then put them back in the nest: which is to raise the spirit of the earth, then return it to the earth. On this same subject say the Philosophers, that they recognize as a master of science one who can draw some light from a hidden thing. Morien confirms this opinion as a scholar, and falling in the same cadence as the others, to the sweet accords of which our column is strengthened and in harmony, he draws from the brains of so many different and distinguished minds, the strongest indication of a pure truth: "He who can give relief to the soul, drawing it out of putrefaction, knows one of the greatest secrets of the work." The opinion of Alphidius here fell on the same encounter in these terms : Let this steam rise to the top, he said, otherwise you will get nothing out of it.

figure xvi

In the sixth, when the heat has multiplied so much and potentially in the earth, that it has reduced the strongest parts united together and made lighter: it surpasses in purity the other elements: but this heat must be increased to the equal and proportion of the coldness of man. Calid authorizes us in this opinion, and gives us the assurance of maintaining what we have judged: “Extinguish the fire,” he said, “of one thing with the cold of something else.” If, however, it is not necessary that frigidity exceeds this natural heat by more than one degree, so much so that it would suffocate it altogether, as Raymond very well says on this subject in the Theory of his Testament.

figure xvii

In the seventh, the heat kills and deadens the cold earth. To which the saying of Socrates can very well be appropriate: "When heat penetrates, it makes gross and earthly things subtle and spiritual which adapt to matter, not to the final form, never ceasing to operate with it by means of this aforementioned heat. What the Philosophers call, more openly, distilling seven times, meaning the seven colors which are made by the decoction continued in a single vessel and without touching it, leaving Nature to do its work which loosens them and mixes with her - even by its natural weights: ...for Wise Nature Learns its weight, its number and its measure.

To what conformity can we say thus by the sacred oracles of their true mouths. You then divided and separated the corrupted humidity, all being done with a single decoction.

figure xviii

Actor, in the fourth of the Proverbs, gives another teaching, to know how to properly govern and temper the appropriate heat and the fire necessary for our operation in these terms: when the sun has retrograded, which means debilitated and returned to its first matter he demonstrates the first degree which is to us as much as a true signal of infirm and imbecile pusillanimity, mainly because of the reduction of his natural heat, when he is in the dark: then there is an order of the air at lion which corrupts this first natural heat, increasing it with a burning fire and more digesting than the common fire, and this excessive ardor demonstrates the second degree, which comes from the too great heat of the fire, by which we mean putrefaction, which is the deprivation of form; and again another certain order of the third degree guardian air closely follows the other two, no longer burning, but of temperate quality, with a mediocre constitution of the air and a better regulated order, changing its violence into rest and tranquility. This is the true means of putting an end to the work and the path certainly opened to cultivate the vine of hope, and to complete with good success the path already beaten with a delicious air and prosperity.

DIVERSE OPERATION OF THIS WHOLE WORK COMPRISED IN FOUR BRIEF ARTICLES EASY ENOUGH TO HEARD

Treatise Fifth

Article 1

The first established level of Alchemists to reach the golden summit of our beautiful work, is called the most expert in this Hermetic art, Solution, which requires according to nature itself, that the body be boiled until perfect coction. All our magisterium is only cooking, Shell, shell, and iterum shell, born te taedeat. The more you cook, the more you will dissolve; the more you cook, the more you will blanch and the more you cook, the more you will blush: finally, cook at the beginning, cook in the middle and cook at the end, since this art only consists of cooking: but in water the concoction of the ingredients must be perfected. materials, that is to say inside a quicksilver which serves us as this matter, and in the sulfur which is the form: wanting more clearly to convey that the vital silver which freezes remains adhering to the sulfur which dissolved and annexed to it.

Junge siccum humido et habebis magisterium (Combine the dry with the wet and you will have mastery). Convert water into fire, and dry into wet, finally the Elements one inside the other, and you will have a board assured of what you must claim from the skiff in love with our present work, Covered elementa et quod quaeris invenies (Convert elements and you will find what you are looking for). The most learned promise you every favor, and will sign it to you whenever you want, if you know the way to join Mercury and Sulfur together. Now this solution is nothing other than a certain order of some humidity combined with dryness, properly called putrefaction, which totally corrupts the matter and makes it completely black. Morien gives it a similar effect with the same necessity for its coming, to hope for something from the work, of which it is the key and the leaven of the Philosophers: "If it is not, he says, rotten and blackened, it will not dissolve, and if it does not dissolve, its water will not be able to pass through the whole body as it must necessarily do, nor penetrate and whiten it. One must die to live again like the grain of wheat which does not produce and never germinates profitably, unless firstly it dies and rots at all.

figure xix

Article Second

The second rank is called coagulation, which however can be said the same thing with the solution, having the same effects, the diversity that can be interjected between the two being caused only by as little distance as there is to perfect the mutations of the first essences into various natures, which we qualify by various names to oppose only the confusion of the first intentions and to deprive the ignorant of it and to bring the children of our science to its true knowledge. This coagulation therefore puts the water back into a body, because in freezing it dissolves, and in dissolving it freezes, to show us that quicksilver which is a solvent of metallic sulfur, and which it attracts to itself to be frozen, desires to join again with the radical humidity of this sulfur, and this sulfur once again allies itself in its Mercury: and thus in a reciprocal friendship they cannot live without each other, stopping amicably together, as being only one nature, as Calid very learnedly publishes under the name of all the philosophers in the secrets of his Alchemy, saying: "Nature approaches nature, nature becomes similar to nature, nature rejoices in its nature, nature amends in its nature, nature submerges itself in its nature, and is united in its nature, nature whitens nature, and nature reddens nature." Then he adds, generation holds back with the generation, and the generation becomes victorious with the generation.

With good reason then, we say that our aforementioned Mercury always seeks the alliance of this sulfur to serve as its form, from which it would have been separated with so many unspeakable regrets, as not being able to suffer the dissolution of two lovers so perfect, that this sulfur which serves as the form of Mercury makes it return to itself, and attracts it from the water of the earth as soon as it has disunited, so that from this body composed of matter which is Mercury, like us have already said, and from the form which is sulfur, we can draw from it a perfect essence, in which we recognize the diversity of colors that it is necessary to see there, so that the property of the operating things does not begin rather to change, that the pure conduct and the sure agency of these living and animated things are prudently governed and learnedly guided by the hands of the most learned who have already governed the helm and the oar; being no small thing than knowing a good pilot to safely cross this sea, who is equipped with a good vessel, that is to say, working on real matter and knowing the scope and measure of operating things ; because in the solution the mercury is made similar to the operatives, whereas in coagulation the thing is tolerated, in which the operation will take place.

figure xx

Article Third

The third degree of the Naturalists is Sublimation, by which the massive and coarse earth is converted into its moist opposite, and can easily be distilled after it is changed into this humidity: for as soon as the water becomes is reduced and arranged by its influxion in its own earth, it already in no way retains the quality of the air, rising little by little and swelling the earth hitherto retained at a small foot for its gaping and disproportionate dryness, like a compact and strongly pressed body, which nevertheless regains its spirits there, and extends further outwards by the influence of this humor which is imbibed within, and is maintained by its infusion within this solid body in the form of a cloud porous, and similar to that water which floats in the egg, that is to say the soul of the fifth substance which we will call, with good reason, tinctus, formentum, anima, oleum, to be the most necessary and the closest to the Stone of the Sages: especially since from this sublimation it comes from the ashes, which properly (but above all with the assistance of God, without whose goodness nothing will succeed) attribute to themselves limits and measures of fire", which it is closed and like natural ramparts enclosed.

Riplée speaks of it thus and in the same sense as us: Make, he says, a fire in your glass, that is to say in the earth which keeps it enclosed. This brief method of which we have liberally instructed you seems to me the shortest way and the true philosophical sublimation to achieve the perfection of this serious work, very aptly compared for its admirable purity and candor, to the ordinary profession of women, it that is to say at the washhouse, which has this property of making infinitely white what in fact previously seemed dirty and full of rubbish, as the following figure will make you perfectly aware of.

But first of all I want to admonish you that I am not alone who gives the same effects to our work as to the profession of women, having nothing so common in the best authors as this true similarity. Ludus puerorum calls it woman's act and child's play, because children soil themselves and wallow in the filth of their excrement, representing this darkness drawn from the own natural mixtures of our mineral body, without any other operation of artifice than of its hot and humid fire, digesting and vaporizing; which blackness and putrefaction is cleansed by the whiteness which comes afterward to take its place, making itself a clean house and purging this first imperfect layer of all filth, just as a woman uses lye and clear water to restore her skin. child the sharpness required for its complete preservation.

figure xxi

Article Fourth

The last of our articles warns the reader that the water must now separate and divide from the earth, then rejoin and put back together again, so that these two closely united bodies are one homogeneous, so tight and allied together as the separation can no longer worry: This must also be the intention of the worker, otherwise his labor in vain undertaken would never end, but always remaining in the same state, would leave nothing to its author but a regret full of regret. trouble of being a serf of ignorance, not having had the power to reduce his work into the natural union of a single body composed of different things, which necessarily were used in the construction of this rare edifice: neither more nor less than the wise architect who erects a building of various materials, to which nevertheless so many varieties give birth to only one and principal end, which is the building, and a whole assembled from various closely united parts in a body made up of several instruments.

What can therefore be said about our composition and the proportions that must be observed is succinctly understood in the brief method of these four previous articles, without otherwise convoluting the mind, made confused and lost by the intertwined paths of the ambiguous vestiges and hyperbolic speeches of so many authors who only speak about it gropingly; so that they make others less wise wander under the ignorant veil of many darkness, holding in their minds those who are thirsty, and who throw themselves headlong into the fountain without knowing the bottom, as soon as the shining sun shines brightly. its rays some surface; so that already promising themselves at least golden mountains since he laughs at them like this, they work after all panting to think he surprises, and take the moon in their teeth, of which they repent at their leisure, and of the lack of foresight of their boiling temerity. Odi pupillos precocis ingenuous. Patience comes to the end of all things, even the most arduous, which usually involve more quest and research, because difficlia quae pulchra (Difficult things are beautiful).

This is why Peat says: Patiently and continually: others, nec te taedeat (and let him not tire thee). And Augurel,

Then patience as a faithful companion,
Always follow you and always accompanies you.

OF THE GOVERNMENT OF FIRE

After all these articles we have to treat of the true manner of well and methodically governing fire in the proportion of its degrees, the knowledge of which is so necessary to us, that without this science all our operation would be rendered useless: assured even to have chosen the real matter and to know the means of sowing it in the desired soil, that is nothing, since,
Who lacks a lack of all things.

especially since we watch more closely for the slightest vice, which is enough to tarnish and hold in check all the glory of some generous man, than we praise him for all his virtues, which he acquired by his serious merits. This is why

the wise inquisitor must not doubt anything,
and he who does not know everything cannot appreciate the work.
A regime of fire perfects the economy
Which resolves the errors of an errant alchemy.
It is the faithful agent who has everything at his disposal
And who, firm, supports the siege to the end:
He is the only key holder of our citadel
Who, to guard his king, acts as a good sentinel.

figure xxii

Pontanus knows well what to say, when with his Epistle he wants to make us wise at our perils (if the faults of others can stop us), which by this fault alone moved away as far as the eye can see from its designs, neither advancing his work in two hundred different times than he started it again, nevertheless sticking to good and due material, as if he had never done anything. This ignorance cost him dearly both time and expense, although he was only too equipped with the beautiful patience required in this work: but the natural fire necessary for this beautiful body did not help him with its favors, he was disgraced from his prosperity, as many times as he wanted to persist in his first stop, so much this governor and father of the family can with the regulated helm and the springs of this rich vessel: very fittingly we can therefore speak here, and discover in a short time words what we will be allowed to write.

When a thing is prepared for heat, it must be in such a way that no perceptible emotion can be recognized, but only a change in its natural order, like that which suits the Sun, to which this heat owes itself. at all report; which is as much as if we told you that an earthly and spiritless thing can be made animated by means of a natural heat conforming to that of the sun and the moon, neither excessive nor burning, but only mediocre, and at the equal of a well-tempered body. Now what qualities are these two principal celestial stars, Senior demonstrates, when he says that the Sun is of moderate heat, and the Moon cold and humid, but as less perfect it rises upwards aspiring to its good and borrowing from the noblest part what it lacks, so long as in the end it appears as much in strength and virtue as the one who favorably communicated them to it, if they act then also on the bodies of their celestial influences and fill them abundantly with their gifted lights. Now as heat and humidity make generations, and therefore necessary for our end, say all the authors,

Of all things in this world
Having life, on this basis,
Like animals and plants,
And similarly mineral
Heat of wood and coal.
This is not too good for them,
These things are too violent,
And are not so nourishing
As that which comes from the sun.
Which heat maintains
Each bodily thing,
As far as it is natural.

Thus we attach them so closely to the magisterium of the Ancients, that by the renovation of these two means, we hope to bring out the brilliant rays of our beautiful sun, coming to refresh its loving ardor in the Argentinian bosom of its purified moon, from which we let us see a thousand little suns spring forth, that is to say infinite, and which can be endlessly multiplied; now this is the true Stone of the Sages.

The ladder of the Philosophers to ascend to the knowledge of this glory, fully discovers what the fire of our magisterium should be, and to what extent the Soul of the Philosophers wants to be maintained, we will produce as in passing some diversities of opinions: it is well said in this above-mentioned place, that the heat or fire required for this work is understood in a single form, but it is too succinct to say what is, dum brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio (while I strive to be short, I become dark).

When my speech is too short for brevity,
I come and become a serf of all obscurity.

We will clarify this doubt, and will now say that some of the Peat want that the Heat of the first device or the first regime should in no way be related to the heat of some brooding hen; others want it to be similar to the heat of the human body, and such as the perfect cooking or digestion of meats sent to the stomach requires, to convert into the substance of the body and into nourished nature, the necessary quality and quantity of nourishing things. ; still others want to make it equal to the heat of the sun which according to the objects produces contrary effects, although immutable in its nature, as does our aforementioned Peter, who without any operation can be perfected, changing his first being and becoming letting him die in order to live again, with the help of him who caused his death; for the fact that the fire of the Philosophers retains the effects of the scorpion which brings death and life, killing with its venom the one to whom it itself applied to the wound gives the cure.

Fire that is too violent ruins what it encounters, mediocre fire refreshes, and imperceptibly dissipates what it wants to maintain and revive with its humidity. Thus says Calid: minor ignis omnia terit (a smaller fire consumes everything).

It is the means of hoping for a laudable end from the beginning of the labor undertaken, to give it temperate heat, which without burning penetrates so strongly even into the bowels of this massive body that it softens its hardness, and makes it to bend to all her will, like water which causes in the long run and through the continuity of its patience the firmest rocks, which it would never do by open force. The altered and calmly heated matter no longer retains its luster except in potency, and changing its beautiful complexion, it is covered with an infinitely black obscure veil, which makes it appear leprous and rotten throughout the body; also the Fountain of Lovers calls it: Mixed Gold and Lead of the Philosophers.

Quantum matatus ab illo
We know it best in its deformity.

But time brings everything, dissipates the shady darkness with the 2 changes, and withdraws in its season its lukewarm body from the black dungeons of its long prison, giving it a new form freed for this time from this rot, from which cleansed it regains more shine than he was, the pleasant face of his plumpness.

And from a perfect Moor he becomes a White Swan.

The true heat required for these effects must be neither more nor less ardent than that of the sun, that is to say mediocre and temperate, because the slow fire is hope of salvation, and perfects all things, says the Peat : but this heat necessary for the alterative principles of our operation is in the sign of Gemini and when the colors have come to white the multiplication must appear until perfect dryness is known in the Stone. Now, can we not better judge whether this good-natured sign dominates there, than when mainly the heat of our fire is in no way different from that of the sun, because it is this which is there above all other required, to the great sympathy that there is between the two, contrary in themselves and changing according to the more violent or gentler signs which govern them, naturally however and without any artifice.

But as soon as the Stone is dried up and can be reduced to powder, the hitherto mediocre and temperate fire must regain its strength and act more ardently on this body, so that by its increased ardor it can make it change clothes and change his white robe into one of a higher, more showy and vermilion color, which are the ordinary liveries and rich garments of our great King, delivered from his prison in which for so long he had seen himself confined and in great suffering, by the diligent pursuit of his faithful governor who removed him. The last degree of its heat is such as that which reigns under the fiery sign of Leo, more dazzling and furious than all the others, for it is when the sun is most vehement in its highest degree of heat and when it is elevated to the highest dignity of his heavenly home. This is sufficiently covered, for the brevity that we seek from our Philosophical Institution, of the means that must be kept and closely observed in the government of the fire of Philosophers, without which you will work in vain, whoever wants to try the last piece, to win the best perfection of this work: it must nevertheless suffice for you what we have told you about it, more clearly than if the speech were wrapped in longer words; if you hear me I will tell you enough, by the paw we know the lion and the worker at his work.

NECESSARY COLORS WHICH ARE DEMONSTRATED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS STONE

Several authors of our work seem to contradict and destroy each other in the diversity of their opinions, and who would not closely probe their common intention, or if the most learned did not foresee better for what purpose this variety, they could for a long time to sweat to extract an essence of spirit from their subtleties, as the knotty bark of their doubtful writings is so hard to prune in all its parts, and mainly when they want to deal with the colors of our work, of which we will succinctly say something thing; not having, however, undertaken to deduce them all, and remove from their dungeons one after the other to bring them to light, but only we will believe that we have freed ourselves sufficiently from our promises, if we draw from them the most apparent and which retain the others to use them lightly in matters of simple consequence in their government, to found the secret of these more mature heads and who entirely manage the economy and the important state of their lord, by whose intelligence we will know certainly what is even reserved for the most sacred and interior cabinet of a king so provident to use it as necessary, without seeking the least offices of his court, the office and the qualities that the officers of the middle class can obtain there colors. Miraldus, one of those of the Philosophers' Peat, says on our subject, having on this question collected the consent of all the other good authors, that our metallic body blackens twice, whitens twice, and also reddens twice, bis nigrescit, bis albescit, bis rubescit, which are the permanent and main colors, changing as the heat increases or decreases: because it is very certain that we recognize an infinity of others, but for what they are accidental, we do not take them into account, for fear of confusing light brains as well as paper, and that so many colors as you could imagine, depend entirely on these three above specified, and finally return on the proportionate symmetry of one of our sovereigns.

And it is not without reason that the authors, by the inspiration of some holy enthusiasm, shorten this diversity to the ternary, mystical and deified number where the glorious term of all happiness culminates. Between these three, however (not to conceal anything from our brief method) which are the main and permanent ones of the terrestrial and metallic king of philosophers, we will be able to discern some other different and intertwined ones, which we nevertheless industriously and deliberately keep quiet, to be only imperfect colors and not of such a nature and consistency that they are worthy, even considering our compendious intention, to be placed in the rank of our three permanents, black, white, red, to name them according to their rank, which absolutely and immediately include all the accidents that can happen there: therefore is there no need to write anything else about them, except that for the satisfaction of the most curious, we produce the causes which can honestly move to pass in silence the general number of those which appear successively to each other among the principal ones mentioned above, for what their effects are of so little effect, with regard at least to the permanent ones (our natural work n 'acting nothing in vain) and their colors so little appearing, that flowing as if insensibly and almost out of sight, we leave them more suddenly than they themselves leave us, because they stop there with such a step light, that barely the shadow of their substance only appears, that they do not immediately disappear into the vessel with a step equal to inconstancy.

This is why to stop any longer in discussing each species and their particular property would be to have nothing else to do, and to take the uncertain for the certain thing, because of all these colors which come gradually late and with so much slowness that we cannot easily discern them, we do not want to place our pen there, attentive to more elevated designs, but only on someone yellowish and light in color, but which draws almost on perfect whiteness in front of the last redness, so that the latter remains visible for a long time in the matter, comparing it to the lightness of the others, and for this reason the Philosophers make it take place of the same principality as the others, keeping it among the necessary colors; not, I say, that it stops in the vessel so long as the three, which remain there permanently in the matter for the space of forty days each, but insofar as after these others, it is the most important: which have been compared to the 4 Elements which influence and dominate both human and mineral bodies; the darkness on Earth which is the lead of Philosophers and the firm basis to ensure the support of others; the whiteness of the water, which serves as sperm to the woman of heaven for generation; the yellowness of the air, which is the father of life, and the redness of the fire which is the end of the work and its last perfection.

The black one, which appears twice as well as the red one, is much in credit among the most famous, for the fact that it carries the key to open the door to whoever it wishes of the colors, having a fire which administers to it all her necessities, and to whom alone she also reports, holding others under her law, because without it we cannot hope for any happy effect from the whole enterprise: her mood is not so fierce nor so hard to bend as the redness , but much more manageable and easy to process, requires for all dishes only a gentle heat which can open the corrupted leaven, allowing itself to be overcome by patience and humidity rather than by rigor and violence of a harsh governor who would dissipate everything instead of amending it. Senior serving as a law to several good authors who all approve his will on the point that we are treating, agrees with our opinion, when he shows in his writings, that the perfect decoction of the material must maintain a temperate heat as long as that the rotten crow has vanished and given its place to another dye.

Then therefore it is the fire (according to the Complaint of Nature speaking thus: The fire is noble and master over all, And is the cause of giving birth, By its heat and giving life, etc.) which holds the hand at work takes note of the path that it must certainly follow: I am no longer surprised if the doctors of the great Peat have announced through the doctrine of Lucas, one of their associates, that they have great esteem for the worker who knows fire and the seasons to violent it: “Be careful,” he says, “of a fire that is too strong for a beginning.” That if in the face of time, it is too violent and out of its control measures, he will burn what he should rot, principle of life, and the useless punishment would only bring us an extreme confused regret and indescribable displeasure of a salary vainly expected by an illicit means of violence, cause of rebellion and 'obstinacy.

This is what Mary the Prophetess rightly says: “The strong fire guards against making the conjunction” and the true dissolution of nature. And in another place she says again: "The strong fire dyes the white to the red of a country poppy." To which the Trevisan agrees when he says that the soft and temperate fire perfects the work, instead of the violent destroying it .

If then in all things the end of every enterprise is to be considered from its beginning, in this one above all we must be more attentive, because if you do not know the rule of your fire in each season, which is the greatest happy with your pretensions and, who entirely leads the work to its perfection, it is done with your labor, because in the knowledge of the order of colors consists the whole point of a great science and of the tree of Hermes, according to the Philosophers who so often delight us with this divine lesson.

Aes nostrum si bene scis, sufficiet tibi mercurius et ignis (If you know our brass well, mercury and fire will be enough for you). agrees with our opinion, when he shows in his writings, that the perfect decoction of the material must maintain a temperate heat as long as the rotten crow has vanished and has given way to another tincture. Then therefore it is the fire (according to the Complaint of Nature speaking thus: The fire is noble and master over all, And is the cause of giving birth, By its heat and giving life, etc.) which holds the hand at work takes note of the path that it must certainly follow: I am no longer surprised if the doctors of the great Peat have announced through the doctrine of Lucas, one of their associates, that they have great esteem for the worker who knows fire and the seasons to violent it: “Be careful,” he says, “of a fire that is too strong for a beginning.” That if in the face of time, it is too violent and out of its control measures, he will burn what he should rot, principle of life, and the useless punishment would only bring us an extreme confused regret and indescribable displeasure of a salary vainly expected by an illicit means of violence, cause of rebellion and 'obstinacy. This is what Mary the Prophetess rightly says: “The strong fire guards against making the conjunction” and the true dissolution of nature. And in another place she says again: "The strong fire dyes the white to the red of a country poppy." To which the Trevisan agrees when he says that the soft and temperate fire perfects the work, instead of the violent destroying it . If then in all things the end of every enterprise is to be considered from its beginning, in this one above all we must be more attentive, because if you do not know the rule of your fire in each season, which is the greatest happy with your pretensions and, who entirely leads the work to its perfection, it is done with your labor, because in the knowledge of the order of colors consists the whole point of a great science and of the tree of Hermes, according to the Philosophers who so often delight us with this divine lesson.

Aes nostrum si bene scis, sufficiet tibi mercurius et ignis (If you know our brass well, mercury and fire will be enough for you). he is too violent and beyond his control, he will burn what he should rot, the principle of life, and the useless punishment would only bring us an extreme confused regret and indescribable displeasure of a salary vainly expected by an illicit means violence, cause of rebellion and stubbornness. This is what Mary the Prophetess rightly says: “The strong fire guards against making the conjunction” and the true dissolution of nature. And in another place she says again: "The strong fire dyes the white to the red of a country poppy." To which the Trevisan agrees when he says that the soft and temperate fire perfects the work, instead of the violent destroying it . If then in all things the end of every enterprise is to be considered from its beginning, in this one above all we must be more attentive, because if you do not know the rule of your fire in each season, which is the greatest happy with your pretensions and, who entirely leads the work to its perfection, it is done with your labor, because in the knowledge of the order of colors consists the whole point of a great science and of the tree of Hermes, according to the Philosophers who so often delight us with this divine lesson.

Aes nostrum si bene scis, sufficiet tibi mercurius et ignis (If you know our brass well, mercury and fire will be enough for you).

Black is the first to breach the ship,
White follows closely, wet as water,
And red in color holds last place.

Balde, in the Peat, speaking of the same colors which we must closely observe, warns us to cook our composition until we see it become white, which afterwards we must extinguish in vinegar, by which he means mercurial water of matter which is fire and philosophical water. And aqua est ignis comburens solem magis quam ignis (water is the fire that burns the sun more than fire), say the great Rosary and the Peat; Aqua nostra fortior est igne quia facit de corpore auri merum spiritum, quod ignis facere non potest (Aqua nostra fortior est igne quia facit de corpore auri merum spiritum, quod ignis facere non potest), says Geber again to the same end. You also need to know how to separate black from white, because whiteness is a sign approaching fixation.

Now we cannot distinguish them better than by a calcination fire, since without the addition and multiplication of heat on the gifted temper of that which preceded and dominated on the blackness of a corruption, the division of our degrees of color cannot easily be done. What having finally obtained by the industry of such a fire, we are left with a bulk of earth, which many have called father of matter, in the form of a black and harsh earth which they call their Saturn, terram leprosarn and nigram, a leprous, rotten, and black earth, which some others call the lower world, which can no longer mingle with the pure and subtle matter of this Stone, because it is necessary to separate the gross from the subtle, and from the rare the 'thick; what is done by cutting without touching it with hands or feet, so that opus magnum semetipsum solvit separates and divides itself, say Raymond Lulle and Trévisan: L'Hortulain on the Emerald Table says of even: “You will separate, that is to say dissolve, because dissolution is the separation of parts” and whoever knows the art of dissolving, he has reached the secret, according to Rasis.

Now this is the refrain that all good Philosophers constantly sing to us, when they so often advise us that red and white must be removed from black, and then in it we no longer find anything superabundant. having resigned all its strength to the above-mentioned colors, and is no longer subject to diminution, but the whole subsequently conforms to the very perfect red; and this is why they want to shoot it with force and vehemence of fire, according to even the most healthy part of the learned people of the Peat. When the colors, they say, come more and more to change and alter, the fire must increase more violently than before without fearing henceforth that it could spoil anything, because the material strengthens itself on the white, time during which the soul joins inseparably with the body, and the spirits descended from heaven to this earth no longer part from it. This is confirmed by the words of the Philosopher Lucas: “When our Magnesia, he says, has been transmuted to white, it calls to itself the spirits which had abandoned it, from which it no longer separates.

Also remember for certain that the above-mentioned waters are the weights of the Philosophers, and these same weights are the colors of matter, and the three main colors are the three fires of the Philosophers: natural, unnatural and unnatural.

The comparison that science enthusiasts make of our Work to the vineyard is not too out of place; I will propose it succinctly so as not to bore the volunteer reader. You must know that the branch or the vine which is the juice and like the white color of the matter, will be taken out of its quintessence, but its wine will be perfected to the third degree according to the true proportion, because it increases in the decoction and is formed in pulverization, which are the only means to understand in oneself the beginning and the end of this natural nursery.

This is why none of our doctors have left us in writing that the philosophical copper will be completely perfect in seven days by which we mean the seven metallic colors, of which perfect redness is the last; others extend its term of perfection further than four days, which can be related to the four main colors that many attribute to it only, and on which the whole work mainly depends, others give it only three days, which are terms attributed to the three strongest and most necessary permanent colors in the matter, and some others even less sparing time and delivering it in good measure charitably assure him a whole year to get out of guardianship, and to be able absolutely after to use all its rights, with no other governor than its discretion capable of maintaining a world of its benefits and liberalities: This term of year to go out of page, can still be accommodated to the four seasons of the year, and to the four elements , who have no little right over our matter.

To which the judgment made by Alphidius, followed by several others of the same society, conforms, judging the end of the work by the end of the four times of the year, in spring, in summer, in autumn and winter, because once again the year is made up of the four seasons; several others shorten it into a day which is the time of the perfect decoction, metaphorically speaking, because a philosophical year is always pre-finished with the decoction, that in a week, that in a month. Arnauld, Raymond, Geber, Hortulain and Augurel speak of three years, because each color is understood for one year. All of which diversities relate to the same goal and the same meaning, through the doctrine, experience and dexterity of the most capable who know it, but who always conceal in their back room time, names and matter: which cannot not understand the ignorant, to whom wisely by this means the Sages forbid the venerable entry of their mysterious Schools, just as Plato absolutely forbade the communication of his divine eloquence to those who had no knowledge of mathematics. Closely observed practice of Philosophers in the administration of their difficult work,

Procul hinc, procul este prophani.

OF THE PROPERTY OF THE WHOLE WORK AND OF THE ENTIRE PREPARATION OF THE STONE

treated sixth

The calcination or dealbation between the Philosophers will hold the rank that a good father of a family makes in a lineage, to which he provides with its necessities, so they make him hold the first degree of his Economy from the beginning of the work, and he continuing the principal honor of this office over the entire administration of our metals, until by his provident discretion, his vice-governor, established to place each in his duty, had reduced them to the honorable end of their perfection. Now having here the subject of dealing with this dealbation and the leisure to say something about it, he points out to us that Philosophers establish it in three ways, the first two of which belong to the body, the third to the mind. The first is still a preparation of cold humidity which preserves the wood from the insults of fire, which they call their Saturn, because Saturn freezes the sperm: and from this preparation duly made, we conceive in the soul the good luck to a happy beginning. The second is a fatty humidity which makes the wood susceptible to fire, and combustible, which is said to be the viscous oil of the Philosophers, and which comes after corruption; now this oil is the one which gives the tincture, and the first philosophical menstruation and their first vessel.

But the third is like an incineration of dry earth, which is white, endowed with a pure, true, fixed and subtle humidity, which gives off no flame, nevertheless failing to form a clear, transparent, shiny body, and diaphanous as a glass, which is the pure and perfect whiteness, and the daisy of the Philosophers, and their white gold, and half of the work: also that calcination is nothing other than purely whitening for them; Wheno dealbatum fuerit aurum, post denigrationem ejus, nominatur aurum nostrum, et calx nostra, et magnesia nostra, et aqua permanens (When the gold is whitened, after its blackening, it is called our gold, and our lime, and our magnesia, and permanent water.), said Morien subtly.

This is the way of calcining according to the Philosophers, by means of permanent water or a strong vinegar which is the quintessence of the material and the soul of the Stone. But let us note in passing that metals all participate in this radical humidity, which is nothing but a beginning of all soft things: this is also why we certainly hold the calcination of philosophers to be nothing other than whiteness and the purgation and restoration of natural heat: or a perfect index, deviation, disturbance, and expulsion of superfluous humidity, and an attraction of an igneous humidity, which is that pure whiteness which we call internal sulfur of the Philosophers, separating the accidental and superfluous sulfur which is corruption; otherwise a sweet liquor, from which comes the animated substance of our work, the sovereign quintessence of all happiness, the best spirit and life, from which the perfect redness is taken, and the happy ending of the work.

Now this liquor is ordinarily made with the water of the Philosophers, which is properly the sublimation or resolution of the Sages, or exaltation and whiteness, and their permanent water: but of such particular force, that it soon changes the harsh dryness in a supple and manageable softening, drawing out the quintessence, which is the admirable Stone of the Sages, the vegetable Mercury which separates and unites the elements. Which happens mainly because the part which the violence of the fire has consumed and compressed together has become subtle by the spirit, which is a resolving water and humidity of corrupted bodies with heat gathered and annexed with the spirit and radical mood; all of which things are a root of all philosophical elements, which must be remade again after corruption, which are these four perfect colors, of which redness is the last.

And then it suits you by common sense
Separate the four Elements,
Which are completely new you will make
And then put them into action,

wisely says the Fountain of Lovers of Science. Now sublimation is called a coarser earthy vapor, but subtly made into a humidity of water, and inflammation or humidity of the air, with heat of well-tempered fire, which heat absolutely causes the necessary mutation and changes of the elements: and whoever knows this mutual conversion of one to another, he is assuredly on the perfect path, in which he will find what he is looking for in the exhausted quintessence of the whole elements, and no longer retaining their superfluous filth and dirty rubbish. Now this quintessence is an operative humidity of excellent nature, which gives luster to all the four elements without being compressed, transmuting them into its own quintessence nature, and this is called the soul of the world comprehended in all things, which we also call the fire of the Philosophers.

This is again the real fixation of which Geber speaks. Nothing, he says, will become firm, whether it receives some light, or becomes a beautiful and penetrating substance, because from there comes the sulfur of the Philosophers, and the ash which is drawn from it, without the moon which is all the control and of very great effect, because in it a water of metals is preserved, which rejoices in the body which it animates and makes alive: which is a mixture of white and red dye, and a spirit appearing, because the Moon contains obscurely in itself the tincture of the Sun, which it produces in the form of red sulfur at the end of the decoction, all by means of the soul of the world and the fire of the Philosophers which makes everything of itself. Several blacknesses and corruptions are still found in this ablution, by the hot fire which purifies all things, and whitens the black things, which once dampened and reduced to nothing, at the same time restore life to matter, in which we know a pure and complete heat intermingled with a gentle humidity of the metals, from which the dyed material receives strength and vigor.

The so desired putrefaction of all Philosophers, like the First Soul of their best study, will be perfect and accomplished, when it is clearly broken and destroyed from its first form and from a black color, which becomes white attracting the secret in outside by corruption, because what was previously hidden is revealed and redeemed from death, so much power is given over our work to the black essence of the sulfur of the Philosophers. This is also what Arnauld de Villeneuve says in his Rosary: Hujus operis perfectio, est naturae permutatio (The perfection of this work is the change of nature), the whole consisting only in the conversion of various natures. Raymond in the Theory of his Testament is of the same opinion: “The art,” he says, “of our magisterium depends on corruption.” Et dissolvimus (And we broke up), he adds again, cum putrefactionibus (with putrefaction).

And in another place he says that whoever knows the means of being able to destroy, that is to say, dissolve gold, he has reached the secret. And our stone, he always continues, is never found except in the belly of corruption: lapis noster nunquam invenitur nui in belly corruptionum (Our stone is never found in the belly of corruption). La Tourbe des Philosophes also contributes these same words. Rot, they say, is the first ascendant and the most beautiful hope of the whole work, which discovers and brings into view the highest mystery of this operation. Which is mainly a certain distinction and true conversion of the elements,

Into their essence and first matter
From which the entire work is collated and can be seen.

It is of this change that those of this learned Peat, after so many other ancients, so often warn us: “Change the elements, and what is wet make it dry and firm.” Which, going even further, assure that the matter and what depends on it is properly prepared when the whole is duly pulverized, and forms only one body together; which for this purpose is also very aptly called the conjunction of the philosophers. Consider therefore once again that the calcination is done in vain, if some powder is not drawn from it, which is the water of the philosophers, called the ashes of Hermes or powder of mercury, as Augurel even shows us in these terms:

The water that I hear externally
From a powder to the species properly.

The decoction is also one of the main and necessary parts that must be sought by those who know how to use the flower of their best vacation on the tests of our magisterium. Albert the Great is of this opinion among the other Philosophers who are no less vocal about it, but since he was the first to appear before my eyes, I will report his words. Of all the arts, he says, even the most perfect, we do not know one which more closely imitates nature than that of the alchemists, because of the decoction and formation which cooks into a red and igneous water of the metals, drawing closely the lively qualities of the sun and a little bit of nature, also it is an assation and common dissolution of the Philosophers, whose humidity will be consumed little by little with the clear fire: but we must be careful , that the spirit, which is thus arid and dried up from the body, will either no longer correspond to said body, or it will still not be sufficiently purified and perfect at all.

The distillation of the Philosophers, otherwise called clarification, brings great advancement to the conclusion of our work, which we say is a certain purification of some matter with radical moisture, which together make the wise hope for a desired end of the whole work; through this coagulation, the perfect alliance is made and the conception of non-vulgal sulfur, and of the Raven or the Falcon of Hermes, which always stands, he says, with the Trevisan, at the end of the mountains, it is- that is to say on the surface of the metal, when it is spiritus niger non urens, the black and non-burning spirit, constantly crying: "I am the white of black and the red of citrine." The encounter that I had of a beautiful enigma about this bird made me collect it, finding it quite relevant to our subject, in memory of which it was learnedly composed; since the modest curiosity of our mystical work is included there, I will share it liberally for the memory and merit of the volunteer reader.

Enigma

I live in the mountains, and among the flatness.
Father before son, I have my mother begotten,
And my mother without father in her side carried me
Without needing any food.
Hermaphrodite am, of one and another nature,
Of the strongest, the victor, of the least overcome,
And nothing is found under the vaulted sky,
Of so beautiful, of so good, and perfect figure
In me, in me, without me, a strange bird is born
Or without wings flying, dying comes to life,
And of nature art by following its law,
It metamorphoses in the end into a king,
Six others surmounting with admirable harmony.

The Rosary also speaks to us of coagulation which it compares to the raven which flies without wings, which is mainly done by the dissolution caused by heat, and by the freezing caused by coldness, which are the two means of perfect generation. Hermes, speaking of what warmth all work can maintain, says in his Emerald Tablet, that the Sun is its father, the Moon is its mother, and the third fire is its governor:

showing us that its strength is all
perfect and whole
When he returns to the rear land.

And when by degrees this Elixir comes to turn into solid earth, which then afterwards can be used for so many diverse operations that we cannot number them, on whatever propitious body we want to apply it. And for this reason we can also compare it to a well-stocked threshing floor, which surely preserves all the grains that are presented to it, and benefits from all things, just as our art, being perfect, converts everything that brings in and approaches its nature. in its same nature, and made, being provided with sufficient materials, admirable buildings worthy of a perfect architect of the sun.

OF THE DIVERSE OPERATION OF THE WORK, OF THE VARIETY OF NAMES AND SIMILARITIES WHICH PHILOSOPHERS USE IN THIS ART FOR THE PREPARATION OF THIS WORK

It is a common saying among Philosophers that he knows how to industriously make an excellent chef- of working metals and is one of the greatest masters in this art, which can extinguish and dampen the vivacity of mercury: if we should not, however, dwell on this letter so crude, that there is no need to gloss some meaning, because they all deal differently with their mercury.

We will put forward for the entry into their mercurial controversies, what Senior says about it, by the preference that his name gives him over other authors: “Our fire,” he says, “is water, but when you can appropriate a fire to another fire, and a mercury to another mercury, this knowledge will suffice for you for the glorious end of your pretensions." You see how he calls this quicksilver a fire and a water, and that it is necessary that this fire is made by means of another fire. He also says that the soul will be drawn out by rottenness, (which is darkness, and the first color of the perfect Elixir, which flows again into this dead body to share its spirit with it, and to revive it and resurrect, to what the Wise philosopher possesses then after, and the spirit and the body peacefully together of his perfect work.

This is what the Peat also says speaking of their mercury which they call their fire: "Take, says -she, the non-burning black spirit, with which we must dissolve and divide bodies: this spirit is all fire, dissolving all kinds of bodies by its igneous property and dividing them with its fellows in essence. "

Several others hold that this mercury is properly called quintessence, the soul of the world, spirit, permanent water, menstruation, and an infinity of other names which all relate to it according to the diversity of its effects, to which they give so much force. and of virtue, that without the assistance of this vivified soul, the body of our vessel, that is to say the black matter which they call the Dragon devouring its tail, which is its own moisture, would never obtain life, and would show no sign of good effect. Take, they say, this quicksilver, and this body of black Magnesia, or some pure and unburned sulfur, which you must pulverize and compress in a very strong vinegar: but you will not recognize there any appearance of change nor mutation of the permanent colors, which are black, white and red, all three very necessary, if the fire is not from the part which whitens it, and does not approach this composition, because it is only it which reserves this property, and who knows how to govern it well, making it receive a redness within, which, says the Peat of the Philosophers, can become gold, transmuting into a certain Elixir from which a water is exhausted, which is used for several tinctures , giving life and color to all those reported to him.

But as darkness is the first that must be known in the work, and which serves so much as a footstool for the others, that they can firmly establish whatever their entire steps may be, because since that one preceded, all the others can certainly come there, so it potentially contains them all. Whoever color, says Arnauld, post nigredinem apparebit, laudabilis est. And when you see your matter blackened, rejoice, and console yourself, because this is the beginning of the work. In the Great Rosary of the Philosophers, he also says that all the perfection of this science consists in the change of nature, which can only be done by the path that this much desired black board fortunately opens for it, without the vestiges of which it would be, as they say, to count without his host, with whom he would be forced to start again another time, and to report the other as something that had not happened.

But if you can see in your vessel the black sulfur with which we are dealing here, is nostri operis perfectio, and an infallible expectation of other necessary ways. Here is what this great and far-sighted Peat estimates, namely, that the citrine color and the red which appear externally, the black having already passed to make an opening to those which follow it, are extremely good and full of good success, after which another purpure color very precious and of great hope arises, which makes all assured the happy event of the triumph, or the magnificence promised to our king: and this color is the best and purest mercury which provides us with the most exquisite tinctures of our magisterium all filled with a very sweet smell. Now all these beautiful and excellent properties rightly granted to this worthy mercury clearly demonstrate the esteem that wise philosophers must have for it, who also attribute to it with one voice not only the honor of a good and favorable beginning, but still they believe that he happily presides over the perfection and total conclusion of the work, drawing from his essence a true remedy for all languor, and the glorious regulation of human felicity, supported by the firm piles of his rare power and cemented of the subtle liveliness of this flying spirit.

Hermes, this great prince of philosophers, ignorant of nothing natural things that can be learned, recognized so many properties in it that the excellence of this mercury carried his mind beyond all the praise that can modestly be given to it. a mineral body, to favor it with a glorious praise responding to its own merits and marvelous perfections. Wanting, therefore, by a metaphorical abbreviation to succinctly describe the particular properties of this aforementioned mercury, he uses these words:

"I have, he says, given myself the care of a bird, calling it thus for what it is spirit and body, first born of the earth,
Very common, very hidden, very vile, very precious,
Preserving, destroying, good and mischievous,
Beginning and end of every creature,

for corruption and darkness are the beginning and end of all things. What Augurel in his Chrysopée again very aptly confirms when he speaks of this black bird dissolving bodies with these following verses:

And what is more, this nature strives
Who to soften these two metals strives
In all things is naturally
By giving it an end and a beginning.

The axioms and natural principles assure us that universal corruption is the common sperm, the cement and the proper seed of every generation. But finally to return to the nature of our bird, we must notice in him and recognize such foresight, that he has the industry to dodge and foresee what is contrary to him, taking his flight sometimes at the sign of Leo or of the Crayfish, and sometimes in the sign of Chariot and Capricorn. But if after so many subtle escapes, you can stop it and correct its lightness holding back the course of its speed, you will be able to obtain the right title of perpetual RNA-phytheosis of very rich minerals and enjoy for many years many precious things, including the exquisite value had not yet come to your perfect knowledge.

Having finally arrested it, you can divide and separate it into various parts, so that you can reserve it somewhere, which you will bring down to its dead and rotten earth, as long as this volatile spirit comes to it helping to get back on its feet by its strong nature, decorating it again with a variety of beautiful pleasant colors, which are very certain clues to its clarification: and when all these returns have happened to it the good authors call it the earth and the lead of the Sages, which we can happily use, having acquired this property of heating the vessel of Hermes, that is to say Mercury, and distilling in time and place, by number or certain distribution of the part , qualifying this spiritualized earth with various names according to the succession of colors and the various operations of this wingless flying spirit, by sublimating and rectifying to the bottom all the mass which decreases, then purifies itself, and returns more and more its complexion more beautiful, until she has reached the first white perfection with which she suffers death another time; to return again, and soon after, to a more glorious life, which is of a red dye.

Putrefy this body again and pulverize it until the occult and hidden which is the inner red comes to be demonstrated and manifested visibly: then divide and dissolve the elements, so that you can rejoin them and reunite according to the occurrences, and pulverize the whole again until the corporeal and material thing becomes in its animated and spiritual essence: which being conveniently done, you still have to remove the soul from the body which you will gather and rectify to its spirit.

(This kind messenger of the gods, Mercury, full of inventions and subtleties thus turned on all sides, has acquired great luster, of which he freely and largely gives equal portion to his associates and closest neighbors; as to Venus, to which it gives a whiteness, to too violent Jupiter it moderates and diminishes the forces, makes Saturn hardened, and makes Mars soften, gives to the Moon a citrine color, and resolves all bodies into a perfect water, from which we exhausts the true source of an admirable virtue; which Trevisan openly declares in practice in his book on the Natural Philosophy of Metals, so that it will suffice for us to send readers to what he pertinently describes, without stopping there any longer.

The Philosophers still teach us on the finger the necessary means of arriving at the preparations of black sulfur, up to the first nature of red, which they call distillation, as long as it arrives at an oleaginous gum and aquatic, incombustible, very penetrating, and at all similar to the body, which for this purpose is by many called the soul, for what it vivifies, conjoins, inserts and renders natures in spirit. This sulfur thus reduced surpasses in excellence all the prices and values that could be given to it, so they greatly appreciated it and qualified it with a praise of honor, when they prerogatively attributed to it the rare name of milk of virgin or virgin, lake virginum, which in no way reverts to the form of some red gum, all of gold, and resembling the water of the Philosophers, very resplendent, which must be coagulated, commonly called of the Sages tinctura Sapientiae, tincture admirable of Sapience, or the lively fire of permanent colors, a soul and a spirit which extends far by its virtue making itself volatile, or withdraws and restricts when it pleases, with a fixed tincture in its individuals, it that is to say in its own and homogeneous nature.

This non-vulgal Mercury is also called red sulfur, gold gum, apparent gold, desired body, singular gold, water of sapience, earth of silver, white earth, air of sapience, (note that the child of philosophers was born in the air) mainly when he received a badge and perfect whiteness. The whole Peat of Philosophers, settled on the circumstances which must appear on the surface and on the entire body of their fruit, has bequeathed this judgment. It is necessary, they say, to know that gold cannot be returned to red until it has first passed to white after corruption, because there is no way to the two ends of the line. work only through the whiteness which is its middle; so that you observe all the rules that must be followed in this method, since the disorder and the center of confusion which is rather followed by the messengers of desolation than the harbingers of consolation raised under the prudent discipline of a order necessary for this operation.

Now all these colors, although they are of the same nature, and are found successively in the same subject, if they nevertheless result in various effects, because it is true that white will be made black by red, and that pure water with a crystalline color will appear citrine red, all separated from some particular virtue. Mo-rien opens you on the folds of his book, dealing with the transmutation of metals metaphorically, the proportion and the degrees which you must seek in the composition of your labor '.fac, he says, ut fumas rubensfumum album capiat, ac deorsum ambos effunde and conjunge, the red smoke must include the white, and join them both together.

The code of all truth also says on the same subject: "Whiten the red, and redden the white, for that is the whole art, the beginning and the end." Senior speaking again of this variety of colors, gives us understand in the following words the great benefit and necessity of them. It is an admirable thing to consider the beautiful functions and the noble factions of this mercurial spirit, which if you come to throw over the other three defaulters, it brings aid and succor to the white, and over the citrine and the red he makes as perfectly white as the color of a lily or argentine, then he helps and gives color to the red over the citrine, making it like alabaster. Morien forms and conforms his judgment on the faithful report of the most experts in this science, authorizing by his opinion what they treated of it, the sentence of which then later seriously passed into an irrevocable maxim. Take care, he says, of the perfect citrin which develops little by little from this citrinity, to give itself and acquire a greater and more pronounced increase in redness,

From all these theorems, irrefutable, solidly welded in the idea of the most famous architects who fortunately undertook the industrious manufacture of this excellent stone, and chiseled with their industrious hand in the cube of Hermes, we can easily understand that the gold of Philosophers is quite other than common gold or silver, its closest follower and its first emulator of its perfection, although the similarity given to it by the Wise children of science, nevertheless seems to have some communication and familiar conjunction with common gold and silver, as well as with other metals, which indeed lack the same purity and perfection of the highest in color, but similar in power, all yielding with time and providing care to nature to the same favor and degree of supreme quality of their very shiny king, although several authors are of opinion that impure metals always remain such, without ever reaching a higher luster, and that lead always retains lead, however we see that the excellence of the work is often compared to these inferior and imperfect metals, for the reciprocal affinity that they have together, if not in effect, at least in hope and hope.

Consider what, very aptly to confirm our writings, reports Senior, speaking of the imperfect, who nevertheless claim one day to become on a par with the most perfect, being only ahead of their nobler essence, only in primogeniture and in time, having formerly been less in decoction, of extraction as vile, and of substance as abject as the natural composition of the imperfect, the most perfect remaining original and without any difference in nobility to the common seed and universal principles of these abject and sordid metals. “I am,” he said, “an iron (using a prosopopeia to make him speak in a more than metallic jargon) an iron, I said, hard and dry, but such in power and virtue, that nothing cannot be equal to me, because I am a coagulation of the quicksilver of the philosophers."

Peat also says that copper and lead will become a precious stone, qualifying even the most noble and perfect color of the work and the work even of the name of copper; so they still say that lead is the beginning of their true magisterium, and without which nothing can be done. As many have exposed a red lead made of a white or a Venus of Mars. And from white lead (they continued) you will make a white dye, which is lunar sulfur, and then your work will have already passed from blackness and reached white, the second livery of the officers of our king, and the proportionate medium of artifice. And this is why the Philosopher taught us that there is nothing closer or closer to gold and its nature than lead, in that life consists of it, and that he draws to himself all the secrets.

But we must not take these beautiful qualities so closely to the letter, nor seek in common lead these rare pre-eminences, in which these virtues and properties cannot be found, but only in those who are called Philosophers, especially since by the ease of its putrefaction and the infection of the stinking earth, it obtains an advantage over other metals: this is why they all said with Raymond Lulle, that without putrefaction the work cannot be done. do, which is water, fire and the key to perfect magnesia.

For this same purpose Morien has learnedly compared it to arsenic, orpiment, tutie, rotten earth and stinking sulfur, to all venom, poison and rot, for the correspondence it has with these things; then again to other bodies which are not, however, among the number of minerals, but which only retain certain complexions, such as blood and several others similar to such quality; and finally to various mineral materials, such as salt, alum and others, all these varieties being attributed to it for the great and apparent diversity which it has in its effects, properly related to each particular species of these above-named bodies. This is why Geber says, that their Stone is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic, that is to say with corruption.

And Calid in his Mirror of Secrets: angel folium toxico, anoint, he says, the leaf of venom, which still denotes this aforementioned putrefaction.

But above all things Alphidius warns us to take care to carefully maintain and govern an animated body, and an almost dead Peter, which is this darkness, because in them as such, we will find no path, no proposition nor deliberation of our investigation, because their strength does not increase in any way, but on the contrary annihilates itself perceptibly without any fruit, having become debilitated and annihilated, as said is, by the deprivation which happens to them of their natural heat, which diminishes until death deprived of all its primary functions. However, if you think of giving them too great a fire, to prevent the heat which nourishes and maintains them from perishing, your matter will become red before turning black, which is the deprivation of life, and in doing so you will have lost all your pain: this is why you must help with a very slow and naturally well-disposed fire, in order to revive what deprivation would have debilitated by its damaging violence.

For as Riplea says in her Twelve Gates, one hundred and third chapter: “Always be careful that by too much heat, your bodies are not incinerated into dry, red and useless powder, but try your best to be able to turn them into black powder similar to the beak ravens, in the hot bath, or in our droppings, keeping them above all things in moist heat until eighty nights have passed, and the black color appears in your vessel, which is this first salt of the Philosophers , and a tincture attracting like certain alkali salt and other brines of bodies, which subtly transmuting itself into the things attracted, it will become similar to the natural essences of metallic natures. "

Now, the authors treat differently of the variety both of their Stones and of their salts, especially since the greater part consists of three kinds in the perfection of the entire work: I take as guarantor and as assured testimony of my thesis the proposition described in the Great Rosary in this way: Tres sunt lapides , and very dirty sunt, ex quibus totum magisterium consistit. Lucas Rodargire still deals with it quite extensively in its philosophical dissolution, stopping on this same ternary number. But we must not forget that Raymond Lulle calls these three salts, three menstrua, three vases, three quicksilver, three sulfurs, and three fires, which are nothing else strictly speaking, and no more hyperbolically as an obscure philosopher, than the color black, white and red, which are taken from the natural essences of the due matter. The above-mentioned salts have so much power over the perfect essences of our magisterium that Senior says in these terms: "Our body will first become ashes, which will be reduced to salt, then finally will achieve through its various operations a very perfect measure and degree. of the Mercury of the Philosophers.”

But among all the salts it is to be noted for the instruction and total manufacture of the work, that armoniac mainly holds the first place, surpassing in excellence the impurity and the less noble essence of all the others, which for this purpose are much less suitable for our work, as Aristotle assures us in several places of his works, inducing us by his sparse pen, to use only armoniac salt in our operation, especially since he naturally acquired the art of dissolving bodies, softening them and animating them. Now nothing is animated, neither born nor generated, except after corruption, as Morien says, which is this black color, or this armoniac salt, and the black spirit dissolving bodies. La Tourbe adds these words even more abundantly, confirming our affirmative.

It is necessary, she says, to hear and to know perfectly, that the bodies will not take any tincture, that the spirit first hidden inside their belly which is still this black spirit, was not drawn out: what having been done, it will come a water and a body which is similar to human and spiritual nature, because it then contains body, soul and spirit, which being of a loose essence and color, cannot perfectly dye this terrestrial size, if it is not subtilized by this spirit and made similar to it, but the spirit of an aquatic nature is dyed in Elixir, which for this purpose will produce a white, red, pure and complete fixation of a perfect color and penetrating dye, which blends with all metals, as well as celestial mercury, join each planet and surrender their nature, having approached one of its associates, noble or imperfect. But it is still necessary to know that the perfection of all mastery depends on this point that sulfur must be drawn out of the perfect body having a fixed nature, because sulfur is the very ancient and very subtle part of crystalline salt, of flavor sweet, delectable in taste and aromatic moisture, which being for the space of a year in the fire, would always appear as melted wax, and therefore some part of it remains in the quicksilver, dyeing it into a golden very pure, and for this reason the humidity or water that we draw from the bodies of metals is called the soul of the Stone, hidden in said humidity, because this water is called spirit, and the virtue of said spirit is called soul and tincture, which dyes and fixes all said water into pure gold.

But mercury or the strength and vigor of it is also called spirit when it has drawn to itself the sulphurous nature and the arid earth is the body, and the body of the quintessence, and the extreme and absolute tincture which is the true essence and perfect nature taking over all forms. Now although these three come from only one root, if they nevertheless have different and indifferent operations,

It is the beautiful golden chain
That I have circulating decorated,

says the Lament of Nature. For this reason Jean de Mehun in his Roman de la Rosé calls it bawdy, because it combines indifferently with all forms one after the other.

THE ADMIRABLE VIRTUES AND SUPERHUMAN FORCES OF THIS NOBLE TINCTURE SUCCINCTLY REPORTED IN THE LAST PART OF OUR BRIEF AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND INSTITUTION

Of the dyes, the most exquisite are willingly the best received, according to the use of the seasons which gives them the vogue and the course among men, by the not contemptible, but rather very laudable desire of minds modestly curious about the inestimable price of some honorable novelty, as much for the emoluments which follow closely on the heels of this curiosity, as for the premeditated honors and the decorum appropriate to their honesty which finally awaits them with good success in the entire possession of the sweet fruits full of felicity.

These are the two firmest springs and the most apparent means for tickling the Favonian tunes to the very core with a sweet hope and a good-natured calm, and at all favorable to the peaceful promptness of our sighs, that profits and contentment to fully savor some object maturely proposed, in the idea of our conceptions, first meditated on than fixedly attached to the staples of happiness and honor of this delectable enjoyment. Now if we naturally long for the thing that is as lovable as it is worthily loved and desired for the causes mainly mentioned above, all the more reason must we aspire to the perfect possession of our marvelous tincture. But for the difficulty we can undertake in the painful search for an unknown thing, seeing mainly that real and actual knowledge must first be occupied in the sinuous detours of a lively imagination so that it can be firmly held and stopped at the griphes before letters of an honest friendship, and that the common senses are previously entertained in knowing well the amiable thing before it is loved, I will treat in a few words and according to our scope the delicious dishes of our work fabric of science natural, issued and fomented in the pure and clear conscience of the ancient sages, who I would happily call Magi elected to this office by authorized preference of the divinity, and to the sacred conceptions of the mysterious tree which favored them with such a sovereign balm : so that by the true knowledge of its rare rarities and particular qualities, each virtuous soul gloriously moved by reasons elevated under the advantageous flight of this glorious tincture, immediately renders its spirits lovingly enamored of its admired greatness, that the good-natured wings of a courteous reputation retains the ordinary pledges of her fidelity, to announce to all wise people the esteem she herself has for the excellence of her objects, venerable at all times to more clairvoyant eyes and better judges of smell very sweet of such harmony: the sweetness of which changes the undulating waves of such a doubtful shipwreck, subject to the mercy of many fearful irresolutions, into a phrase of assured joy, by the nautical needle of their dexterity, as soon as the tournament of this fragile skiff,

I will therefore say of our dye which the animated spirit has somehow made itself perfect, that it completely perfects the most perfect colors,

And that other similar to itself,
Can only find harmony
in its own essence :
Surpassing fortunately
Of its effects even
Pure excellence.

From this living source the ancient sages have prudently drawn four remarkable points, extracted from a greater number of its own virtues: but what? virtues so marked by infallible maxims, that Nature itself, having some desire for them, seemed almost to form a shadow in the difficulty of signing to it for approval in so many acquired qualities,

By a free and voluntary acquiescence,
This power in all completely outside of 'ordinary.

It is true that they are such that the majority, not being able to understand them well, refuse this belief, as something impossible and outside of a natural conception: so that the gross ignorance of these light heads, not wanting to recognize in others, what surpasses their common opinion, think to hold in check the superhuman minutes of these perfections, and to nail to them the nail of such a great privilege by the judgments of some incredulous soul,

Under the weak compass of a vain appearance,
If the effect of happiness, and if experience
did not point out this presumption to them,

or did not raise the noses of presumption to these strange souls, poisoned by a fickle scruple, and an error more than panic and profane, to the great contempt of our magisterium; but what do I say, not, but rather to the confusion of the frenzied censorship of so many slightly crazy brains on the poorly polished anvil of an entire world of jealous Zoiles, Who hold no other life than detraction:

But holy affection,
Of which this divine art I envy,
Consent that without passion
I love you, not loving envy.

SPECIAL EXHIBITION OF THE MARVELOUS EFFECTS OF THE TRUE MEDICINE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS WRITTEN IN FOUR GENERAL REMARKS

The first point of its perfection is to preserve the person from any illness that may happen to him in his entire state and healthy convalescence, communicating to him this good and perfect disposition until 'to even some number of the descendants of his posterity, and completely chasing away by his far-sighted operation the threatening causes of our ills which could daily overwhelm and subdue our fragile infirmity, without the prompt remedy and sovereign precaution of this singular dyctamus. Calid, in his Mirror of the Secrets of Alchemy, says that it worldifies the bodies of their accidental illnesses,

The second accomplishes and perfects the body of metals, according to the color of medicine: for if it is white, it will transmute them all into a fine moon, and if it is red, into a very perfect sun.

The third changes all kinds of stones into precious stones according to the decoction that our aforesaid medicine will have acquired, dissolving it perfectly. The fourth breaks all the glass and also makes it into precious stone of whatever color you want, depending on whether the medicine has been more or less cooked, as in the other previous points, it has already been noted.

The mystical work of our Stone being perfect and completely accomplished, it is a gift of God so precious that it surpasses in its marvels the most admirable secrets of the sciences of the world: for this cause also we call it after so many other good authors, the incomparable treasure of treasures. Plato prized it so much that he who, he says, acquired this gift from heaven, holds all the best of the world in his possession, having reached the height of riches and the treasure of medicine.

Philosophers give it the virtue of curing all kinds of people detained from languor or other illnesses whatever they may be: taken in a slightly heated beverage and mixed in wine or with water taken from some simple plant and which has the property of helping for each ailment, one will be completely cured in one day, if one has only been afflicted with it for a month, in twelve days if it has been a year, and in one month if the ailment is inveterate; of which the dose must not exceed the weight of a grain to use it usefully, because a larger quantity could harm more than benefit.

The dropsical are cured, the paralytics, leprosy, icteric, apoplectic, iliac, etic, demoniac, insane and furious, those who are subject to tremors of the heart, to fevers, deciduous disease, quivering of the limbs, stomach pains, defluxions both of the eyes and of all parts of the body, interior and exterior; this medicine restores good hearing, strengthens the heart, restores imperfect limbs in their entirety, drives out from the body all apostums, fistulas, ulcers; finally to summarize, it is a true balm against all kinds of ills, and a singular preservative from bodily infirmities, rejoicing the spirit, increasing the strength, preserving youth, chasing away old age and demons, tempering the qualities, the blood no longer subject to putrefaction, phlegm having no power over other humors, anger without violence or passionate promptness, melancholy dominating only in its place and ordered receptacle of nature: in short, in this work we sees at all accomplished the great secret and the incomparable treasure of the rarest secrets of all Philosophers.

Senior says that this projection rejuvenates man, makes him fit and cheerful, maintaining him in perfect health until he is ten years old. This is why and not without reason, Hippocrates, Galen, Constantine, Alexander, Avicenna, and several other famous and famous doctors preferred it to all their medicines, calling it perfect medicine and universal balm.

Secondly, we hold as a maxim established by the experiments that the authors have made, that it changes imperfect metals into pure, very perfect moon and sun, even making silver into beautiful, very pure gold, higher and more complete. than the natural, constant and permanent in its color and weight.

For the third, it is very certain that this powder makes and generates other precious stones by its projection on common liquefied stones, making them more excellent than their nature carries, such as jaspers, hyacinths, white and red corals, smaragdes, chrysolites, sapphires, crystals, escar-loops, rubies, topazes, chrysoprases, diamonds and all other different species of gems, which it makes much better and surpassing in strength and virtue the natural ones, all of which this medicine can liquefy by its property.

And for the fourth and last point of our magisterium, it has this virtue of communicating itself to animals, plants and all tiny bodies to make them perfect, not having even such a simple reptile down here that does not serve as a resounding bugle for announce the glory of this excellent price, of which even if you apply even a little on some broken and broken glass, it is cut, and leaves immediately in all kinds of colors, which it purifies according to its decoction, because when it is permanent in the green, it will make emeralds, if it reaches the color of the rainbow that appears to the vessel in front of white, it will make opals, if at Saturn, it will produce diamonds, and if at red, carbuncles. But lest the wise men have any envy towards my pen, for having so naively, and perhaps too much to the day for their liking, depicted the picture of the Philosophers, which they have so shaded with obscure landscapes, that the intertwined paths of their hieroglyphic figures can only be discovered by the stale senses of our prudent Oedipus, the science of which surpassing the jealous enigmas of this Sphinx of ignorance, too ambiguous for lesser brains than our argut and subtle Daves in the science of a true philosophy, happily delivered them all from the cruel miseries of necessity, peacefully enjoying the perfect kingdom no longer of Thebes alone, but of the king himself and of the powers of the universal earth, by the dissolution of a truly Gordian knot, proposed in cartels of defiance of this importunate monster, and by the honorable foresight of their minds, rewarded with so great a prize as to possess all that the world holds dearest in its treasures, in respect of which the wish of Plato is accomplished, to have in his republic philosopher kings and philosopher kings to reign peacefully; to avoid, I say, the just reprimand of our serious doctors, I will put an end to this speech, since the rule of the proportions of our geometric square, dismisses this easy instruction to speak longer, allowing us to impose silence, and close our writings with the authority of the very shining mirror of Calid's secrets: "Whoever has had it, he says, knows it and whoever has not known it will not be able to know it." So we believe we have quite sharply chiseled for the present the lively lineaments of this brief method, at the discretion of the most learned, to whose prudence I freely entrust the censorship of my defects, if they recognize any mark described there, nevertheless praying them through the ordinary channels of my simplicity, to take in good part the intention of my pious designs, which would never have any other desire than to always be able to benefit the public.

CONCLUSION

The most perfect work, the most recommendable and the most demanding, is that which fills its worker with the pleasures of what he can wish for his usefulness, and which fights for the defense of his provident master against importunate attacks. of indigence, mother of inventions, which men use only to reduce to the smallest extent this public plague, the conjured enemy of all human happiness. Now, if by the strong counterpoison of this homicidal venom, man dissipates and happily exhales the vapors of his suffering, to savor at his leisure the goods that the labor of his household hands usefully suggests to him, through the industry of a beautiful spirit, curious to render and demonstrate some benevolent duty of charity in the need of his companion of coarser material, and consequently of more dazed senses and heavier judgment, so that he can relieve him of the doubt of succumbing to the languorous traps of necessity, by the excellence of some hunting art: each person conquered by a daily experience of the artists effects of such a worthy worker, reveres him in himself, and praises in what he can author of this invention, which preserves the maintenance of human life;

Would we remain brutalized without seeing victims smoke from the ardor of our hearts, dedicated to the living memory of our admirable tincture, which makes its possessor beyond the peer of all men, elevating him to the summit of felicity?

Would we become in this happiness stupid and insensitive to the honors due to this sublime Work?

Given that the unseemly and too ungrateful silence of our indiscreetly mute mouth would have bad grace in this place; if by chance this defect was not intended to be purged from the reasonable and apparent fear of having the language less eloquent than the subject could provide us with plenty of material, or if the displeasure of talking too little about it did not hold our stuttering lips to the specious terms of a modest taciturnity: because in this case the excuse of an alleged insufficiency would find place in our writings, although uneasily the ingratitude so visible of the ignorance of an artifice so great and so perfect, that it does not there is nothing in this sublunary valley which can be equal to it, which can honestly be sheltered from some vain reason before all the judicious who will always condemn with public anathema those who blaspheme against the true essence and real nature of this Admirable work,

Very perfect Image of the divinity
That heaven to humans has benignly raised
Of beauty, of precious, of rare and of excellence.

But because it is not appropriate to desecrate daisies, wise and very wise philosophers have also only dealt with them in enigmatic figures, in obscure words, hyperbolic collocutions and dialogues or shady similarities, so that such a beautiful pearl could not be contaminated with the impure burnt offerings of abject and unsanctified people as required by this most sacred mystery.

Pusillanimous souls do not dare undertake to sweat long after the steps of virtue, for it seems to them a difficult access and a painful conquest, whereas the spirits generously born and not degenerating from the legitimate eagle, which looks with a assured sight the rays of the sun, however brilliant they may be, never retreat for any apprehension of the thorny paths. Also, honor taking pleasure in this lively pursuit, leads them by the hand after many journeys and does not leave them until they have arrived at the top of the world of their felicities to happily triumph over the fertile harvest and the labors sown in the land of their perseverance, which finally overcomes the glorious palms.

The valor of the Argonauts cannot be diverted from their famous enterprise by the perilous Syrtes who wanted to defraud them of the happiness of their conquest, unless they pursued it to the point of constancy, under which their virtue was made immortal: so do not were they disappointed with the sweet fruit of their hoped-for glory, since time brings everything back into their hands in the long run the precious jewel that a home-loving soul would not have dared to promise or set sail to the wind under the uncertainty of senseless waves for the honorable remains of such rich booty. As much as we can judge of our work, the choice is made of the sailors elected to this affair in the council of heaven, yet they only approach it and win it after a long work, supported by patience to soften the heart of our Pierre, who knows well how to divide from the common and confused economy of this large universe, those whom it wants to retain in its pledges and give itself to them after having first and maturely examined their consciences and prudently drawn the worms from the nose of their discretion, to make it a leaven conducive to its greatness: because it takes its time to let itself be overcome by the faithful perseverance of these wise horsemen of the Golden Fleece, to whom alone it communicates, not indifferently to all, and not always again, but in a certain season, since it waits its time, and the blond ears turn to maturity, the fruit of the earth has already been preserved for several years, and the calm brains of its co-heirs are capable of this nuptial dowry:

For Geber says that old were
the Philosophers who had it
And yet in their old days
They enjoyed their loves,

at which age mainly prudence and true prudhommy, or never, become familiar to men, who must in this graying time have bankrupted the clothes of too early youth. And this is why Senior says that the man of spirit and good judgment can easily understand the true means of successfully approaching the cape of hope of this art, when he will give himself completely and without interruption to the reading the good authors, by means of which he will be enlightened, and will find the easy entrance to finally arrive at the true knowledge of this divine secret: thus holds it some modern author in this following quatrain, in accordance with all the good authors:

Often the gray hair delivers the birds
That the Saturnian lodges in our vessels:
And the vivacity of the fickle Mercury
Never tames except in the mind of the wise.

END