The Signature of All Things — trans. John Ellistone (1651)
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The translator’s English as printed (John Ellistone). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
39. Now Mercury is the Wheel of Motion, and a stirring up of the Cold and Heat; and in this Place it is only a painful aching Source in Heat and Cold, viz. a cold and hot fiery Poison-Anguish, and forces forward as a Wheel, and yet it is a cause of Joy, and all Life and Motion; but if it shall be freed from the Anguish, and introduced into the Joy, then it must be brought forth through Death.
40. Now every Sickness and malady is a Death's Property; for Mercury has too much enkindled and enflamed himself either in Heat or Cold, whereby the Essence or Flesh, which he has attracted to himself in his Desire, viz. in his Mother in the Sulphur, is burnt, whereby the Earthliness arises both in the Water and Flesh: Even as the matter of the Earth and Stones, viz. the Grossness of the same, is Nothing else but a burnt Sulphur, and Water in Mercury is his Property, where the Salniter in the Flagrat of the Mercurial Wheel, from whence the manifold Salts arise, is burnt [or too vehemently enflamed], from whence come the Stink and evil Taste.
41. Otherwise if the Mercury did so effectually operate therein in the Oil of Sulphur, that he might be brought through the Death of the Impression from the Heat and Cold, then the Earth would be again in Paradise, and the Joy-Desire would again spring [or bloom afresh] through the Anguish of the Cold's Impression: And this is the cause that God laid the Curse upon the Earth; for the Mercurial Wheel was deprived of its Good (viz. the Love-Desire, which arises in the eternal Liberty, and manifests itself with this Mercurial Wheel through Cold and Heat, and proceeds forth through the Fire, and makes a Shining of the Light) and the Curse was brought thereinto, which is a withdrawing of the Love-Desire.
42. Now this Mercury, Being a Life in the Sulphur of its Mother, stands in the Curse, viz. in the Anguish of Heat and Cold, and makes in his Flagrat, or Salnitral Walm, continually Salts, according to such Property as he is in each Place, and as he is enkindled in each Body; these Salts are only the Taste in the seven Properties.
43. Now if the Mercury be too vehemently enkindled in the Cold, then he makes in the Salnitral Flagrat in his Mother in the Sulphur a cold hard impressive Salt, from whence Melancholy, Darkness, and Sadness arise in the Life of Sulphur; for observe what Salt is in each Thing, such a Lustre of the Fire, and such a vital Shining from the Fire is also therein; but if Mercury be enkindled in immoderate Heat, he then burns up the cold Essence, and makes raging Pains and Akings according to the Impression, and according to the Sting's Property, from whence arises in the Sulphur great Heat and Inflammation; he dries up and consumes the Water, so that the Desire's Hunger or Sting has then no Food to satisfy its wrathful Hunger, upon which he rages and tears in the Salt, as it is the Poison's Property [so to do], from whence the painful Distemper in the Flesh arises.
44. But if he obtains the Likeness again in the Property as he stands in the Centre of his Mother, viz. in the Sulphur, understand as she has generated him in the Beginning, viz. as he at first came forth to the natural Life in both Tinctures of Man and Woman, understand in the Child where his Life did enkindle, then he is freed from all Anguish, and enters again into the Likeness of the Heat and Cold; and though the Strife arises in many even from the very Womb, yet the Combat is first raised up after the Beginning of the Life: In the Life's Beginning the Life enters into its highest Joy; for the Gates of the three Principles are opened in equal Accord; but the Strife soon begins about the Conquest between the Darkness and Light.
45. But now we are to consider what is to be done to Mercury, if he be enkindled either in Heat or Cold, whereby he raises up Sickness and Pains: Now it were very good that Men had the right Cure; but alas! it will remain hidden and covered by Reason of the Curse of the Earth, and the Abominations and Sins of Men, because they awaken this Poison in Mercury with their immoderate Bestiality.