The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Thus I have described the union of the man and woman, that is to say, of the body and spirit, by means of which the child is conceived in the water, and the whiteness extracted from the black body. Nor do we need anything else, except, as Morienus says, time and patience. This coagulated water is the * white, flaky earth," in which the Sage bids us sow our gold and silver that they may bear fruit a hundred-thousand-fold. This is the *clear spring" of the Count of Trevisa, in which the King bathes, though not assisted by any of his ministers, who only watch his clothes until he has dried up the whole spring, when he makes all his ministers lords and kings such as he was at the time of his entering the bath. But now the King's dignity is three times as great as it was before; he wears a three-fold diadem on his head, and is arrayed in garments that shine like carbuncles and amethysts, and beneath them he wears the tunic of purity, and is bound with the girdle of righteousness. He is the most glorious King of life, whose power transcends all human thought. Athis sideis seated his pure and chaste queen, sprung of his own seed ; and of these two are born many royal children. The redness is concealed and preserved in the whiteness, which must not be extracted, but subjected to gentle coction until its full crimson glory flames forth. "This whiteness is thus referred to in *The Crowd" : * If yousee that after the blackness
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there follows a whiteness, be sure that after the whiteness will come a redness: for the redness slumbers in the whiteness, and should not be extracted, but gently heated, until the whole turns red." Let what I have now said suffice you.
THE GLORY OF THE WORLD. 2a43
HERMES [says]:
You must have a good knowledge of the True Principle of both Natural and Artificial Substances. For he who knows not the true First Principle will never attain to the end.
THE LovkE oF GOD AND
OF YOUR NEIGHBOUR
LS amem. TPORORORURSG TON. COm^ PASETA SAI SUODKOUME
To LovE GOD rs THE HIGHEST WISDOM,
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UNTO HIM BE ALL HONOUR, PRAISE, AND
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OF GREAT PRICE
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AC VTSRUAVG qm X093B. C CURCEZASI CURSOS,
CONCERNING THE PHILOSOPHICAL STONE.
CELATPTER. T.
LL temporal things derive their origin, their existence, and their essence from the earth, according to the succession of time. "Their specific properties are determined by the outward and inward influences of the stars and planets, (such as the Sun, the Moon, Etc.), and of the four qualities of the elements. From these combined circumstances arisethe peculiar forms,and propersubstances,of all growing, fixed, and generating things,accordingto the natural order appointed by the Most High at the beginning of the world. "The metals, then, derivetheir origin fromthe earth,and are specifically compounded of the four qualities, or the properties of the four elements ; their peculiar metallic character is stamped upon them by the influences of the stars and planets. So we are informed by Aristotle, in the fourth book of his Meteor., where he says that quicksilver is the common substance of all metals. "The first thing in Nature, as we said before, is the substance which represents a particular conglomeration of the four elements, which the Sages call Mercury, or quicksilver. But this quicksilver is as yet imperfect, on account of its gross and earthy sulphureous nature, which renders it too easily combustible, and on account of its superfluous watery elements, which have all been collected together out of the four elements by the action of the heavenly planets. This substance is composed of a hot sulphureous earth, and a watery essence, in such a way that the Sages have called it imperfect sulphur.