The Hermetic Museum, Vol. II — 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.
THE NEW CHEMICAL LIGHT. 1d
with dung and other foul things, and are indifferent about defiling yourself so long as you can torture me. Al/cemst : I do nothing against Nature: I only sow the seed in its own proper earth, according to the teaching of the Sages. Zercury : You sow me in dung; at the time of the harvest I vanish, and you reap dung. Verily, you are a good husbandman! Alchemist : Yet the Sages say that their substance is found on the dunghil. JZercury: What they say is true, but you understand only the letter, and not the spirit of their injunctions. Alchemist: Now I see that you are perhaps Mercury. But as you will not obey me, I must once more repeat the words of conjuration : Ux,ux,ostas Mercury (laughing): It is of no use, my friend; your words are as profitable as your works. Afdchemzst : 'They say true when they call you a wonderful and inconstant and volatile substance. Jereury: You call me inconstant. But to the constant I am also constant, and to the man of fixed resolve, I am fixed. But you, and the likes of you, are continually abandoning one substance for another, and are ever vagabonds in experiment. .4/cAemzst: Tell me truly, are you the Mercury which, side by side with sulphur and salt, the philosophers describe as the first principle of all things, or must I look for some other substance? — 7Zercury : The fruit, when it falls, lies near the tree that bore it. I am the same that I was, except in the matter of age. In the beginning I was young, and I remained so as long as I was alone. Now, I am old, and yet I am the same as ever. I am only older than I was. Alchemzst : | am glad that you are old. For it is a constant and fixed substance that I require, and this also have I invariably sought. JZercury : lt is in vain that you come to the old man whom you did not know as a youth. 4/cAemst: What is this yousay? Did I not know you when you were young? Have I not subjected you to all manner of chemical processes, and shall I not continue to do so till I have prepared the Philosopher's Stone? JZercury: Woeis me! WhatshallIdo? I already scent the foul odour of dung. Woe is me! I beseech you, Master Philosopher, not to ply me with excrements of swine—or the foul smell will drive me hence. And what more do you want of me? Am I not obedient? Do I not mingle with all things that you ask me to amalgamate with? Do I not suffer myself to be sublimated, precipitated, amalgamated, calcined? ^ What more can I do? I have submitted to be scourged and spat upon till my miserable plight might move a heart of stone. I have given you milk, blood, flesh, butter, oil, and water. I have done all that any metal or mineral can do. And yet you have no pity on me! Woeis me! A/cemzst: Oho, it does you no harm, you rascal ; you deserve it all richly, for not changing your form, or for resuming the old form after a mere temporary change! Zereury : I.do whatsoever you make me do. If you make me a body, I am a body. If you make me powder, Iam powder. Howcan I be more obedient than I am? — AZekemzst: Tell me, then, what you are in your centre, and I will not torment you any more. Mercury : Y see there is no escape from speaking fundamentally toyou. Ifyou will, you may now understand me. With my