The Turba Philosophorum (complete) — trans. A. E. Waite (1896)
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The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Socrates saith: — Know, O crowd of those that still remain of the Sons of the Doctrine, that no tincture can be produced without Lead, which possesses the required virtue. Have ye not seen how thrice-great Hermes infused the red into the body, and it was changed into an invariable colour ?* Know, therefore, that the first virtue is vinegar,
* The second recension reads : " Have ye not seen, says thiice-great Hermes, that so often as it is infused into the body, the same body is changed into an invariable colour ? "
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and the second is the Lead* of which the Wise have spoken, which if it be infused into all bodies, renders all unchange-^ able, and tinges them with an invariable colour. Take, therefore, Lead which is made out of the stone called Kuhul ; t let it be of the best quality, and let it be cooked till it becomes black. Then pound the same with Water of Nitre until it is thick like grease, and cook again in a very bright fire until the spissitude of the body is destroyed, t The significance of the term Kuhul, or more accurately Kohol, is to be found in Syriac alchemy ; it is the equivalent of alcool and sulphurated antimony in the form of an impalpable powder. Kuhul, or Koheul, is explained by Rulandus to be the Lead of the Philosophers. The Alcohol mentioned by M. Berthelot seems to be difiTerent from Alcool of wine, and is, in fact, the pure Part of any body separated from that which is impure.
* M, Berthelot tells us that lead was regarded by the Egyptian alchemists as the generator of the other metals and the first matter of transmutation, which he explains by the appearances it possesses in common with a number of other simple bodies and metallic alloys. Zosimus, the Panopolite, may be cited in confirmation of this point ; he says : All substances were recognised by the Egyptians as produced by lead alone, lor it is from lead that the three other bodies are derived, i.e., copper, iron, and tin. — Zosimus On the Substances and Non-substances of Art.
56 The Turba Philosophorum.
the water being rejected. Kindle, therefore, above it until the stone becomes clean, abounding in precious metal, and exceedingly white. Pound it afterwards with dew and the sun, and with sea and rain water for 21 days, for 10 days with salt water, and 10 days with fresh water,* when ye shall find the same like to a metallic stone. Cook the same once more with water of nitre until it become tin by liquefaction. Again cook until it be deprived of moisture, and become dry. But know that when it becomes dry it drinks up what remains of its humour swiftly, because it is burnt lead. Take care, however, lest it be burnt. Thus we
• The second recension reads : " Alterwards pound it with dew, salt, and rain water for 29 days, again with salt water for 20 days, and yet again with fresh water for 10 days." The explanation of all Rosicrucian mysteries has been referred to the dew of the alchemists, and the ros philesophoTum certainly plays an important part in the Great Mystery. In the Natural and Mysterious Questions of Democritus, dew is mentioned in connection with a process of whitening, and in the fragment on the Philosophical Egg it is tabulated as a name of the white or philosophical albumen, but here M. Berthelot suspects the additions of a later hand.
The Turba Philosophorum. eg