The Turba Philosophorum (complete) — trans. A. E. Waite (1896)
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.
well ; add, therefore, another teaching of this kind for the sake of posterity. And he : I will speak of making lead red.* Take the copper which the Master ordered you to take at the beginning of his book, combine lead therewith, and cook it until it becomes thick; congeal also and desiccate until it becomes red. Here certainly is the Red Lead of which the wise spake ; copper and lead become a precious stone ; mix them equally, let gold be roasted with them, for this, if ye rule well, becomes a tingeing spirit in spirits. t So when the male and the female are conjoined there is not produced a volatile wife, but a spiritual composite. From the composite turned into a red spirit is produced the beginning of the world.
* The various substances which alchemists confounded under the names of Minium, Rubric, etc., are enumerated by M, Berthelot, including, in addition to the sur-oxyde of lead, which is the modern name of minium, not only Vermillion, cinnabar, realgar, etc., but some oxydes of iron.
t The second recension reads : " becomes a mighty spirit among spirits."
The Turba Philosophorum. 6i
Behold this is the lead which we have called Red Lead, which is of our work, and without which nothing is effected !
The Eighteenth Dictum. MuNDUS saith to the Turba : The seekers after this Art must know that the Philosophers in their books have described gum in many ways, but it is none other than permanent water, out of which our precious stone is generated.* O how many are the seekers after this gum, and how few there are who find it ! Know that this gum is not ameliorated except by gold alone. For there be very many who investigate these applications, and they find cer. tain things, yet they cannot sustain the labours because they are dimi-
• It appears from Zosimus on The Detailed Exposition of the Work, that with the addition of a little [philosophical] gum any species of body may be tinged. And when Mundus identifies Gum with Permanent Water he is in agreement with the same authority, for in the context ol the passage just cited we find the following words : That which tinges tinctures and things tinged is Divine water, the great mystery. The gum of gold is mentioned in a fragment attributed to Agathodemon.
62 The Turba Philosophorum.
nished. But the applications which are made out of the gum and out of the honourable stone, which has already held the tincture, they sustain the labours, and are never diminished. Understand, therefore, my words, for I will explain unto you the applications of this gum, and the arcanum existing therein. Know ye that our gum is stronger than gold, and all those who know it do hold it more honourable than gold, yet gold we also honour, for without it the gum cannot be improved. Our gum, therefore, is for Philosophers more precious and more sublime than pearls, because out of gum with a little gold we buy much. Consequently, the Philosophers, when committing these things to writing that the same might not perish, have not set forth in their books the manifest disposition, lest every one should become acquainted therewith, and having become familiar to fools, the same would not sell it at a small price. Take, therefore, one part of the most intense white gum ;
The Turba Philosophorum. 63