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.
* The authenticity of this sign is extremely doubtful, and the marginal note which is appended to most printed editions does not help it out. It is no doubt really a misreading of the word Hoc, which is required to make sense of the sentence immediately following. The second recension confirms this view.
The Turba Philosophorum. 73
begun, if God will look kindly on us.* Know also that the perfection of the work of this precious stone is to rule it with the residue of the third part of the medicine, and to preserve the two other parts for imbuing and cooking alternately till the required colour appears.t Let the iire be more intense than the former; let the matter be cerated, and when it is desiccated it coheres. Cook, therefore, the wax until it imbibes the gluten of gold, which being desiccated, imbue the rest of the work seven times until the other twothirds be finished, and true earth imbibe them all. Finally, place the same on a hot fire until the earth extract its flower and be satisfactory. Blessed are ye if ye understand ! But, if not, I will repeat to you the perfection of t The reading of the second recension has been substituted, owing to the corrupt state of the longer text.
* The original is untranslatable ; the conjectural emendation given in the text has no authority, and is only introduced to provide a meaning.
74 The Turha Philosophorum.
the work. Take the clean white, which is a most great arcanum, wherein is the true tincture; imbue sand therewith, which sand is made out of the stone seven times imbued, until it drink up the whole, and close the mouth of the vessel effectually, as you have often been told. For that which ye seek of it by the favour of God, will appear to you, which is the stone of Tyrian colour. Now, therefore, I have fulfilled the truth, so do I conjure you by God and your sure Master, that you show not this great arcanum, and beware of the wicked !
The Twenty-Second Dictum. Theophilus saith: Thou hast spoken intelligently and elegantly, and art held free from envy. Saith the Turba : Let your discretion, therefore, explain to us what the instructing Pandolfus has stated, and be not envious. Then he : O all ye seekers after this science, the arcanum of gold and the art of the coin is a dark vestment, and no one
The Turba Philosophorum. 75
knows what the Philosophers have narrated in their books without frequent reading, experiments, and questionings of the Wise. For that which they have concealed is more sublime and obscure than it is possible to make known in words, and albeit some have dealt with it intelligibly and well, certain others have treated it obscurely ; thus some are more lucid than others. The Turba answereth : Thou hast truly spoken. And he : I announce to posterity that between boritis and copper there is an affinity, because the boritis of the Wise liquefies the copper, and it changes as a fluxible water. Divide, therefore, the venom into two equal parts, with one of which liquefy the copper, but preserve the other to pound and imbue the same, until it is drawn out into plates ; cook 1 again with the former part of the venom, cook two to seven in two ; cook to seven in its own water for 42 days ;*
* This unintelligible passage is better rendered in the first recension : — " Cook with the former part of the venom
76 The Turba Philosophorum.