The Turba Philosophorum (complete) — trans. A. E. Waite (1896)

• Otherwise : " Rule frequently, as I have said." t The Greek alchemists claim to have accomplished the fixation of Mercury by means of the Body of Magnesia, by which Zosimus understands molybdochalchos. An unassigned fragment of the Byzantine collection has the following poetical reference to the fixation of Mercury : — " Mercury is obtained in like manner with artificial cinnabar, <i rare substance, that is, one met with rarely. I refer to cinnabar obtained by the dry way and a suitable roasting. It is that above all which is termed dried and easily volatilised, employed in the testing of souls. Having become an etherised spirit, it darts towards the upper hemisphere ; it descends and ascends, avoiding the action of the fire, until, quitting its r&U of fugitive, it reaches a state of wisdom. Until it has attained this condition, it is difficult to retain, and is mortal." — Fabrication of the All. I " With its body," says the second recension ; it is a printer's choice between compari and corpori.

The Turba Philosophorum. 83

Afterwards cook it dil igently until both become permanent water, and, again, cook this water until it be coagulated. But let this be desiccated with its own equal vapour, because ye have found the whole quicksilver to be coagulated by itself.* If ye understand, and place in your vessel what is necessary, cook it until it be coagulated, and then poundt until it becomes a crocus like to the colour of gold.

The Twenty-fifth Dictum. Menabdus saith: May God reward thee for the regimen, since thou speakest the truth ! For thou hast illuminated thy words. And they : It is said because thou praisest him for his sayings, do not be inferior to him. And he : I know that I can utter nothing but that which he hath uttered ; however, I counsel posterity to make bodies not bodies,

* The second recension reads : — " Let the whole be coagulated into quicksilver.''

t The second recension merely says : — " Place it once more in its vessel, and pound."

84 The Turba Philosophorum.

but these incorporeal things bodies.* For by this regimen the composite is prepared, and the hidden part of its nature is extracted. With these bodies accordingly join quicksilver and the body of Magnesia,+ the woman also with the man, and by means of this there is extracted our secret Ethelia, through which bodies are coloured ; assuredly, if I understand this regimen, bodies become not bodies, and incorporeal things become bodies. If ye diligently pound the things in the fire and digest

• The Byzantine fragment upon The Philosophical Egg contains this statement : " Unless bodies lose their corporeal state, and unless bodies again assume their corporeal state, that which is desired will not be attained." But Mary is quoted by Olympiodorus in terms which correspond literally with the text of the Turba : " Except you convert corporeal substances into incorporeal, and incorporeal substances into corporeal, and unless you make two bodies into one body, no desired result will be achieved." The " divine " Zozimus also quotes Hermes in precisely the same fashion, and he observes elsewhere that to convert and transmute is to impart body to the incorporeal. — The Body of Magnesia.

t Zosimus, commenting upon Mary, concludes that the Body of Magnesia is molybdochalchos, or black lead. [See note on p. 82.] The confusion of old chemistry on the subject of the last substance is well known.

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