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.
do not burn them, since you know not when you may have need of these things, which improve the king and his wife. Cook them, therefore, until they become black, then white, afterwards red, and finally until a tingeing venom is produced. O seekers after this Science, happy are ye, if ye understand, but if not, I have still performed my duty, and that briefly, so that if ye remain ignorant, it is God who hath concealed the truth from you! Blame not, therefore, the Wise, but yourselves, for if God knew that ye possessed a faithful mind, most certainly he would reveal unto you the truth. Behold, I have established you therein, and have extricated you from error !
The Thirtieth Dictum.
Bacsen saith: Thou hast spoken
well, O Diomedes, but I do not see that
concerned' always with royal personages. Compare the Sponsus and Sponsa of the Chemical Nuptials of OhrUtian Rosy Crosf, and the innumerable pictorial emblems which illustrate Latin Alchemy. It does not appear to be traceable to a Greek source.
The Turba Philosophorum. 99
thou hast demonstrated the disposition of Corsufle* to posterity ! Of this same Corsufle the envious have spoken in many ways, and have confused it with all manner of names. Then he : Tell me, therefore, O Bacsen, according to thy opinion in these matters, and I swear by thy father that this is the head of the work,+ for the true beginning hereof cometh after the completion. Bacsen saith : I give notice, therefore, to future seekers after this Art, that Corsufle is a composite, and that it must be roasted t According to the second recension, Corsufle is the head, i.e., the crown, and not the beginning of the work. The speaker also is different, namely, Nephitus.
* The lexicographers of alchemy who followed Rulandus after a long interval, explain that Corsufle, or as they sometimes wrote it, Carsufle, is the Sulphur of the Philosophers fixed at the Red Stage. Under neither form is the term to be found in Rulandus himselt, though he was well acquainted with the Turba. His dictionary, however, includes Cor Fuffla, which might be a mutilated version produced in a German printing office. It signifies the impurity of bodies, a definition which does not correspond either with the text of the Turba, or with the subsequent vocabularies. The origin of the word is obscure, and it is not found in the collections of Arabian or Syrian alchemy published by M. Berthelot.
100 The Turba Philosophorum.
seven times, because when it arrives at perfection it tinges the whole body. The Turba answereth: — Thou hast spoken the truth, O Bacsen !
The Thirty-First Dictum. Pythagoras saith : — How does the discourse of Bacsen appear to you, since he has omitted to name the substance by its artificial names? And they : Name it, therefore, oh Pythagoras ! And he : Corsufle being its composition, they have applied to it all the names of bodies in the world, as, for example, those of coin, copper, tin, gold, iron, and also the name of lead, until it be deprived of that colour and become Ixir. The Turba answereth: Thou hast spoken well, O Pythagoras ! And he : Ye have also spoken well, and some among the others may discourse concerning the residual matters.
The Thirty-Second Dictum.
BoNELLUs saith: According to thee,
O Pythagoras, all things die and live
The Turha Philosophorum. loi
by the will of God, because that nature from which the humidity is removed, that nature which is left by nights, does indeed seem like unto something that is dead ; it is then turned and (again) left for certain nights, as a man is left in his tomb, when it becomes a powder.* These things being done, God will restore unto it both the soul and the spirit thereof, and the weakness being taken away, that matter will be made strong, and after corruption will be improved, even as a man becomes stronger after resurrection and younger than he was in this world. Therefore it behoves you, O ye Sons of the Doctrine, to consume that matter with fire boldly until it shall become a cinder, when know that ye have mixed it excellently well, for that cinder receives the spirit, and is imbued