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.
not see that the whole Turba hath spoken concerning the rotundum.* Then he .- Speak, therefore, thine opinion concerning it, O Zimon ! ZiMON saith: I notify to posterity that the rotundum turns into four elements, and is derived out of one thing.t
The Turba answereth: Inasmuch as thou art speaking, explain for future generations the method of ruling. And he : Willingly : it is necessary to take one part of our copper, but of Permanent Water three parts ; then let them be mixed and cooked until they be thickened and become one stone, concerning which the envious have said ; Take one part of the pure body, but three parts of copper of Magnesia ; then commingle with t There is a variation in the second recension : " I signify to future generations that the rotundum which converts copper into four is from one thing."
* The term rotundum used in this curious manner is to be understood of the Stone. The ScdUi Philosophorum speaks of "our perfect tyriac and rotund stone," the four elements being concordantly exalted in the quality of the temperate stone.
134 ^^^ Turba Philosophorum.
rectified vinegar, mixed with male of earth ; close the vessel, observe what is in it, and cook continuously until it becomes earth.
The Forty-Second Dictum.
AscANius saith : Too much talking, O all ye Sons of the Doctrine, leads this subject further into error ! But when ye read in the books of the Philosophers that Nature is one only, and that she overcomes all things : Know that they are one thing and one composite. Do ye not see that the complexion of a man is formed out of a soul and body ; thus, also, must ye conjoin these, because the Philosophers, when they prepared the matters and conjoined spouses mutually in love with each other, behold there ascended from them a golden water! The Turba answereth : When thou wast treating of the first work, lo ! thou didst turn unto the second ! How ambiguous hast thou made thy book, and how obscure are thy words !
The Turba Philosophorum. 135
Then he : I will perform the disposition of the first work. The Turba answereth : Do this. And he : Stir up_jwar between copper and quicksilver, untiTthey go to destruction and are corrupted, because when the cppper conceives the quicksilver it ' coagulates it, but when the quicksilver conceives the copper, the copper is congealed into earth; stir up, therefore, a fight between them ; destroy the body of the copper until it becomes a powder. But conjoin the male to the female, which are vapour* and quicksilver, until the male and the female become Ethel, for he who changes them into spirit by means
* The Latin alchemists regarded vapour as the first matter of all things, and in a special way it was the First Matter of the Philosophers. The Boaary of the Philosophers observes : " The first matter of bodies is not the mercury of the vulgar, but is an unctuous and humid vapour. The mineral stone is made from the humid, and the metallic body from the unctuous. It is needful that bodies should be converted into such an unctuous vapour, and they are destroyed, brought to nothing, and mortified in the conversion, and this is accomplished by means of our white and red water." But this unctuous vapour was the mercury of the philosophers and wise men.
136 The Turba Philosophorum.
of Ethel, and next makes them red, tinges every body, because, when by diligent cooking ye pound the body, ye extract a pure, spiritual, and sublime soul therefrom, which tinges every body. The Turba answereth : Inform, therefore, posterity what is that body. And he : It is a natural sulphureous thing* which is called by the names of all bodies.
The Forty-Third Dictum, Dardaris saith: Ye have frequently treated of the regimen, and have introduced the conj unction, + yet I proclaim to posterity that they cannot extract the now hidden soul except by Ethelia, by which bodies become not bodies through continual cooking, and by sublimation of Ethelia. Know also that quicksilver is fiery, burning every body more than does fire, also mortifying
* The second recension reads : " sulphur of nature," concerning which much is found in later alchemical writers.