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

Rubigo.* Rubigo, however, is a fictitious and not a true name. The Turba answereth: Name, therefore, Rubigo byits true name, for by this it is not calumniated. And he : Rubigo is according to the work, because it is from gold alone. The Turba answereth : Why, then, have the Philosophers referred it to the leech ? He answereth : Because water is hidden in sulphureous gold as the leech is in water; rubigo, therefore, is rubefaction in the second workj but to make rubigo is to whiten in the former work, in which the Philosophers ordained that the flower of gold should be taken and a proportion of gold equally.

The Forty-Seventh Dictum.

MuNDUS saith: Thou hast already treated sufficiently of Rubigo, O

* While this term properly signifies the fust or oxide of metals, it was used in many senses by the alchemists, for the redness of rust associated it in their idea with other forms of red matter, and rust philosophical became a part of the Great Mystery. The oxydes of iron, the oxydes of lead, sulphate of mercury, sulphate of arsenic, sulphate of

1^4 ^^^ Turba Philosophorum.

Attamus! I will speak, therefore, of venom, and will instruct future generations that venom is not a body, because subtle spirits have made it into a tenuous spirit, have tinged the body and burned it with venom, which venom the Philosopher asserts will tinge every body. But the Ancient Philosophers thought that he who turned gold into venom had arrived at the purpose, but he who can do not this profiteth nothing. Now I say unto you, all ye Sons of the Doctrine, that unless ye reduce the thing by fire until those things ascend like a spirit, ye effect nought. This, therefore, is a spirit avoiding the fire and a ponderous smoke,* which when it enters the body antimony, were all more or less confounded under the names of rubigo, minium, &c.

• It is not, perhaps, surprising that what was above all things the mystery of the fire and the furnace, should concern itself considerably with the smoke in which it so often ended, and thus in various stages of its history we have alchemy discoursing of that specially philosophical smoke which is identical with scoriae, and hence on the authority " ' of the Greeks involves the whole art ; we have also white smoke, identical with mercury ; citrine smoke, identical

The Turba Philosophorum. 145

penetrates it entirely, and makes the body rejoice.* The Philosophers have all said : Take a black and conjoining spirit ; therewith break up the bodies and torture them till they be altered.

The Forty-Eighth Dictum. Pythagoras saith : We must affirm unto all you seekers after this Art that the Philosophers have treated of conjunction (or continuation) in various ways. But I enjoin upon you to make quicksilver constrain the body of Magnesia, or the body Kuhul, or the Spume of Luna, or incombustible sulphur, or roasted calx, or alum which is out of apples, as ye know. But if there was any singular regimen for any of these, a Philosopher would not say so, as ye know. Understand, with yellow sulphur ; red smoke, which is orpiment ; smoke of extreme subtlety, of which the Latin Geber discourses ; and lastly the ponderous smoke of the Turba. Many others might be named, but these varieties are sufficient to show that smoke was as important to the alchemists as to the votaries ot " my Lady Nicotine."

• Otherwise : " the nature rejoices therein."

146 The Turba Philosophorum.