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.
■every cold humid is of less rarity than a warm humid. Then do they say unto him: — Thou hast spoken truly. What, therefore, is of less rarity than water ? He answereth : — Earth, because it is ■cold and dry, and that which is cold and dry is of less rarity than that which is cold and moist. Pythagoras saith : — Well have ye provided, O Sons of the Doctrine, the description ■of these four natures,* out of which God hath created all things. Blessed, therefore, is he who comprehends what ye have declared, for from the apex of the world he shall not find an intention greater than his own ! Let us, therefore, make perfect our discourse. They reply: — Direct every one to take up •our speech in turn. Speak thou, O Pandolfus !
* " You have been told . . . that the ancients discoursed of four elements. Know that it is by means of these four -elements that humid and dry things are constituted, as ^so things warm and cold, the male and the female. Two Lelements] rise up and two fall down. The two ascending elements are fire and air ; the two descending elements are earth and water." — Olympiodorus On the Sacred Art.
10 The Turba Philosopltorum.
The Fourth Dictum. But Pandolfus saith : — I signify to posterity that air is a tenuous matter of water, and that it is not separated from it. It remains above the dry earth, to wit, the air hidden in thewater, which is under the earth. If this air did not exist, the earth would not remain above the humid water. They answer : — Thou hast said well ;; complete, therefore, thy speech. But he continueth : — The air which ishidden in the water under the earth is that which sustains the earthy lest it should be plunged into the said water ; and it, moreover, preventsthe earth from being overflowed by that water. The province of the air is, therefore, to fill up and to make separation between diverse things, that is to say, water and earth, and it isconstituted a peacemaker between hostile things, namely, water and fire^ dividing these, lest they destroy one another. The Turba saith : — If you gave an illustration hereof, it would be
The Turba Philosophorum. ii
clearer to those who do not understand. He answereth : — An egg is an illustration, for therein four things are conjoined ; the visible cortex or shell represents the earth, and the albumen, or white part, is the water.* But a very thin inner cortex is joined to the outer cortex, representing, as I have signified to you, the separating medium between earth and water, namely, that air which divides the earth from the water. The yolk also of the egg represents fire ; the cortex which contains the yolk corresponds to that
* The allegory of the philosophical egg can be traced to the Greek alchemists. A short treatise is still extant under this title, and another on the Nomenclature of the Eggt which is described as the Mystery of the Art. It is composed of iour elements, because it is the image of the world. It is the stone which is not a stone, the stone of copper, the Armenian stone, &c. The shell is likened to the earth, being cold and dry ; it has been named copper, iron, tin, lead. The white of the egg is divine water, water of the sea, water of alum, &c. The yolk is copperas, native sulphur, mercury, &c. The oily part (? the chicken) is fire. But the egg, symbolical as it is, is sometimes itself described symbolically, after the similitude of a seed ; the shell is likened to the skin which covers the seed ; the white and the yolk are the flesh, and the watery part is the breath, or air.
12 The Turba Philosophorum.