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.
ExEMiGANUs saith: Thou hast already treated, O Lucas, concerning living and concealed silver, which is Magnesia, as it behoves thee, and thou hast commanded posterity to prove [or to experiment] and to read the books, knowing what the Philosophers have said : Search the latent spirit and disesteem it not, seeing that when it remains it is a great arcanum and effects many good things.
* This dictum is omitted in the second recension, and that which follows is put into the mouth of Emiganus.
1 92 The Turba Philosophorum.
The Sixty-Seventh Dictum. Lucas saith : I testify to posterity, and what I set forth is more lucid than are your words, that the Philosopher saith :* Burn the copper, burn the silver, burn the gold. Hermiganus replies: Behold something more dark than ever ! The Turba answereth : Illumine, therefore, that which is dark. And he : As to that which he said — Burn, burn, burn, the diversity is only in the names, for they are one and the same thing. And they: Woe unto you ! how shortly hast thou dealt with it ! why art thou poisoned with jealousy ! And he: Is it desirable that I should speak more clearly ? Atid they : Do so. And he : I signify that to whiten is to burn, but to make red is life.t For the envious have t According to the second recension : " To make red is to vivify."
* The following variation occurs in the opening of the second recension : " The books of the Philosophers should be read, for they have not in vain advised that the suclcing child should be heeded, for therein is an arcanum, out of vifhich the Wise have operated good things."
The Tnrba Philosophorum. 193
multiplied many names that they might lead posterity astray, to whom I testify that the definition of this Art is the liquefaction of the body and the separation of the soul from the body, seeing that copper, like a man, has a soul and a body. Therefore, it behoves you, O all ye Sons of the Doctrine, to destroy the body and extract the soul therefrom ! Wherefore the Philosophers said that the body does not penetrate the body, but that there is a subtle nature, which is the soul, and it is this which tinges and penetrates the body. In nature, therefore, there is a body and there is a soul. The Turba answereth : Despite your desire to explain, you have put forth dark words. And he : I signify that the envious have narrated and said that the splendour of Saturn does not appear unless it perchance be dark when it ascends in the air, that Mercury is hidden by the rays of the Sun, that quicksilver vivifies the body
194 ^^* Turba Philosophorum.
by its fiery strength, and thus the work is accomplished. But Venus, when she becomes oriental, precedes the Sun.*
The Sixty-Eighth Dictum. Attamus saith: Know, O all ye investigators of this Art, that our worjc, of which ye have been inquiring, is produced by the generation of the sea, by which and with which, after God, the work is completed ! Take, therefore, Halsut and old sea stones, and boil with coals until they become white. Then extinguish in white vinegar. If 24 ounces thereof have been boiled, let the heat be extinguished with a third part of the vinegar, that is, 8 ounces ; pound with white vinegar, and cook in the sun and black earth for 42 days. But the second work is performed from the tenth day of the month of September to the tenth day
* This is the second of the two passages mentioned in the note on page i68 of this volume as containing traces of a planetary attribution of metals, but, as in the S7th Dictum, the reference may be astronomical and not chemical.
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[or grade] of Libra. Do not impose the vinegar a second time in this work, but leave the same to be cooked until all its vinegar be dried up and it becomes a fixed earth, like Egyptian earth. And the fact that one work is congealed more quickly and another more slowly, arises from the diversity of cooking. But if the place where it is cooked be humid and dewy it is congealed more quickly, while if it be dry it is congealed more slowly.