A New Light of Alchemy

4After so much work and the exhaustion of his property, the miserable alchemist was slipping into delirium, always thinking of the old man. From this intense imagination a phantom appeared in his sleep in the old man’s form and said, “Do not despair, friend. Your Mercury and your matter are good. But if it will not obey you, conjure it so that it cannot fly away. After all, serpents are commonly conjured; why not Mercury?” The old man was about to depart. The alchemist begged, “Sir, wait!” His shout woke him, but he was greatly comforted. He took a vessel full of Mercury and began conjuring it in extraordinary ways, as his dream had taught him. He remembered the old man’s words, “Serpents are conjured,” and thought, “Mercury is depicted with serpents: certainly it must be conjured like a serpent.” Taking up the vessel of Mercury, he began saying, “Vx vx, ostas,” and so forth. Wherever the serpent’s name should have occurred, he substituted Mercury’s: “And you, Mercury, most wicked beast,” and so on. At these words Mercury began to laugh and spoke to the alchemist: “What do you want, troubling me, my lord Lachrymist?”