A New Light of Alchemy

6Alchemist: You deserve it for being disobedient.

6.2Mercury: I have never disobeyed any philosopher. But it is my nature to laugh at fools.

6.3Alchemist: And what do you think of me?

6.4Mercury: My lord, you are a great man, the greatest philosopher. In greatness you surpass Hermes.

6.5Alchemist: Certainly! I am a learned man, although I do not wish to praise myself. My wife also told me that I am a very learned philosopher. She recognised it in me.

6.6Mercury: I readily believe it. Philosophers must indeed be of that kind, going mad through excessive wisdom and labour.

6.7Alchemist: Come, tell me what to do with you. How shall I make the philosophers’ stone from you?

6.8Mercury: My lord philosopher, I do not know. You are the philosopher; I am the philosophers’ servant. Let them make of me whatever they wish. I obey as far as I can.

6.9Alchemist: You must tell me how I should proceed with you and whether I can make the philosophers’ stone from you.

6.10Mercury: If you know, you will do it; if you do not know, you will do nothing. You will learn nothing from me unless you already know, my lord philosopher.

6.11Alchemist: You speak to me as though I were some simple fellow. Perhaps you do not know that I have worked for great princes and been their philosopher.

6.12Mercury: I readily believe it, my lord. I know all that very well: I am still filthy from the mixture used in that work.

6.13Alchemist: Tell me, then: are you the philosophers’ Mercury?

6.14Mercury: I am Mercury. Whether I am the philosophers’ Mercury is something you must know.

6.15Alchemist: Just tell me whether you are the true Mercury, or whether there is another.

6.16Mercury: I am Mercury, but there is another as well.

6.17With that he vanished.