The Voice of Nature

“I am a goddess,” he says, speaking in Nature's person, “famous for beauty and descent, born from our own sea, which surrounds the whole earth and is always restless. From my breasts I pour milk and blood. Boil these two until they turn into silver and gold. O most excellent subject, from which all things in this world are generated! Though at first sight you are poison, you are adorned with the name of the flying eagle. You are first matter, the seed of divine blessing. Within your body are heat and rain, hidden from the wicked by your habit and virgin clothing, which are scattered throughout the world. Your parents are the sun and moon. Within you are water and wine, and gold and silver upon earth, so that mortal man may rejoice. Thus God sends us his blessing and wisdom with rain and the sun's rays, to the eternal glory of his name. But consider, man, what God bestows upon you by this means. Torture the eagle until she weeps, and the lion is weakened and bleeds to death. The lion's blood, incorporated with the eagle's tears, is earth's treasure. These creatures devour and kill one another, yet their love is mutual. They take on the

property and nature of a salamander, which, if it remains unharmed in the fire, cures all diseases of men, beasts and metals. When the ancient philosophers fully understood this subject, they diligently sought within this mystery the centre of the middlemost tree in the earthly paradise, entering by five contentious gates. The first gate was knowledge of the true matter: here arose the first and most bitter conflict. The second was preparation, by which this matter was prepared to obtain the eagle's embers and the lion's blood. At this gate there is a most fierce battle, for it produces water, blood and a bright spiritual body. The third gate is fire, which brings the medicine to maturity. The fourth is multiplication and augmentation, in which proportions and weights are necessary. The fifth and last gate is projection. Yet glorious, rich and exalted is he who reaches the fourth gate, for he has obtained a universal medicine for every disease. This is the great character in the book of Nature from which her whole alphabet arises.

The fifth gate serves metals alone. Existing since the world's foundation and Adam's creation, this mystery is the most ancient of all: a knowledge Almighty God breathed into Nature through his Word, a miraculous power, the blessed fire of life, the transparent carbuncle and red gold of the wise, and the divine blessing of this life. Yet because of human malice and wickedness it is given to few, although it lives and moves daily before the whole world, as the following parable shows. I am a poisonous dragon, present everywhere and obtainable for nothing. My water and fire dissolve and combine. From my body you shall draw the green and red lion. But unless you know me exactly, you will destroy your five senses with my fire. A most deadly, living poison comes from my nostrils and has destroyed many. Therefore separate the thick from the thin with art, unless you delight in utter poverty. I give you male and female faculties, and the powers of heaven and earth. The mysteries of my art must be performed magnanimously and with great

courage if you would have me overcome the violence of fire, an attempt in which many have lost both their labour and their wealth. I am Nature's egg, known only to the wise—the pious and modest—who make a little world from me. Almighty God ordained me for men. Though many desire me, I am given to few, so that they may relieve the poor with my treasures and set no store by gold that perishes. The philosophers call me mercury; my husband is philosophical gold. I am the ancient dragon, present everywhere on earth's face. I am father and mother, young and old, weak and yet most strong, life and death, visible and invisible, hard and soft, descending to earth and ascending to heaven, highest and lowest, light and heavy. In me Nature's order is often inverted in colour, number, weight and measure. I have Nature's light within me. I am dark and bright. I spring from earth and come from heaven. I am well known and yet a mere nothing. All colours shine in me, and all metals through the sun's rays. I am

the sun's carbuncle, a most noble, clarified earth by which you may turn copper, iron, tin and lead into the purest gold.”

Now, gentlemen, you can see the philosophers' direction: they praise their secret water, and I admire Hyanthe's tears. There is something in this fancy beyond poetry, for my mistress is thoroughly philosophical, and in love a pure Platonist. Yet now I think of it, how many rivals will this discourse procure me? Every reader will set to work, and some fine fellow may break her heart with nonsense. Such love would indeed be mere luck. For my part, I dare trust her. Lest anyone mistake her for something previously named, I shall tell you truly what she is. She is no known water whatsoever, but a secret seminal moisture—or rather the Venus that yields that moisture. Do not imagine that she is some crude, phlegmatic, thin water, for she is a fatty, thick, heavy, slimy moisture. But lest you think I have grown jealous and will not trust you with my mistress, Arnold of Villanova shall speak for me. Hear him. [New translation of the Latin:] “Furthermore,

I tell you that we could find nothing whatever that persists in fire except oily moisture alone; nor could the philosophers find anything else. We see watery moisture readily evaporate; the dry part remains. They separate because they are not natural to one another. But if we consider those moistures that are difficult to separate from what is natural to them, we find none except oily and viscous ones.” [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “I tell you further that we could not possibly find, nor could the philosophers before us, anything that would persist in fire except oily moisture. Watery moisture, as we see, easily evaporates, and earth remains behind. The parts are separated because their composition is not natural. But if we consider moistures that are difficult to separate from the parts natural to them, we find none except oily, viscous moistures.” Some flint and antimony doctors, who perform their philosophical crushing with a hammer, may expect me to disclose this thing outright rather than let this strange birdlime hold their pride by its feathers. To them I say: it is water of silver, which some have called water of the moon; yet it is mercury of the sun and partly of Saturn,

for it is extracted from these three metals, and without them it can never be made. Now let them solve the riddle and tell me what it is. It is the truth, if they can understand it.