by the Styx, or the marsh of Cocytus, added to Vulcan’s third little spring, if not our muddy water when it is corrupted, which may be called a brew of hell? What, finally, is meant by Acheron, or the spring from which wine and water flow, if not our mercurial water, which takes different names and changes into different forms according to its various preparations and cookings?

We should never finish if we wished to speak of all the fables named above. The multiplicity of our waters, represented in this emblem by rivers issuing from four springs, may be compared with the places described by Philostratus to delight the mind: green meadows of turf, filled with trees and flowers and watered by many fountains; a lake containing several islands and waters clear as crystal, sheltered on one side by rocks and mountains; and marshes whose waters are muddy, which, like Phlegethon, Styx, and Mount Etna, delight and sleep in the midst of flames. These rivers and stagnant marshes, filled with sulfurous fire, signify the corruption of combustible substances, as we have shown through the destruction of Typhon, Cerberus,

the Dragon, and the Sphinx. For mercury produces such blackness that it is more venomous and more hideous than the monsters of which we have just spoken, and crueler than the mountains vomiting flames and the animals devouring everything; from these it must be separated through death. To fight this seven-headed dragon, however, one must exhaust the labor of Perseus; employ Hercules’s strength to overthrow this three-mouthed Cerberus; and have recourse to the thunderbolt with which Jupiter checked the pride of the giant Typhon fighting against the gods, before hurling him into Mount Etna’s flames. Hercules, Perseus, and Jupiter are the fixed spirit of our sulfur, which overcomes everything, coagulates and fixes everything, and meets no resistance, so that all lay down their arms before it. We must not omit what they understand by the fable of Pan, lest we leave out anything belonging to the complete explanation of these things. The poets imagine that he was born of Mercury and Venus, the universal beginnings of all things, as we have demonstrated elsewhere. They therefore say and affirm that Pan is our mercurial water, as the Greek word pan signifies. The flute with seven holes marks the seven

metals of which he is the father. This is why he is mineral, vegetable and animal, as can be seen from his pine crown, wooden wand and goat's form. His passionate love of the nymphs denotes the diversity of his substance. Through the nymph Echo he signifies the stone-forming spirit, which is drawn only from rocks; through Pithis, the volatile mercurial water drawn from mountains—that is, from the body of the alembic; and through Syrinx, the muddy, sulfurous water generated in corruption. The threefold character of water—volatile mercurial, fixed solar, and muddy or thick vitriolic—is explained to us by Neptune's trident, as we have said. Despite the multiplicity of these waters, they nevertheless have a single origin, as appears from the places described above.

The best of all is that which springs from a red, sandy earth and differs little from the one seen in this emblem. This is why it is called Saturn's river, the steel of Mars, the lion or the red stag. For this reason they direct us to take the matter whose head is red, whose eyes are black, and whose

feet are white. It is represented by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, with red hair, golden clothing, black eyes and white feet.