dragons have a certain frothy and venomous discharge that kills the young of eagles. These birds therefore lay their eggs upon the tops of mountains, trees, and rocks, lest the dragons devour their brood, which is nothing other than the universal sulfur generated at the top of the vessel and spiritualized, as we have sufficiently indicated above.

On the explanation of fables through alchemy and the philosophical work.

The poet elegantly depicts this royal eagle, or this white body of nature, through the fable of Andromeda. With great ingenuity he imagines a maiden stripped of her royal garments, fastened to a rock with iron bonds, and exposed to a dragon of monstrous size. A young man mounted upon a winged horse, with a sword in his right hand and Minerva’s mirror in his left, wearing Mercury’s helmet or cap upon his head and his winged buskins upon his feet, swoops down upon the dragon and cuts to pieces a part of the monster ready to devour this chaste maiden,

and freezes the other part through the power of Minerva’s mirror, which turns everything to stone. But before beginning this bloody combat against so cruel an enemy, one must have recourse to Minerva or to the nymphs who guide wisdom, and learn from them how to avoid and arrest the flames and mortal poison it shoots from its nose and ears. One must cut off the head of Medusa, guarded by her sisters, and tear from it an eye and a tooth. That is to say, one must separate Mercury’s pure and clear substance, expressed by the eye and tooth because of its purity and its power of dissolving watery and earthy substances. Medusa’s head must be cut off: in other words, the metallic spirit of gold must be dissolved, from which are born Crisaes and Pegasus, the spirits of gold and quicksilver. Furthermore, before undertaking this combat, so famous and so celebrated, he must put the buskins upon his feet, arm himself with the helmet and breastplate of the young man represented in the first emblem, and arm himself with a sword of the most highly purified steel and with the goddess Minerva’s mirror; that is, before one possesses this

sulfur of gold that transforms all metals and all bodies and fixes quicksilver, they must first be reduced to quintessence or to a highly volatile spirit, as indicated by Perseus’s winged buskins—that is, melting and fusible gold—which is also indicated by his winged horse. It must then be converted into the luminous sulfur of nature, like Minerva’s mirror or the drawn sword, whose proper power is to change all quicksilver into stone or sulfur and fix it. This is what is called the universal medicine. Here one may also refer to the spoils of the Golden Fleece carried away by Prince Jason, which victory will enable him to win. Medea, daughter of King Aeetes, who loved him passionately, advised him to have recourse to Minerva and to her father, who promised to give her to him in marriage if he brought beneath the yoke the bulls that vomit fire and flame, plowed the field or earth of Mars with the share of the philosophical plow, and sowed in the earth the teeth of Cadmus’s serpent, kept by Minerva for this dangerous trial. Before entering

so uncertain a combat, he consults Medea, highly experienced in medicine. She gives him a draught against these bulls and, to protect him from so perilous an undertaking, advises him to avoid their deadly breath. Finally she gives him a sleep-inducing juice so that, after putting it to sleep, he may win a notable victory over the watchful dragon appointed to guard the Golden Fleece.

The labors of Hercules, the combats of Perseus, the enterprises of Jason, and the other brilliant actions of these heroes are ranked foremost among the most remarkable and memorable combats spoken of by fabulous antiquity. Their weapons, prudent counsels, valor, and generosity, together with several accompanying circumstances, will so disclose to us the truth hitherto hidden beneath the wrinkled and defective bark of fable that we shall omit nothing concerning their full explanation. Thus it may be recognized that nothing lies nearer our hearts than to see everyone profit from these great secrets of nature, without recklessly abusing them—secrets whose knowledge has cost us so much labor to acquire.

If Hercules, in the triumphs he has won over

such dangerous enemies, uses a pike and a club, and if, instead of a helmet, breastplate, and other weapons, he uses the spoils of the red lion with which he has clothed himself, who would not attribute such great victories to his strength and courage rather than to his weapons, and refer them to the truth of chemical physics hidden beneath the bark of fable?

Although Perseus does not face so great a number of enemies to combat and overthrow, he is nevertheless fully armored, burdened by the weight of his weapons; he uses a winged horse and winged buskins, a poisoned sword, and an enchanted mirror to combat a dragon spewed up by the waves of the sea.

Jason, on the contrary, has no recourse to weapons but to stratagem, advice, and prudence; and should he happen to be mortally wounded, he consults the medicine of the enchantress Medea and has recourse to magical illusions and enchantments if needed.

These are the sorts of things that kings and sovereigns abuse and do not use, though they have countless troops to overthrow and tear to pieces;

but in chemical operations, let us unfold what these things signify.

First of all, these three valiant heroes, who stand above the rank of mortals, represent and signify only a single fire or a single philosophical water. But because it is composed of several substances and passes through different preparations, it is considered in different ways, as will be seen in what follows.

We must tell you what the club of Hercules and the Nemean lion’s skin he wears as an adornment signify in chemical operations; what Perseus’s winged buskins, his armor, his sword, the winged horse he rides, and Minerva’s mirror mean; and, finally, what Jason’s prudence, protective remedies, enchantments, poisons, and medicines indicate.

The skin of the Red or Nemean Lion, which Hercules uses as an adornment or royal mantle, represents the mercurial spirit called the red lion or red stag. This follows a well-worn proverb of the philosophers: it is agreed that whatever has a red head hides itself in order to be

the beginning of the first work. The solar spirit clothes itself in it as in a royal mantle, for it is its body and covering, and cannot be dissolved, subtilized, or spiritualized without it.

From it alone it has received all its strength, and through it transforms its preeminence—that is, its strength and power to grow and multiply exceedingly well—depicted by the wooden club, the image of growth; and it derives this only from that spirit or quicksilver, and from nothing else.

There is nevertheless no little difficulty in slaying this lion, whose courage is outstanding and whose extraordinary strength conquers everything. It transforms into its watery nature the very fixed body of gold, which it swallows and hides in its ravenous stomach as in a tomb. So too the lion of Greece represents the image and figure of this second philosophical water: whoever possesses it will conquer and overcome everything, like another Hercules.

By Perseus we do not understand this mercurial and philosophical water, but that permanent and fixed water which is

called the elixir of Oralie, or the first sulfur of nature, indicating the second operation.

The first dissolution of the matter or bodies into water and their sublimation into the white sulfur of nature, as we have said above, are contained in the fable of Andromeda, which remains for us to explain. This white sulfur of nature, sublimed into the head of the alembic, shows us Andromeda fastened to the rock, for it has the form of a stone. The mercurial water remaining at the bottom of the vessel is the dragon, armed with hard and ancient scales, born of the first water called the philosophers’ sea. It is ready to devour the victim, toward whom it advances eagerly, and would already swallow her into its stomach with its ravenous tooth, were Perseus not to swoop from the air upon the monster and destroy it beyond hope of rescue. Perseus is the solar spirit hidden in the white sulfur impregnated with the tincture of Mars—as shown by his helmet and breastplate made of excellent steel—and rendered spirit or quintessence through sublimation, as likewise shown by the winged buskins and the horse Pegasus. With his sword he cuts part of it to pieces: that is, through the power of this dissolving water; and he transforms the rest into