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← ExitThe Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Reading language

The Garden and the Spiritualization of Waters

Explanation of the emblem on the fifth page, depicting a small garden filled with flowers, with a rosebush in its midst, etc. — The spiritualization of waters.

After speaking of the first principles of the Hermetic art, explained in the form of trembling quicksilver extracted from the bodies of metals, and of the reduction and preparation of metals into a first powder, we must now speak of their reduction into the form of water, in which this matter becomes visible to us. Many people maintain—and indeed the whole world unanimously declares—that nothing in nature is nobler than the substance of quicksilver. For, since it supplies all things with the principles of growth, nourishment, corruption, and generation, nothing is accomplished without it, either by art or by nature. This is why, in this emblem, we represent a

little spring of clear and crystalline water that wells up in the midst of a garden filled with varied flowers. Above it rises an oak of moderate height, surrounded by a rosebush bearing white and red flowers that climb around it. All these things sufficiently show us quicksilver’s reduction into water, which is the first matter of everything and to which belong all growth, nourishment, germination, and sprouting, as we have demonstrated through the oak, the rosebush, and the flowers adorning the garden. Those who have carefully examined quicksilver mines assert that the places where they are found are pleasant, green, and mountainous, watered by several springs and furnished with fragrant trees. Above all, where there is a quicksilver mine, the trees upon those mountains are also seen to thicken their trunks, send out branches, produce leaves and flowers, and sometimes bear fruit, though not always.

The stones that serve as wombs become the roots of this metallic tree. Without them gold cannot put forth roots, sprout, or grow, because they are the beginnings and supports of all fixity. It would be absurd for gold, which is exceedingly fixed, to lack fixed roots to which it could be attached; for who has ever seen a volatile and corrupted seed issue from a pure, incorruptible, and enduring body? Quicksilver is the body of this golden tree, communicating to it the power to grow, sprout, germinate, and bear fruit. Imperfect minerals are its bark, minerals its leaves, vitriols its flowers, and gold or silver its rich fruits.

It follows that earth or sulfur is the first principle of gold’s fixity; that quicksilver is the first and most powerful cause of its growth, nourishment, and increase; and finally that salt is the medium that discloses and brings to light what they hold concealed: the tincture, of which the fruits are certain proofs.

We regard minerals as their outer bark, because metals created in the bowels of the earth outwardly resemble earth and sulfur.

Who, then, can deny that it is quicksilver, or its water, that supplies all things with the means to grow and multiply? For all the philosophers regard it in relation to metals, not as a simple and elemental water, but as a compound water, viscous, heavy, and tincturing: a water that does not wet, but is dry. Much argument is unnecessary to prove this possible, because argument has no place when experience, the mistress and proof of the truth of things, leaves us no room for doubt.

It was observed before our time, and everyone affirms, that all metals grow by means of a lye made from lime or the salt of vegetative earth, and that they grow and sprout into branches like

coral, rather than into leaves.

Let us now unfold everything the poets have devised on this subject. We shall find that Mercury’s mother is a certain nymph whom they all chose to call matter. This god had not yet seen the light of day before he became a notorious thief, devoting himself only to theft and deception. He took Apollo’s cattle, whiter than milk and furnished with golden horns, and hid them in his belly. While Apollo was complaining, he stole his quiver; he secretly took Neptune’s trident; carried off the sword of the god Mars, drawing it unseen from its sheath; and, with singular dexterity, stole Vulcan’s tongs and concealed them in his swaddling clothes. He made himself master of Venus’s girdle, and would have snatched the thunderbolt from Jupiter’s hands and taken away his scepter, his royal ornament. The poets say that by day he remained upon the summit of Olympus, where the air is pure and serene and where the

gentle zephyr blows, and that by night he hid himself and remained in the depths of the underworld. They represent him as a young man equipped with a winged helmet and brandishing a caduceus, wearing winged buskins upon his feet and a sword at his side. They maintain that Jupiter is his father, and this herald of rain is held to be the brother of the seven Pleiades. He is the inventor of mechanical arts, master of liberal arts, and father of the sciences; and they indicate that the dead Argus and a cock at his feet are his attributes.

Can one fail to discover some spark of truth through lies so artfully devised? Can one turn one’s eyes back upon the things themselves without immediately recognizing all the secrets of nature? For these things, separated from the tales of fable, appear purely natural and in agreement with the truth of the Hermetic art.

The poets, whose sight reaches even into the heavens, have him born upon the summit of the highest

mountains, for in this highest and first region of the air, where serenity is disturbed neither by winds nor by cold, thunderbolts, or clouds, lie the immortal origin and heavenly dwelling of the gods. This is why they give him Jupiter as his father, who takes his origin from the purest substance of the air. For the same reason we give him matter as his mother. For in the month of May, according to those who dig in search of minerals, a little white cloud rises slightly above the ground upon mountain summits where they suspect quicksilver will be found. They recognize this cloud by its heaviness, especially when the air is serene and there are no atmospheric phenomena; this assures them that those places contain a great quantity of quicksilver. This has led some people to say that the first rising of dawn contributes greatly to the recognition of the matter of the physical stone. Accordingly, they have named it the urine of the Twins, whose sign, in that month,

rules the stars and constellations in heaven with sovereign dominion. They have also given it the name urine of Saturn, the coldest of all the planets. Scarcely is he formed in the black beds of the earth before he emerges, flings himself out of his cradle, and descends from the summit of Olympus by little cords; he disguises himself, carries away Apollo’s cattle, and hides them in the depths of his belly. This means that scarcely is Mercury formed as running quicksilver—the most considerable matter of the metals—before a slight heat of fire makes it exceedingly volatile and subtle, and it becomes a meteor: that is, it becomes spirit after breaking the bonds of its body. It fattens upon the vapors of living sulfur, called Apollo’s cattle. For mineral sulfur is nourished by and composed of nitrous salt drawn from animal dung, and through inspiration coagulates into different kinds of metals within the bowels of rocks. This is why they say that he hid them in his belly. Now, through the thickening and swelling of the exceedingly hot sulfur, it becomes bulky and very heavy, and

97.The heading’s spirituation names the conversion into a ‘spirit’ or subtle state. The text itself specifies the present operation as reduction into the form of water. ‘Trembling quicksilver’ preserves the manuscript’s characteristic expression vif-argent tremblant.

98.The spring, oak, rosebush, and flowers are interpreted explicitly as signs of the matter’s generative power. The statements about the vegetation surrounding quicksilver mines are the manuscript’s reported evidence for that interpretation. The source repeats une across the page boundary; the English reads its article once.

99.Matrices means generative receptacles or wombs here. The analogy makes mineral stones the tree’s roots and connects their stability with the fixity attributed to gold.

100.The French distinguishes minéraux imparfaits from a second, unqualified minéraux. This repeated wording is present in the image and has not been replaced by a conjectural mineral name.

101.The passage assigns distinct functions to earth or sulfur, quicksilver, and salt: fixity, growth, and the manifestation of tincture. ‘Tincture’ retains the technical word rather than reducing it to ordinary color.

102.Tingente is the manuscript’s adjective: a water capable of imparting tincture. Its description as ‘dry’ and ‘not wetting’ is deliberate and distinguishes this philosophical water from ordinary elemental water.

103.The author appeals to experience as a limit on disputation. The English preserves the claim as part of the argument, rather than treating it as an independently established experimental result.

104.The manuscript calls the nymph matière, ‘matter’. This reading belongs to its alchemical explanation and is retained rather than replaced by another name.

105.The catalogue treats the gods’ possessions as things appropriated by Mercury. The next pages explain these thefts through mercury’s supposed powers over bodies and metals.

106.The manuscript repeats ‘le doux’ at the beginning of this page after ending the preceding page with ‘le doux’. The English reads the repeated words once to preserve the continuous sentence.

107.The genealogy and attributes are given as the manuscript presents them. The passage’s object is their alchemical interpretation; its claims are not silently corrected to conform to a different mythographic account.

108.Physiques here means belonging to the explanation of nature. The author distinguishes the fabulous narrative from the natural operations he believes it conceals.

109.The author expressly repeats the identification of Mercury’s mother with matière, matter, and places it beside the interpretation of Jupiter through pure air.

110.Météores is used here for phenomena occurring in the air, within the description of a clear and undisturbed sky. The cloud’s significance as evidence of quicksilver is the manuscript’s claim.

111.The French writes an upright triangular sign after chaleur de; it is retained in the transcription and rendered ‘fire’ in English. Se météorise is immediately glossed by the manuscript as becoming spirit and breaking the body’s bonds.

112.The manuscript reads inspiration. The word is retained as ‘inspiration’ within its account of the formation of metals, rather than replaced by an unstated modern process.