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the dissolving, corrosive, and striking spirit of our mercury through Saturn’s sickle; and through the sea’s foam, the salt or niter rising upon our sea from the corruption of the gods. Hence our Venus, or androgyne of hermaphroditic nature, has been called in Arabic Ziniar, that is, light and beauty. She is the mother of the gods, the wife of the starry heaven, the eighth Day on which our Sun begins to shine and is called, as above, to the eighth Heaven.
Here is what else may be observed in this figure. The slain young children and their mothers lying half dead upon the ground represent the body of vitriol, that is, common vitriolic earth. The blood flowing from their veins represents the invisible and inward sulfur of this earth. The soldiers massacring these children represent quicksilver or the mercurial spirit, because it alone can draw this first essence or tincture from the blood of these vitriolic caverns, in order to make a bath for washing and restoring the diseased and afflicted members of the Sun and Moon. Enough has been said on this subject.
The Serpents and Rivers
Serpents in a rocky landscape crossed by waterways. The associated explanation concerns fixation. Scan 107.
On the last leaf of the third group of seven is represented a deserted and mountainous wilderness, watered by the clear water of four rivers welling up from four little springs. From them arise innumerable serpents, blue along their backs and marked with red and yellow spots, making a thousand coils and turns in these deserted and uninhabited places.