From the book
The Golden Chain of Homer
Anonymous (traditionally attributed to Anton Joseph Kirchweger) · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAlkahest names a celebrated dissolving medium discussed through sharpness and circulation.
- In the Golden ChainThe closing chapter interprets it indirectly through prepared mercurial materials.
- Translation“Alkahest” and the spaced “Alka Est” belong to the same discussion.
- A place to readB2C11S001–004: the promised indirect account.
Meaning
The alkahest enters as the name of a reputedly penetrating menstruum whose users may misunderstand their own work. The author does not provide a securely identified single substance under this heading. He challenges readers to explain why spirit of wine accompanies it, links its operation to corrosive sharpness, and promises an indirect description at the end of the treatise (B2C09S004).
That description begins with a problem internal to his historical classification. A solvent suited to an acidic metal may fail with an alkaline one, while acid and alkali can destroy each other’s operative force by producing a third substance. The sought medium must therefore be hermaphroditic: capable of associating with both natures. Mercurial materials offer candidates, but these range across arsenicals, marcasites, realgars, and flowing or coagulated mercuries. No modern chemical identity follows from the name alone (B2C11S001).
Use in the book
The discussion undermines the idea that a marvellous name exempts a solvent from ordinary material causes. Mercurial matter in its simple form is too thick and insufficiently sharp. To give metals a saline and liquid condition, the solvent must itself acquire an appropriate saline and watery condition. The maxim that like is generated through like therefore governs the alleged secret just as it governs rainwater, plants, and ordinary mineral operations (B2C11S002).
The final chapter presents several choices made by practitioners rather than one exclusive procedure. Different combinations of animal, vegetable, mineral, and universal salts or waters are said to animate mercury, while the success of the medium varies with its penetration and degree of spirituality. This plurality matters: the author criticizes practitioners who elevate the one method they happen to know into nature’s only possibility. He treats comparative sharpness and material preparation as more explanatory than proprietary names (B2C11S003–004).
The resulting water receives several honorific names: most penetrating vinegar, philosophers’ metallic acid, Acherontic or infernal water, and greater circulatum. These names mark a related account of a highly penetrating mercurial medium, not demonstrated synonyms for a pure modern compound. The chapter also records anxiety that mineral corrosives would produce dangerous results, while arguing that some form of saline sharpness remains indispensable. Its ending sends readers to public authors whose processes allegedly circulate under other names. The lexicon can explain that claim without supplying an unverified identification from later literature (B2C11S004).
Places to read
- Book II · Ch. 9 · §4Alkahest, spirit of wine, and the promise of an indirect description.
- Book II · Ch. 11 · §1The problem of a medium able to associate with acid and alkali.
- Book II · Ch. 11 · §2Mercury must acquire a saline, liquid condition to perform the required work.
- Book II · Ch. 11 · §3Different practitioners employ different classes of salts and waters.
- Book II · Ch. 11 · §4Most penetrating vinegar, metallic acid, and greater circulatum.
Translation in this edition
The original phrase Alka est circulati is textually attested, but a derivation of the word is not supplied. Acetum acerrimum, translated through the vocabulary of penetration and extreme sharpness, need not mean ordinary wine vinegar. In this closing argument “vinegar” is an analogical designation for a prepared metallic acid. Likewise “mercurial” must be read in the work’s broad historical sense rather than automatically as running quicksilver (B2C11S001–004).