Blood, milk and nourishment · Lexicon

From the book

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordBlood names mercurial, sulfurous or metallic spirits and especially an inward life or tincture extracted from matter. Milk expresses nourishing fluid and repeated feeding, while later solid metallic nourishment is supplied through fermentation.
In the manuscriptThe manuscript interprets the massacre emblem, childhood and adulthood, white rivers and solar feeding through these terms. It explicitly rejects literal human blood in its principal explanation.
TranslationThe edition keeps blood and milk as concrete images and states their material glosses where supplied. It does not guess the uncertain parot and simil in the late milk passage.
A place to readManuscript 37r–38r, scans 99–101: blood is directly defined and the transition from prenatal feeding to milk and mature nourishment is explained.

Meaning

Blood carries an inward principle of life. The mothers and children deprived of it lie dead or half dead because spirit, soul and life reside in it. In the material explanation this is not a claim about obtaining human blood: the author defines it as mercurial, sulfurous or metallic spirits. Its extraction makes an inner power available for the renewing bath.

Nourishment changes with the subject's age or stage. Within its mother's body sulfur is fed by red vitriolic spirit; after birth it needs frequent imbibitions; in adulthood it receives more solid metallic nourishment through fermentation. The analogy of blood, milk and mature food explains why one kind of feeding is not sufficient throughout the work.

Milk can also figure the appearance and flow of prepared material. The white fountain or Lethe is interpreted as bath, double spirit and white smoke; Achelous's horn pours milk at the production of white sulfur. The local gloss determines whether the emphasis is whiteness, liquid nourishment or a specific stage of the prepared subject.

Use in the book

At 28r, scan 77, the unnamed poet's account dissolves, purifies and whitens a bird, then colors its wings with new fire, rubs it with its own milk and nourishes it with blood until it can endure Vulcan's rage. The sequence associates feeding with ripening toward trial. The manuscript names no poet, so the lexicon does not assign the speech a confident author.

The king's emblem at 36v, scan 98, divides six soldiers into three pairs: killing, collecting blood and pouring it into the bath. At 37r the author rejects a literal reading and defines the blood as spirits. At 38r the children are seven parts of sulfur formed from pure vitriolic substance, and their blood is metallic spirit from perfect bodies. The text distinguishes the motherly matrix, extracted life and bodies to be renewed.

The same page explicitly uses development as its explanation. A child is fed by blood before birth and milk afterward; sulfur similarly receives red vitriolic spirit, then repeated imbibition, then more solid metallic body by fermentation. The mothers' lifeless condition expresses deprivation of the inner spirit. This is a staged account of growth rather than a claim that milk and blood are interchangeable names at every point.¹⁵⁷

At 38v–39r, scans 102–103, the soldier-pairs reveal quantity and operation. The first two express dissolution and calcination; the next two receive tinctures; the last pair carries them. Blood expresses sulfur's dissolving spirit, while swords express mercury's spirit. The emblem apportions actions and subjects in a precise way despite its violent outer story.

At 44v, scan 116, Lethe or the fountain of abundant white milk means bath, double spirit and sulfur's white smoke. At 125r, scan 285, the late king is imbibed with solar and provisionally read simil milk, then drinks solar water through great fixity. The uncertain intermediary is provisionally read parot. The surrounding feeding and drinking are clear, but the doubtful words cannot responsibly be turned into a familiar bird or a confident lunar complement.¹⁵⁸

At 127r, scan 289, purple clothing and blood finally mark the highest perfection and immunity to further fire. The blood image has moved from extracted inward life and nourishing fluid to the perfected subject's visible clothing. The source's continuous explanation, not the word in isolation, establishes that progression.

Places to read

Manuscript 28r · Scan 77The unnamed poet’s bird is fed with its own milk and then blood before fiery trial.
Manuscript 36v, 37r · Scans 98, 992The blood bath is introduced and expressly interpreted as mercurial, sulfurous or metallic spirits.
Manuscript 38r · Scan 101Prenatal nourishment, repeated imbibition and adult fermentation are distinguished.
Manuscript 38v, 39r · Scans 102, 1032The soldier-pairs divide extraction, receiving and carrying of tinctures.
Manuscript 44v, 125r · Scans 116, 2852White milk and the late solar feeding have distinct local meanings.
Manuscript 127r · Scan 289Blood and purple mark the completed subject’s final perfection.

Translation

Blood, milk and nourishment preserve sang, lait and nutrition rather than dissolving all three into a generic fluid. Imbibition retains repeated feeding with liquid; fermentation names the later strengthening by metallic body. The edition states the author's own material gloss and keeps the outer image visible.

At scan 285 parot and simil remain qualified. Solar is secure; a proposed lunar counterpart would be a conjecture, not a translation of the retained reading. The lexicon therefore explains the known action of imbibing while leaving the uncertain material labels to the edition's reading note and facsimile evidence.

sang humain

Attested: H001-S098; H001-S099. The literal reading rejected by the continuous sentence across these units.

esprits mercuriels sulfureux ou métalliques

Attested: H001-S099. The source’s explicit interpretation of blood.

lait

Attested: H001-S077; H001-S101; H001-S116; H001-S285. Nourishment or a locally explained white fluid according to the preparation.

fréquentes imbibitions

Attested: H001-S101. The repeated feeding required after the sulfur’s birth.

fermentation

Attested: H001-S101. The stronger metallic nourishment associated with adulthood.

Source note

Scan 101 expressly orders three stages: red vitriolic nourishment within the mother, repeated imbibitions after birth, and metallic body through fermentation in adulthood. The sequence supplies the definition of nourishment here.

Scan 285 retains parot(?) and simil(?) after solar. No bird-name or lunar substance has been substituted. The secure part is the repeated milk-imbibition and solar-water account.