DiotimosReading Desk

Vessels, images and instruments

Colors and chromatic change

Appearance as a record of preparation couleurs, colors; blancheur, whiteness; rougeur, redness; queue du paon, peacock’s tail

Colors disclose changing preparation, the diversity of elemental and metallic conditions, and the transition from volatile corruption toward white and red perfection.

From the book

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordColors disclose changing preparation, the diversity of elemental and metallic conditions, and the transition from volatile corruption toward white and red perfection. They are signs that must be read with their substrate and stage.
  • In the manuscriptThe work includes spotted serpents, changing metallic appearances, the Hydra’s heads and the peacock’s tail. Foreign colors finally terminate in whiteness, while the later red state intensifies the perfected subject’s power.
  • TranslationThe edition preserves the source’s particular color assignments and incomplete lists. Gold’s tincture or the Moon’s brilliance is expressly distinguished from the fixity or permanence associated with the metal.
  • A place to readManuscript 47r–47v, scans 121–122, and 106v, scan 246: the Hydra and peacock’s tail explain multiplying colors and their overcoming.

Meaning

Color is a visible condition of matter, but visibility alone does not establish completion. At 12r, scan 41, volatile sulfur has gold's tincture without gold's fixity, and volatile quicksilver has the Moon's shine without its permanence. The source explicitly separates appearance from enduring material condition. This rule helps prevent a golden or silver surface from being read as the whole attained product.

Colors also mark preparation's diversity. The same matter may appear through living dragons or a dead nailed serpent, a blue stem or red earth, a shining sword or white smoke. At 15v the author says that the subject is the same but its preparation differs. Color is one feature of that difference, joined to motion, vitality, place and volatility.

The chromatic sequence can be conflictual. Foreign moisture raises many colors and venomous vapors, represented by monsters or a peacock's tail. Their extinction in whiteness belongs to the overcoming of heterogeneous qualities. Redness then belongs to a further stage, named as an intensification of dominion. The text gives local sequences rather than one exhaustive color chart for every passage.

Use in the book

At 8r, scan 31, the caduceus serpents bear yellow spots tending red. At 9v–10r, scans 34–35, outer and inner quicksilver colors vary with preparation: blue or greenish appearance, red sandy earth, rust-like vermilion and polished metallic brightness. The same armor can therefore disclose different conditions. The source's unusual apparent starry sun in scan 34 remains noted rather than converted into a confident new color correspondence.

At 15r–16r, scans 49–51, the flower has a blue stem, golden rays and white and red blooms. Living dragons and the dead cross-serpent represent the same matter differently prepared. At 26v, scan 74, the serpent's blue back and yellowish-red spotted belly belong to immature philosophical copper or laton. Repeated digestion, irrigation and mercurial imbibition remove blackness, venom and foul smell until shining fixed sulfur appears.

The dedicated Hercules explanation at 47r–47v interprets the Hydra's heads as mercury, seven metals and the colors succeeding in the work. The named assignments are black to Saturn, red to Mars, white to Jupiter, green to Venus, blue to Moon and lemon color to gold. Six assignments are explicitly given across the page boundary; the lexicon does not supply a seventh from a conventional correspondence table.159

At 50v, scan 128, conversion of white sulfur to red is the final great combat, after which come repose and joy. At 106v, scan 246, the riders and slaughter signify extermination of foreign colors from remaining foreign moisture. The color acting within produces the world's colors like a peacock's tail and deadly vapors, until moisture is consumed and they end in whiteness. The source actually says color acts; the English does not substitute heat to make the mechanism easier.160

The late king at 125r, scan 285, changes metallic nature into a silver form and acquires greatly multiplied power if brought to redness. At 127r the purple-clad, blood-covered subject marks final perfection. These are more than decorative hues: the author ties them to claimed capacities of conversion, purification and resistance to fire. But their evidential force remains the manuscript's assertion within its process, not a general modern test of metallic composition.

The reader should consequently ask what is colored, what acts upon it and what operation has preceded the appearance. A blue serpent, a blue mercurial stem and a blue planetary comparison are related material images without necessarily designating an identical state. The local account supplies the distinction.

Places to read

  1. Manuscript 8r, 9v, 10r, 12r · Scans 31, 34, 35, 41234Spotted serpents and changed appearance are qualified by the distinction between tincture and fixity.
  2. Manuscript 15r, 15v, 16r · Scans 49, 50, 5123Flower colors and living versus dead serpents distinguish preparation.
  3. Manuscript 26v · Scan 74Immature laton loses blackness, venom and odor through repeated cleansing.
  4. Manuscript 47r, 47v · Scans 121, 1222The Hydra’s heads become metals and the explicitly named color assignments.
  5. Manuscript 50v, 106v · Scans 128, 2462White-to-red completion and the earlier many colors terminating in whiteness.
  6. Manuscript 125r, 127r · Scans 285, 2892Redness, purple and blood mark enhanced or final royal power.

Translation

Color translates couleur; whiteness and redness retain nouns where the source speaks of attained appearances, while whitening and reddening render the operation terms. Dealbation and rubification are translated whitening and reddening in the main edition rather than left as unexplained Latin-derived labels.

The source's lemon color, blue, yellowish, purple and vermilion remain particular hues. Its assignments are not regularized to a familiar planetary palette. At scan 246 the phrase color acting within it remains as written, a consequential detail for an account that grants colors an operative role rather than merely presenting them as passive results.

différentes couleurs

Attested: H001-S121; H001-S125. Successive colors of the material work.

le noir à Saturne

Attested: H001-S121. The first explicit Hydra color correspondence.

le blanc à Jupiter

Attested: H001-S122. The source’s white–Jupiter assignment, retained as given.

queue du paon

Attested: H001-S246. The multiplicity of foreign colors preceding whiteness.

rougeur

Attested: H001-S285. The further state said to multiply the king’s power.

Source note

The list across scans 121–122 names six color assignments although the surrounding exposition invokes seven heads and metals. No missing correspondence is supplied from another system.

Scan 246 reads la couleur qui agit en elle. The retained translation says the color acting within it; replacing color with heat would change the author’s stated agent.