Eagle and lion · Lexicon

From the book

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordEagle and lion are recurring animal figures of the philosophical matter. Eagle wings often express elevation or volatility, while the lion’s strength, heat, covering and appetite can express mercurial action, sulfurous fixation or final transmuting power.
In the manuscriptThe royal eagle becomes white sulfur or the pregnant white earth; a cruel eagle elsewhere is raw quicksilver. The Red Lion covers Hercules, while the final true Lion devours and converts things into its own nature.
TranslationThe edition keeps those locally defined differences and retains the author’s animal lore as historical explanatory material. The names do not supply invariant chemical labels.
A place to readManuscript 19v and 86r, scans 58 and 203, for the white elevated eagle; manuscript 127r, scan 289, for the completed true Lion.

Meaning

Wings make a material capacity visible, but an eagle's meaning also depends on what it bears, threatens or consumes. At 19v its protected brood is universal sulfur generated above; at 86r its white wings clothe volatile spiritual earth pregnant with solar spirit. At 60v the liver-eating eagle is raw quicksilver hostile to lead. A shared animal shape does not make these relations identical.

The lion's appetite can similarly signify different operative powers. The Red Lion's skin is a mercurial covering that enables Hercules's solar spirit to be dissolved and spiritualized. The hot, dry lion in another passage is sulfur that congeals and fixes what it devours. The perfected true Lion finally assimilates everything to its own nature and resists further fire. Preparation and stage decide the particular action.

The animal pair therefore helps the reader distinguish volatility, embodiment, fixation and attained dominion. It is useful precisely when those distinctions are followed. A fixed table in which eagle always means volatile mercury and lion always means sulfur would lose the manuscript's own explicit explanations.

Use in the book

At 22r–22v, scans 63–64, Hercules's Nemean or Red Lion covering is mercurial spirit, also called red stag. It is the solar spirit's body and mantle, without which it cannot be dissolved, subtilized or spiritualized. The lion itself can transform the very fixed body of gold into its watery nature and hide it in a stomach like a tomb. Its power is thus not confined to dry fixation.

At 19v, scan 58, dragons' venomous discharge threatens eagle brood, driving the birds to mountains, trees and rocks. The brood is sulfur generated at the vessel's top. The royal eagle or white body then becomes Andromeda in the explanation of a prepared subject. At 29v, scan 80, the author instructs the reader to seek a lion in the east and an eagle in the south, while also mentioning white eagles in west or south and different preparations for capturing them. The geographical wording is retained as part of the symbolic account; the abrupt final pronoun has no named subject.¹⁶³

At 43v–44v, scans 114–116, the lion continues the wolf's account of dry hunger and fixation. Fieriness, rage and the reported giving of life to dead-born cubs through roaring are made analogies of sulfur's generation. The source immediately interprets the lore through sulfur living in fire and feeding upon smoke, air and wind raised into the alembic. It is a historical natural narrative used for the work, not modern zoological evidence.

At 60v, scan 148, the eagle gnawing Prometheus's liver is raw quicksilver. Its role is destructive resistance to germination. At 86r, scan 203, the white eagle is instead the volatile spiritual earth rising above, also called a virgin bearing within her womb. Its whiteness does not prevent gold tincture because of the solar spirit with which it is pregnant. The lunar water remaining after sublimation has a different position and silver tincturing power.

At 127r, scan 289, purple and blood mark the final height of perfection. Fire can no longer act upon the subject; it is then called the true Lion 'because he devours everything and converts it into his own nature'. The image joins promised land and the treasure of the Golden Fleece. Its appetite is perfected transmuting power, contrasted with the earlier dangers and incomplete preparations. The changed result makes this a distinct use of the same devouring motif.¹⁶⁴

Places to read

Manuscript 19v · Scan 58Eagle brood and royal white eagle express sulfur generated above.
Manuscript 22r, 22v · Scans 63, 642The Red Lion’s mercurial covering enables the solar spirit’s preparation.
Manuscript 29v · Scan 80Directions and unequal preparations for catching lion and white eagles.
Manuscript 43v, 44r, 44v · Scans 114, 115, 1162 3Hot, dry appetite and fabulous birth lore explain sulfur’s fiery generation.
Manuscript 60v, 86r · Scans 148, 2032Compare destructive raw quicksilver with the white pregnant spiritual earth.
Manuscript 127r · Scan 289The perfected true Lion converts things into its nature and resists fire.

Translation

Eagle and lion render the ordinary animal words so their concrete actions remain readable. Red Lion and true Lion preserve the distinctive technical phrases where the passage makes them names. 'White eagles' remains plural in the capture instruction; it is not silently made one standardized alchemical emblem.

The edition also preserves the source's changing pronouns and directions at scan 80 and its statements about lions' offspring at scan 115. Local notes identify their historical or unresolved status. The lexicon uses the explicit material glosses to explain why those stories appear, while keeping the source's actual natural lore visible.

aigle royal

Attested: H001-S058. The royal white body interpreted through the Andromeda figure.

Lion Rouge

Attested: H001-S063. The mercurial spirit represented by Hercules’s covering.

aigles blancs

Attested: H001-S080. The plural white eagles in the symbolic capture instruction.

aigle cruel

Attested: H001-S148. Raw quicksilver gnawing Prometheus’s liver.

vrai Lion

Attested: H001-S289. The perfected power of assimilation after fire can no longer act.

Source note

Scan 80 gives east, south and west/south as written and ends with an unnamed it in the sentence about making sulfur. Neither a missing subject nor a corrected geographical system is supplied.

Scan 289 expressly explains the true Lion through conversion into its own nature after perfection. That local definition differs from the earlier mercurial lion that dissolves gold and the sulfurous appetite that fixes volatile matter.