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 wordMetal is a relatively completed, fixed stage in mineral generation.
- In the Golden ChainThe text distinguishes natural ores, refined bodies, and later reductions.
- TranslationMetallic names do not supply the whole history of the mineral subject.
- A place to readB1C23S033–042: genealogy, analysis, and classification of metals.
Meaning
Metals occupy a late stage in the work’s mineral tree: saline vapour and earth become vitriolic Gur, sulphur, arsenic, marcasite, and finally metal. Glass follows only with an explicit qualification. Metal thus means a relatively completed birth within a continuous series, not an unrelated primordial substance (B1C23S001; B1C23S033).
Different metals arise through differences of earth, corrosive supply, digestion, heat, and fixation. Their durability follows chiefly from the loss of surplus moisture and the strong binding of their principles. The author allows interrupted and imperfect outcomes rather than assuming that every mineral subject reaches the same completion. His claim that nature aims at gold belongs to this historical teleology (B1C23S013–015; B1C23S023; B1C23S048).
Use in the book
The book’s method begins with ores as they come from the mountain. Smelted and refined metals have lost much of their vitriolic, sulphurous, arsenical, marcasitic, and stony context. A small metallic grain may therefore represent only a fraction of the generative body. The author criticizes a theory that infers natural origins from the finished refined product alone, especially when it ignores the substances discarded at smelting (B1C23S023; B1C23S034–038).
He replaces rigid traditional labels with relative behaviour in solution. Silver and lead are treated as more openly acidic; gold and tin as alkaline-fixed; iron, copper, and mercury as intermediate or hermaphroditic in the relevant tests. These are operative categories internal to the source, not modern elemental classifications. The author explicitly prefers observed response to speculative attachment of sulphurous and mercurial names (B1C23S039–041).
Backward reduction must recover suitable degrees rather than merely produce any liquid extract. Running mercury artificially made from a metal is not proof that nature originally forged it from quicksilver. Likewise a sulphur extract is only a part, whereas the proposed medical end concerns the whole transformed body. Even a mineral quintessence remains corrosive until, in the author’s scheme, it becomes homogeneous through vegetable and animal intermediaries. The lexicon therefore separates his genealogy and interpretive claims from any endorsement of metallic medicines (B1C23S042–044; B2C09S012–016; B2C10S023–026).
Places to read
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §1Metal is the sixth mineral stage, with glass added improperly afterward.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §15The root, stalk, flower, and seed analogy organizes metallic birth.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §38A small metallic product is contrasted with its much larger generative context.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §39The author classifies metals through their response to solvents.
- Book II · Ch. 10 · §24A partial sulphur extract is distinguished from transformation of the whole body.
Translation in this edition
Metall and Metalla are attested, while the Latin form metalleitatem refers to metallic being or metallicity rather than a particular metal. “Metal,” “ore,” and “mineral” therefore should not be used as unrestricted synonyms. A “star” can be a metallic or ore designation within the red and white grouping; it is not necessarily a claim that an astronomical object is physically inside the sample. The author’s local subject and stage determine the reference (B1C15S003; B1C23S039; B2C09S011).