From the book
A New Light of Alchemy
Michael Sendivogius · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordForma and species concern form or appearance; corpus and pulvis distinguish body and powder.
- In the workMercury’s body can be sublimed, precipitated and made into several named preparations.
- In this editionNote 53 retains the printed Thurbi and Masca and renders Amalgama as amalgam.
- A place to readNonne Thurbi? Nonne Amalgama? Nonne Masca? Historical preparation-names appear inside a lament.
Meaning
Forma and species concern form or appearance; corpus and pulvis distinguish body and powder. Thurbi, Amalgama and Masca name historical preparations or forms in Mercury’s list, not securely interchangeable modern compounds.
Use in the book
Mercury’s body can be sublimed, precipitated and made into several named preparations. His list seeks pity by showing how far he has complied. The alchemist instead accuses him of merely devising forms while always returning to his first appearance. The dispute distinguishes extensive manipulation from the change the worker desires, though it does not provide a modern account of every transformation.
Mercury’s offer to become body or powder culminates in “dust and shadow,” which has a literary resonance beyond the physical description. In the next exchange he distinguishes visible form, already before the questioner, from an inward centre that requires a different account. When he finally says that he returns in another form after accompanying fire, the phrase belongs to that relational riddle, not simply to the alchemist’s earlier accusation of superficial change.
The reader should therefore follow who predicates a form, why, and at which stage of the exchange. The persistence asserted by the worker, the lament asserted by Mercury and the fixed heart described by Mercury are not independent chemical measurements that can be assembled without their argumentative settings.
Places to read
- Dialogue of Mercury, the Alchemist and Nature · Passage 10LatinNonne Thurbi? Nonne Amalgama? Nonne Masca? Historical preparation-names appear inside a lament.
- Dialogue of Mercury, the Alchemist and Nature · Passage 10Latinpulvis et umbra fio: Powder culminates in a literary expression of abasement.
- Dialogue of Mercury, the Alchemist and Nature · Passage 11LatinRevertor, sed in alia forma. Return in another form closes the travel-and-fire exchange.
Translation in this edition
Note 53 retains the printed Thurbi and Masca and renders Amalgama as amalgam. It expressly withholds a secure modern composition for every preparation. No spelling is silently “corrected” into an assumed substance.