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 wordA watery accompaniment considered comparatively insipid, unripe, or unsuitable for the immediate fixing work.
- In the Golden ChainIts apparent uselessness is repeatedly qualified: it remains related to spirit and can serve another end.
- TranslationThe unfamiliar technical noun is retained because “waste water” would make the author’s claim too absolute.
- A place to readB2C05S035–B2C05S039, where the author directly explains and limits the term.
Meaning
Recolaceum names water considered apart from the comparatively concentrated, sharp, saline, or coagulable power sought in a particular operation. It often overlaps with phlegm and superfluous moisture. The opening formulation is strong: water without spirit is recolaceum, or powerless. The later discussion deliberately prevents that formulation from becoming an absolute partition of nature into active substance and entirely dead water.
The term is best understood through purpose and degree. A portion too unripe or dispersed for prompt coagulation may hinder a work directed toward stable concentration. That does not make it wholly without spirit or useful for nothing. The book expressly distinguishes outward nomenclature from inward natural participation.
Use in the book
B1C02S002 introduces the apparent opposition between water as dwelling and instrument and spirit as worker. It makes recolaceum the water considered without effective power. B2C05S026 uses the distinction operationally: the author wants the seed or sharpness to remain and coagulate while accompanying moisture leaves. B2C05S030–B2C05S031 then makes the presence of unstable recolaceous moisture a source of continued change and decay. It is the workshop in which the implanted spirit remains awake and active.
B2C05S035 immediately qualifies absolute separation. Neither water nor spirit can be totally deprived of the other. B2C05S037 says the word recolaceous concerns outward condition and a use-related judgment; a thing useless for one purpose can be useful for another. B2C05S038 adds a developmental account: this water is still close to hyle or first matter, not yet sufficiently disposed by fermentation into saltiness. It is separated to shorten the work, not condemned as a nonexistent or intrinsically evil substance.
B2C05S039–B2C05S043 turns to wine because perceptible sharpness and insipidity make the distinction easier to follow than in relatively undifferentiated rainwater. The author finds watery volume much greater than retained seed, and even praises a particular recolaceous wine-water for a medical use. B2C07S004 likewise preserves a subject’s phlegm as its own vehicle. These passages make the category intentionally relative. Its retained technical spelling is valuable precisely because no simple modern term conveys at once removed watery accompaniment, unripe seed, and useful vehicle.
Places to read
- Book I · Ch. 2 · §2The initial definition contrasts instrument with worker.
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §26Seed is retained while watery accompaniment leaves.
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §35Absolute separation of water and spirit is denied.
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §38Unripeness and delay explain removal.
- Book II · Ch. 5 · §43A particular recolaceous portion receives qualified praise.
Translation in this edition
Recolaceum, Recolactum, recolacea, and related inflected or variant spellings occur in the supplied text. The entry does not assume a precise etymology or a modern chemical identity. “Recolaceous” follows the edition’s adjectival rendering and keeps the important relation to the retained noun visible.
The source’s shift from “powerless” to useful vehicle is a point to explain, not an inconsistency to conceal by translation. B2C05S037 expressly anticipates an accusation of contradiction and locates the naming in outward condition and particular use. The lexicon should allow that clarification to govern earlier compressed statements.