Seven metals and many names

Meaning

The claim that the true matter contains all seven metals explains why sages may give it every metallic name. Many names point to a comprehensiveness attributed to the subject, not permission to choose any ordinary metal as its equivalent.

II.4.28 criticizes literal readings of iron, steel and metallic scum in reported authorities. The polished-steel comparison involves likeness or reflective quality, not an instruction to substitute ordinary steel. The assertion that all seven are together is the author's defence of multiform nomenclature. It should be read with his differentiation of universal parent from metallic first matter and with Saturn's only partly accepted lead interpretation. No additional list of seven ingredients is supplied by the phrase.

The English retains both “all” and “together” and preserves the rejection of ordinary metallic identifications. The names are interpretative predicates in context, not a normalized modern recipe index.