Subject of the sages and the letter riddle

Meaning

The “subject of the sages” is presented as the answer to a verbal puzzle, not named directly. The reader must begin with the six-letter name of a human part, add p and replace s with m. The verse promises that these changes will disclose the true name without ambiguity. Its definite-sounding conclusion belongs to the riddle’s rhetoric; the historical French itself supplies neither the starting word nor the completed answer.

The supplied annotation proposes the Latin loin-to-lead solution, but those Latin words are modern explanatory additions, not printed words in the French verse. Nor does solving this particular riddle establish that every later occurrence of philosophical matter denotes ordinary lead. The heading mentions a figure of the universal spirit; the present edition reports that the corresponding original figure has not been located in its governing scan. A missing image should therefore not be reconstructed from the verse as though it had been inspected.