Purses and chests

Meaning

Purses and chests are the stores from which fraudulent practitioners are said to distil money. The joke relocates a technical operation from material transformation to the extraction of a client’s wealth. What disappears is not an impurity but the money entrusted to an impressive-looking art.

The German places Kisten awkwardly in the verse’s printed arrangement, while the English brings purses and chests together in the relevant line. The warning asks for scrutiny rather than unqualified trust. It is not a condemnation of all practitioners, since the same poem recommends upright people who know their craft without boasting.