Whiten and whitening

Meaning

The learned form translated 'whitened' occurs in the main treatise's verse summary of the subsequent work. It is placed after conjunction, putrefaction and blackening, and before the later red and fixed completion. Its local meaning is a change toward whiteness within that compressed ordered account, not a stand-alone instruction to bleach an arbitrary substance. The English preserves the passive result, 'most beautifully whitened'. The Via's contrary interpretation of colour language belongs under Colours; it should not be silently imported here to erase the main treatise's own staged wording.