DiotimosReading Desk

Vessels, images and instruments

Vessel

The bounded place in which images become operations vaisseau, vessel; vaisseaux, vessels; tête de l’alambic, head of the alembic

A vessel is the receptacle in which matter is cooked, dissolved, raised, condensed and fixed.

From the book

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordA vessel is the receptacle in which matter is cooked, dissolved, raised, condensed and fixed. Its head, sides and bottom provide positions through which the manuscript explains mountains, clouds, maidens, dragons and flowing water.
  • In the manuscriptVessels are among the practical things first taught in veiled language. Their spatial relations later let the reader locate distinct portions of the same philosophical matter and observe its changing forms.
  • TranslationVaisseau is rendered vessel. The edition preserves descriptions of wooden supports, ashes and the philosophical egg, and does not silently turn every metaphorical container into the same apparatus.
  • A place to readManuscript 23r, scan 65: Andromeda above, mercurial water below and the acting solar spirit give a clear example of a figure mapped into the vessel.

Meaning

The vessel makes the work a bounded field of relations. A substance at the head can differ from what remains below; spirits can rise along the sides, fill the enclosure or return as water. These positions are integral to the explanation. Calling several figures one philosophical subject does not make their places or states irrelevant.

The term can also designate an outer support. At 29r, scan 79, the oak and cross are interpreted as a wooden vessel half full of ashes containing the philosophical egg. That arrangement differs from the alembic's head and body, although both belong to the work's vessels. The witness does not provide enough dimensions or construction details to reconstruct an exact apparatus from the names alone.

Vessel can move between visible instrument and interpreted matter. In scan 79 the author unexpectedly calls the vessel the matter to be digested and corrupted. The lexicon records this identification locally rather than making every use a confusion or automatically correcting the noun. A receptacle, an emblematic support and the subject of digestion can overlap within this account.177

Use in the book

At 3v, scan 20, the attributed teacher depicts vessels, indicates degrees of heat and teaches the colors that succeed during cooking. This compact statement ties visual instruction to practical process. It also places the images under secrecy and oath: the vessel belongs to knowledge transmitted in a veiled language, rather than to an uncontextualized laboratory inventory.

The king's blood emblem at 7v, scan 28, includes a very large vessel where Sun and Moon bathe. Its later explanation treats the blood as extracted inward spirit and the bath as a means of renewing the bodies. Size and reception are part of the represented scene; they do not make it an instruction to use literal human blood.

At 16v–18r, scans 52–55, vapors raise sulfur to the top, spirits rise along the sides and mercurial water ascends and descends. The account distinguishes dissolution, during which no vapor rises, from the later filling of the vessel with vaporous spirits that resolve into water. The container enables a temporal as well as a spatial explanation: the same interior has different activity before and after the body's opening.

At 19v, scan 58, eagle brood is universal sulfur generated above. At 23r, scan 65, the white sulfur in the alembic's head becomes Andromeda attached to a rock; water at the bottom becomes her dragon. The hero acts within the prepared sulfur. The apparent landscape is therefore also an account of where the material's parts are and what can act upon them.

At 24r, scan 67, the fire-breathing bulls are vapors that must cease rising into the head. At 27v, scan 76, the vessel fills during corruption, then reveals shining matter after those vapors disperse. Its enclosure supplies the conditions for appearance and concealment throughout the sequence.

Finally, at 49r, scan 125, the lineage of Atlas and his brothers is said to enclose the secret of vessel, furnace and fire. The text moves immediately to mineral spirit, vegetative spirit and celestial fire. The claim links apparatus and natural powers without assigning each brother an explicit one-to-one apparatus identity. The entry keeps the statement's extent rather than manufacturing a diagram more exact than its wording.178

Places to read

  1. Manuscript 3v · Scan 20Vessels, heat and successive colors form the initial veiled teaching.
  2. Manuscript 7v · Scan 28The emblematic bath receives blood and the Sun and Moon.
  3. Manuscript 16v, 17v, 18r · Scans 52, 54, 5523Top, sides and bottom locate the changing spirits and their circulation.
  4. Manuscript 19v, 23r · Scans 58, 652Eagle brood and Andromeda are the sulfur generated or sublimed above.
  5. Manuscript 24r, 27v, 29r · Scans 67, 76, 7923Filling with vapors, digestion and the wooden vessel containing the egg.
  6. Manuscript 49r, 49v · Scans 125, 1262The genealogy of spirits is said to contain the secret of vessel, furnace and fire.

Translation

Vessel translates vaisseau; alembic translates alambic. Their ordinary English meanings remain visible, while the local gloss states when a mountain, cross or royal bath signifies one. 'Head' keeps the source's recurrent upper region, and 'bottom' marks what remains after rising or sublimation.

The translation retains the strained syntax of scan 79's vessel–matter identification with a local note. Descriptive phrases do not become missing measurements, temperatures or construction instructions. The lexicon explains the role the instrument plays in the text, while the entry on regulated heat addresses the conditions of cooking more directly.

vaisseaux

Attested: H001-S020. The practical receptacles depicted in the initial teaching.

haut du vaisseau

Attested: H001-S052; H001-S058; H001-S076. The upper region associated with raised or generated sulfur.

fond du vaisseau

Attested: H001-S054; H001-S065; H001-S068. The lower region retaining mercurial water after sublimation.

vaisseau de bois à demi plein de cendres

Attested: H001-S079. The explicit oak-support interpretation containing the philosophical egg.

Source note

Scan 79 calls the vessel the matter that must be digested and corrupted within an irregular rhetorical construction. The canonical translation retains the identification and explains its syntax instead of silently replacing either noun.

Scans 125–126 announce the secret of vessel, furnace and fire within the brothers’ lineage. They do not explicitly allocate the three apparatus terms individually to Atlas, Hesperus and Prometheus.