From the book
The Golden Chain of Homer
Anonymous (traditionally attributed to Anton Joseph Kirchweger) · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordVinegar is a familiar vegetable acid and an important medium of conjunction.
- In the Golden ChainThe name also extends to animal acid and the penetrating metallic vinegar.
- TranslationIts local source and degree determine what “vinegar” denotes.
- A place to readB1C19S010–016: why the vegetable middle is needed.
Meaning
Vinegar is the most developed example of an acid suited to a particular middle relation. Ordinary wine vinegar stands between spirit of wine and stronger mineral corrosives: it can associate with both and make their conjunction intelligible within the work’s rule of degrees. It is therefore more than an incidental household ingredient in the argument (B1C19S010–014).
Yet vinegar is not confined to wine. Animal vinegar names an acidic fraction following the volatile portion in analysis, and universal rainwater can yield an analogous acid. The closing discussion calls a prepared mercurial solvent the most penetrating vinegar. These extensions are governed by relation and sharpness, so they must not all be silently identified with ordinary acetic vinegar (B1C19S017; B1C22S035; B2C07S002; B2C11S004).
Use in the book
The account of wine becoming vinegar explains the intermediate by genealogy. Warmth allows some wine spirit to escape while another part is fixed and altered; unaltered wine spirit does not count as vinegar. The author uses this familiar change to make a larger principle visible: one degree of the same material can acquire a different operative name. He also gives vinegar-making as an example of practical economy, preserving a useful volatile portion rather than losing it without thought (B1C22S028–029).
The critique of rooted vinegar separates a prestigious label from actual effect. Distillation over salt of tartar may leave its sharpness fixed below and send over weak phlegm, defeating the advertised result. The author then distinguishes sourness, oiliness, burnt smell, and proper sharpening. These discussions are not reproduced here as preparations; their interpretive point is that apparent purification or repeated distillation can remove the very operative quality being sought (B1C19S020–024).
Vinegar’s role in sweetening is also qualified. It is a vegetable subject too weak on its own for many tightly bound minerals, yet it allegedly moderates corrosiveness and connects kingdoms. The author insists that spirit of wine cannot replace every middle and that true dulcification means an actual transformed sweetness, not merely an absence of a sharp sensation. His medicinal assertions must remain attributed to the historical text. Vinegar’s ordinary familiarity does not establish that the mineral products discussed with it are safe (B1C19S025; B1C22S029–031; B2C09S015; B2C10S020–024).
Places to read
- Book I · Ch. 19 · §11Vinegar joins wine spirit to a more fixed mineral acid.
- Book I · Ch. 19 · §20Rooted vinegar is criticized when its sharpness remains below.
- Book I · Ch. 19 · §25The author gives the medical rationale for vegetable vinegar.
- Book I · Ch. 22 · §29The historical explanation of wine’s change into vinegar.
- Book II · Ch. 9 · §15True sweetness is distinguished from a merely comparative label.
Translation in this edition
Eßig and Acetum are attested German and Latin forms. The edition also preserves compound expressions such as animal vinegar, vegetable vinegar, and most penetrating vinegar. The latter belongs to the alkahest discussion and is explicitly a philosophers’ metallic acid. “Acid” is therefore sometimes the clearer explanatory gloss, while retaining “vinegar” makes the source’s analogical naming visible. A translator should not erase either the ordinary wine reference or the wider technical extensions (B2C07S002; B2C11S004).