NOW WHAT? THIS Muslim yclept Rhases, born Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya, explains how quasi-physicians root out snakes from a patient’s nose by thrusting into the nostril a gilded probe to bring forth blood with a dead worm of sliced liver. And they know how to draw water from an ear and slimy insects from teeth—O, they do this! Aye! And they will wring mucus out of interior body parts and draw up great bladder-stones, all having shifted by their hands that which they pretend to extract. Who would believe such a thing?
WE AVOW BY man’s hindpart we have met talkative swindlers willing to traffic in posteriority for a moment’s wealth, charlatans that make up sparkling pyramids instead of funding ancient verities—mischievous spirits that choose to engage innocents with error by undermining the edifice of sound philosophy. So the earth whirls and rings about us to make its great noise, yet planting-time and harvest time have each their due return.
LO! WHAT NEXT? An erudite Jesuit by name Athanasius Kircher notifies us how some Stranger visiting a youthful aspirant at his workshop dictated the recipe we seek! And graciously did he labor to help produce a congealing Oil that forthwith separated, reducing itself to dust while swiftly converting three hundred pounds of quicksilver into fresh hermetic gold which could not through any test be adulterated or subdued—whereupon this benefactor departed, albeit we know not why. Then did our novice experience ambitious pains like midnight with a vacant bellie and set out to recapitulate the process. O yea! Woe! Since next we hear he delivered up his inheritance to questionable art. Were not men hatched from unlucky eggs? And among us how many are not insidiously nudged or buggered by that Advocate who takes such joy in blurring and smearing and contaminating sublunary affairs?
RICALMUS PREPARES US his catalogue of farts and stratagems practiced upon the unwary by satanic agents with dishonest gestures and seductive appointments. O, it is true! Vipers lurk betwixt and behind green leaves. Hence are we reminded that as the bewitching vagabond appears most innocent, there should we walk most circumspect.
MAGISTER SOLOMON TRISMOSIN discourses in Aureum Vellus how he encountered this wizard of secretive temperament that called himself Flocker and used a measure of lead fixed with brimstone to make it first rigid, then fluid, at last turning the metal soft as wax, and so contrived to draw out eight ounces of excellent silver. Afterward said Flocker went tumbling down a mine-shaft leaving for his legacy manifold notes and regrets, but about the process not much. So little develops by chance while too much exhibited as sacrosanct we mistrustfully deride, even as we suspect our Moon does not sail east—although clouds rush westward across her smiling visage. Well, Anno Domini 1598 from Rorschach comes a most grave manuscript alleging that by fortune’s grace our Solomon fell heir to Flocker’s heroic recipe and betook himself in travel about Asia where he was identified centuries later! O, mercy! Could Solomon live so long? We think not. Much we dispute, more we doubt. Perjuries blow off the wind, sapphires suck poison out of tumors, and as comets oppose their tails to the Sun we do grow evasive against majorities.
MAGISTER ANSELM BOETIUS de Boodt proposes the regeneration of earth into a Jewel by virtue of its lapidific endowment, agitated and urged toward movement through celestial warmth, during which a conclusive role was performed by the Lord—Deus Optimus Maximus. Ach! Our brain feels ploughed in wrinkles. We doubt if Borri with his palm-branch might sweep the court of such a smelly pie. Nor, saying so, would we disparage God, but donkeys that invest his pasture.
WONDER HAS SEIZED us regarding this manuscript Sarlamethon that was purchased by a gullible Italian for three thousand crowns. Then what? Up from Hades bubbled an Adriatic storm so our greedy Latin with his gold pass-port sank from view. Yea! O, what a pitiful story! Is the Adriatic at mid-winter less raging or turbulent than mankind? Do we not all swarm with vague or mixed anxieties? Meister Albertus in his silly Book of Secrets affirms how travel across distant countries wearies us, yet Eirenaeus Philalethes cautions that the ignorant are consigned to frantic struggles in endless thickets. Truly, we respond like buckets on a rope—as one goes up his brother falls. Thus we consult the mist and contend at morality, asking if this be autumn or summer but do not guess what sign old Sol held.
WE ARE TOLD in Philostratus Jarchus that some Hindoo prince bequeathed seven rings with the seven signatures of regnant planets to Apollonius, who vowed to wear them sequentially and by such magic live beyond one hundred years, yet retain the comeliness of youth. But do we not hear about the Bear that after five centuries he becomes a Fox? So among Wolves which after eight hundred birthdays select different shapes. Verily! Thus might oceans roil overhead—as Patricius claims. So do rats foretelling human events turn white. So do smoaky exhalations ascending from putrid matter inside the stomach suffocate the intellect.
MUCH GOSSIP PATTERS on our heads regarding two fleet wizards from Elizabeth’s Court by name John Dee—appointed warden of Manchester College—with his accomplice Kelley that in a ruin near Glastonbury uncovered a Liquid which they took with them all across the Continent so far as Trebona, there performing a little hermetic music to multiply their fortune. Moreover, we hear of one Sendivogius traveling disguised like a lackey with a box of magic powder tucked in his waistcoat—one pinch sufficient to project ducats out of mercury ounce for ounce! And we do affirm how mortal existence appears a concatenation of days linking absurdity to absurdity.
NOW ARE WE notified how at the residence of Thaddeus de Hazek—Imperial Medicaster—our English Kelley did manage to extract from quick-silver one full pound of gold, diluting the matrix with a quiddity so estimable that following this transmutation some jewel similar to
