Latin Reader (5): Nutrix ejus terra est.

Today, it's Emblem II from Michael Maier's Atalanta fugiens: Nutrix ejus terra est. Yesterday, we had an embryo in the belly of the Mercury-Wind, and today we have a little baby being suckled by the Earth. This one is more mythology than alchemy, as you can see the Earth here with the goat-nurse of Zeus on the left and the wolf-nurse of Romulus and Remus on the right. For a hand-colored version, see Adam McLean's website: Emblem II.

I think the wolf is the most nicely drawn of the three:

Here is the Latin text:

Nutrix ejus terra est.

His nurse (nutrix ejus) is the earth (terra est).

Note that this is nurse not in the sense of doctor-and-nurse but in the sense of a nurse-maid, someone who nourishes (nutrix/nutrition) a baby.

Romulus hirta lupae pressisse, sed ubera caprae
Jupiter, & factis, fertur adesse fides:
Quid mirum, tenerae SAPIENTUM viscera PROLIS
Si ferimus TERRAM lacte nutrisse suo?
Parvula si tantos Heroas bestia pavit,
QUANTUS, cui NUTRIX TERREUS ORBIS, erit?

[I have taken it upon myself to correct "tantas Heroas" to "tantos Heroas" so that the noun and adjective agree; Heroas is a Greek form, but masculine in gender.]

Romulus is said to have squeezed (Romulus pressisse fertur) the shaggy teats of a she-wolf (hirta lupae ubera) but Jupiter those of a nanny-goat (sed caprae Jupiter), and faith is said to have been put in those events (et factis adesse fides). What's odd then (quid mirum) if we report (si ferimus) that the EARTH nourished with her milk (TERRAM lacte nutrisse suo) the flesh of the tender OFFSPRING (tenerae viscera PROLIS) of the WISE MEN (SAPIENTUM)? If so small a beast (parvula si bestia) fed such great Heroes (tantos Heroas pavit), HOW GREAT will be he (QUANTUS erit) whose NURSE (cui NUTRIX) is the EARTHLY ORB (TERREUS ORBIS)?

You can read about Romulus and his twin Remus and the wolf who suckled them at Wikipedia: Capitoline Wolf.

The goat who suckled Jupiter also has an article at Wikipedia: Amalthea. She is the origin of the famous aegis and also of the constellation Capra (but not Capricorn; that is a differently mythological creature). Amalthea's horn is the proverbial "cornucopia," the horn (cornu) of plenty (copia, as in the English word copious).

Finally, I am so struck by the depiction of the mythological Earth-Nurse here because it reminds me of the depiction of Bhu-Devi, the Earth-Goddess, mother of Sita, in Nina Paley's brilliant film "Sita Sings the Blues." The opening of the film shows a great cosmic dance where you can see Paley's version of Bhu-Devi at about 4:45 into the opening sequence:

And you can see Nina Paley's Bhu-Devi in this poster: the colossal size here definitely matches the sense of scale that Michael Maier wants to convey in his Atalanta fugiens emblem:

And for your listening pleasure, here are performances —one with chorus, one without — of Maier's fugue for this emblem:

And here is a list of the emblems I have completed so far:

Emblem I: Portavit eum ventus in ventre suo.
Emblem II: Nutrius ejus terra est.
Emblem XXXVI: Lapis projectus

Latin Reader (4): Ventosa alvus

Now that I can get musical accompaniment for the "fugues" that accompany each emblem in the Atalanta fugiens,  I am really going to enjoy doing these posts! I did Emblem XXXVI because it had showed up in Roos, and now I'll go back to the beginning and start with the first emblem: Portavit eum ventus in ventre suo.

Portavit eum ventus in ventre suo.
The wind carried him (portavi eum ventus) in his stomach (in ventre suo).

Note the nice wordplay on ventus (wind, like in our word ventilate) and venter (stomach, like in our word ventriloquist).

Here is the image: look for the baby in the belly! For a hand-colored version, see Adam McLean's website: Emblem I.

Here's the baby:

Embryo ventosa Boreae qui clauditur alvo, 

   Vivus in hanc lucem si semel ortus erit;
Unus is Heroum cunctos superare labores
   Arte, manu, forti corpore, mente, potest.
Ne tibi sit Caeso, nec abortus inutilis ille, 
   Non Agrippa, bono sydere sed genitus.

For the first 10 emblems, there is a transcription by Clay Holden of British Library MS. Sloane 3645 (although sad to say, the British Library has not made a digitized version available online):

If BOREAS can in his own Wind conceive
An offspring that can bear this light & live;
In art, Strength, Body, Mind He shall excell
All wonders men of Ancient Heroes tell.
Think him no Caeso nor Abortive brood,
Nor yet Agrippa, for his Star is good.

Here is a more literal translation:

If the embryo of the North Wind (si embryo Boreae), who is enclosed (qui clauditur) in his windy womb (ventosa alvo), should but once (semel) arise (ortus erit) living (vivus) into this light (in hanc lucem), he alone (is unus) can exceed (potest superare) with his skill, fighting hand, strong body, and mind (arte, manu, forti corpore, mente) all the labors of the Heroes (Heroum cunctos labores). Don't you suppose (ne tibi sit) that he is born by Caesarian section (ille Caeso) nor that he is a useless abortion (nec abortus inutilis), nor a breech birth (non Agrippa), but born (sed genitus) with a good star (bono sydere).

The image recalls Zeus bearing his infant son Dionysus in his own body (in his thigh, to be precise) after having incinerated Dionysus's mother Semele. I was even thinking the somewhat odd "semel" in the poem might be an allusion to her name. In the commentary that goes with the poem, there is mention both of the Semele story and also the story of the birth of Asclepius, son of Apollo, whom Apollo rescued from his mother's womb while she burned on the funeral pyre.

Mercurius itaque est ventus, qui sulfur seu Dionysium, aut, si mavis, Aesculpaium adhuc imperfectum foetum ex ventre materno, vel etiam ex cineribus corporis materni combusti accipiat, et portet eo, ubi maturari possit.

Thus Mercury (Mercurius itaque) is the wind (est ventus), who would take to himself (qui accipiat) sulfur or Dionysius (sulfur seu Dionysium) — or, if you prefer (aut, si mavis), Asclepius (Aesculpaium) — while still an unformed foetus (adhuc imperfectum foetum) from the maternal stomach (ex ventre materno) or even from the ashes (vel etiam ex cineribus) of the maternal body (corporis materni) that had been burnt (combusti), and would then carry him (et portet) until (eo ubi) he could mature (maturari possit).

And now, here is the recording:

Or just the music if you prefer; you can get a CD of this arrangement by Burt Griswold at his website, AgonMusic.com.

Roos. Alchemy and Mysticism (4)

Here are the other summary posts from Roos's Alchemy and Mysticism. I'm beginning the Macrocosm section of the book today at p. 34.

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Roos opens the Macrocosm section with a quote from the Timaeus about God creating the world as an illustration of his own perfection: "By turning it he shape it into a sphere, giving it the most perfect form of all."

The first illustration is a weird and gorgeous walled courtyard from the Livre de Artephius, and there is also a quote from Janus Lacinius, Pretiosa Margarita novella which they have at Hathi, plus an English translation too: The new pearl of great price. Here is the full title: The new pearl of great price : a treatise concerning the treasure and most precious stone of the philosophers, or, the method and procedure of this divine art : with observations drawn from the works of Arnoldus, Raymondus, Rhasis, Albertus, and Michael Scotus / first published by Janus Lacinius, with a copious index. Unfortunately, both of these books are only sparsely illustrated, but I am including them here for future reference.

By Googling, I did find my way to the image itself at this amazing Pinterest Board: The Ritman Library. Here is Roos's comment on it: "In the courtyard: sulphur and mercury, the two basic components of matter. The three walls symbolize the three phases of the Work, which begins in spring under the zodiac sign of Aries and the decaying corpse. In summer, in the sign of Leo, the conjunction of spirit and soul occurs, and in December, in the sign of Sagittarius, the indestructive, red spirit-body emerges, the elixir or the drinkable gold of eternal youth."

The next image is also a walled courtyard that looks something like a labyrinth; it is from G. van Vreeswyk, De Goude Leeuw of 1676. I did not find that book online, but I did find a 1674 book at Google Books: De groene leeuw, of Het licht der philosophen. Oh wait, here it is at the great Munich digital library: De goude leeuw of den asijn der wysen. But I'm not finding the image in Roos so I'll move on!

The next page is about the gnostic doctrine called Ophitism, and there's a Wikipedia article. The illustration is a modern reconstruction of their doctrine based on a sea monster at the heart of creation from which radiate out the spheres of the earth and other planets. Roos explains: "After death the earthly body remains behind as a shell in tartarus, and the soul rises through the region of air, Beemoth, and back up to the archontes, although these attempt to obstruct the soul's passage. hence, precise knowledge (gnosis) of the passwords and signs is required to open the way to sevenfold purification." Wild stuff, all new to me. There's even a separate article on the mystical drawings associated with this movement: Ophite Diagrams: "The Ophite Diagrams are ritual and esoteric diagrams used by the Ophite Gnostic sect, who revered the serpent from the Garden of Eden as a symbol of wisdom, which the malevolent Demiurge tried to hide from Adam and Eve."

Roos then moves on to the neo-Platonic cosmic hierarchies (like Pseudo-Dionysius) and also Dante's Divine Comedy. Here's a diagram from La Materia della Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri, by Michelangelo Caetani (wrongly cited as Cactani in Roos), 1855, at Internet Archive.

Roos then includes medieval maps with the nested spheres ascending to God or Christ above them.

He then moves on to diagrams inspired by Isidore's four elements and how they can be combined in relation also to the four seasons and the four points of the compass. Then he shows how Fludd took this old tradition and merged it with Cabalistic diagrams, resulting in these diagrams of macrocosm and microcosm. Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atqve technica historia at Hathi Trust. So much gorgeous stuff here, including diagrams much more elaborate than the ones in Roos's book. Look at the frontispiece from Volume 1: Integrae Naturae Speculum, the Mirror of Nature as a Whole.

I found this detailed commentary online from Wayne Shumaker's Occult Sciences in the Renaissance (I found a used copy for just 90 cents at Amazon and have ordered it!): "The outer three circles, which contain symbols that represent cherubim, seraphim, and archangels, surround the sphere of the fixed stars, the sphere of the planets, and two additional spheres of fire and air. At the top, God’s hand holds a chain which descends to the figure of a nude virgin, Nature, pictured with starry hair in order to prevent identification as a pagan goddess. From her left hand, in turn, the chain descends to an ape, a symbol for Art; along the chain God’s powers and effects are transmitted. Nature guides the primum mobile and turns the fixed stars (the draftsman has found no pictorial equivalents of these functions); also, influences from the fixed stars pass through her hands to generate material substances, and the planets act as marculi, or “little hammers”, to produce earthly metals. Although pictured on one of her breasts, the sun is Nature’s heart, and her belly is filled with the moon’s body (corpore lunari repletur). The life and vitality of elemental creatures are born from her breast, which also feeds (lactat) the creatures constantly. The earth under Nature’s right foot stands for sulphur, the water under her left foot for mercury; the joining of these through her body symbolizes their union in whatever is generated or grows. The ape, Art, is “born from man’s talents” and helps Nature by means of secrets learned from diligent observation of her ways. The seven innermost circles represent animals, vegetables, minerals, the “more liberal arts”, “Art Supplementing Nature in the Animal Kingdom”, “Art Helping Nature in the Vegetable Kingdom”, and “Art Correcting Nature in the Mineral Kingdom”. The animals shown are, on the right, the fish, the snail, the eagle, and woman; on the left, the dolphin, the snake, the lion, and man. In the same order, the vegetables are flowers and roots, wheat; trees, grapes. The minerals are sal ammoniac, orpiment (Mercurial), copper (Venereal), and silver (Lunar); talc (if taleum is a mistake for talcum, glossed by Ruland as a “transparent, brilliant material – again Lunar), antimony, (Jovial), lead (Saturnian), gold (Solar). The more liberal arts are fortification, painting, perspective, geometry, music, arithmetic; motion, time, cosmography, astrology, geomancy. (The usual list included grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). The arts which supplement or otherwise assist r correct nature are the following: in the animal kingdom, medicine, egg production, bee-culture, sericulture; in the vegetable kingdom, tilling and tree-grafting; in the mineral kingdom, distillation by means of retorts and distillation by means of cucurbits (gourd shaped vessels)."

More about Robert Fludd at Wikipedia: "Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (17 January 1574 – 8 September 1637), was a prominent English Paracelsian physician with both scientific and occult interests. He is remembered as an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist and Rosicrucian apologist."

Definitely someone to learn more about in the months to come! Apparently his philosophy was based on macrocosm-microcosm parallels. You can see it intersecting with the human mind here in this wild diagram: De triplici animae in corpore visione. Click here for full size. I don't see the Latin transcribed online anywhere which surprises me; the commentary begins thus: "Hic demonstrantur tres animae visiones, videlicet quatenus illa est sensus, quatenus imaginatio, et quatenus ratio, intellectus, et mens." I will see if I can find time to work on that... there must be a transcription online somewhere!

These last two images are not in Roos but I could not resist including them; I am guessing they might show up in Roos's book later! 

Latin Reader (3): De secretis Naturae.

Here is an item for the Alchemical Latin Reader from Atalanta fugiens which is online at Hathi Trust and also at Dresden; the Dresden copy is the source I used for the image below. I chose this one because it shows up in Roos; see the Roos post (and comments!) for more context. There's also a Wikipedia article about this fascinating book.

Here is a full-sized view of the image. For a hand-colored version, see Adam McLean's website: Emblem XXXVI.

If you look closely, the alchemical symbol for Mercury is hidden in the picture.

XXXVI. De secretis Naturae.

36. Concerning Nature's secrets

Lapis projectus est in terras, et in montibus exaltatus, et in aere habitat, et in flumine pascitur, id est, Mercurius.

The stone (Lapis) has been cast (projectus est) onto the lands (in terras), and it has been lifted up (et exaltatus) in the mountains (in montibus), and it abides (et habitat) in the air (in aere), and it feeds (et pascitur) in the stream (in flumine), i.e. (id est) Mercury (Mercurius).

Vile recrementum fertur Lapis atque jacere
Forte viis, sibi ut hinc dives inopsque parent.
Montibus in summis alii statuere, per auras
Aeris, at pasci per fluvios alii.
Omnia vera suo sunt sensu, postulo sed te
Munera montanis quaerere tanta locis.

And the stone (atque Lapis), vile refuse (vile recrementum), is said to lie (fertur jacere) by chance (forte) along the ways (viis), so that thus (ut hinc) rich and poor (dives inopsque) come across it (sibi parent). Others have stated (alii statuere) that on the highest mountains (montibus in summis), by the breezes of air (per auras aeris) it is fed (pasci), but others (at alii) that is is fed by the rivers (per fluvios). All these things (omnia) are true (vera sunt) in their own meaning (suo sensu), but I advise you (postulo sed te) to seek (quaerere) such great gifts (munera tanta) in the mountain places (montanis locis).

There is also a musical rendering, and I even found audio recordings at YouTube! Here is what the Wikipedia article says about the pieces of music that accompany each epigram: "An epigram in verse set to music in the form of a fugue for three voices - Atalanta, or the vox fugiens; Hippomenes, or the vox sequens, and Pomum objectum (Apple) or vox morans. "Atalanta fugiens" is a play on the word fugue."

This one has a vocal performance:

There is some good stuff in the discussion that accompanies the epigram also, invoking the story of Medea as a prophetess and illustrating how a lump of earth can possess arcane powers:

Quid gleba terrae communius? Attamen Euripylus Neptuni filius eam Heroibus Argonautis pro xenio obtulit, ex qua non recusata, sed grato animo accepta, post dissoluta in aqua Medea multa vaticinata est.

What is more common (Quid  communius) than a lump of earth (gleba terrae)? Yet Eurypylus (Attamen Euripylus), the son of Neptune (Neptuni filius), offered it (eam obtulit) to the Argonaut heroes (Heroibus Argonautis) as a gift (pro xenio). It was not rejected (non recusata) but accepted (sed accepta) in a grateful spirit (grato animo), and then (post ) from it (ex qua), dissolved in water (dissoluta in aqua), Medea (Medea ) made many prophecies (multa vaticinata est).

Roos. Alchemy and Mysticism (3)

Here are the other summary posts from Roos's Alchemy and Mysticism. I'm still on the Introduction to the book, starting today at p. 28.

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Roos has now moved into the allegorical reading of Paracelsus: "These Paracelsian Tria Prima [mercury, sulfur, salt] are not chemical substances, but spiritual forces, from whose changeable proportions the invisible blacksmiths or craftsmen of nature produce the transient material compositions of the objective world."

Ooooh, I really like this passage: "Finding the correct source material for the Work was the chief concern of every alchemist, his specific secret, well-protected by code names. And the riddles had it that nothing was easier than finding it, because it is at home in all elements, even in the dust of the street; and although, like Christ, it is really the most precious thing in the world, to the ignorant it is the 'most wretched of all things'."

For the four element approach, Roos has a Stolzius illustration from the Viridarium showing the four elements as women with different triangular symbols and emblematic labels. I need to find that one in the book! ... Here it is, although I wish I had a higher res version to see the figures in more detail. The symbols on which the women are standing are the classical four elements, but except for the phoenix (?) and lion (?), I am not sure about the figures on the pots on their heads:

earth — water — air  — fire 

🜃  —  🜄  —  🜁  —  🜂

For the source material, there is a lovely illustration from the Atalanta fugiens, "the source material for the lapis can be found everywhere: in the earth, or the mountains, in the air and in the nourishing water." If only the things we were seeking really did look like big blocks of stuff just waiting for us to pick them up! I've transcribed and translated the poem in another post: De secretis Naturae.

Roos alerts us to be on the lookout for things that come in fours, and also the "quintessence," the fifth element: "It was the goal of all alchemists to bring this fifth element down to earth through the repeated transmutation that their work entailed."

One set of four I am not so attuned to are the colors in progression: nigredo, albedo, citrinititas, rubedo, for blackening, whitening, yellowing, and reddening.

Roos then has an emblem from the Musaeum Hermeticum which shows the eternal lapis (six-pointed star) produced by rotation of elements, unifying upper and lower, fire and water, with the earthly gold as Apollo in he underworld with his six Muses/metals. I found the book at Hathi, and this is the frontispiece:

The Latin advice there at the end is very nice: sit tibi scire satis! "may it be for you to know enough!" — presumably reading the book will allow that wish to come true. Anyway, I will have to include this nice item in my Latin Reader soon. There is an article about the book, with an inventory of its contents, at Wikipedia.

Okay, that's the end of the Introduction; I'll start with the next section — Macrocosm — next time!

LUX UMBRA DEI EST

It's the first Daily Digital Alchemy challenge: Shadows of A Different World. Instructions: "Alchemists know that shadows of a different dimension reach into this world. Capture an unworldly example of a shadow of a different world. It should indicate something more than we can see with our own eyes."

I decided to go with this beautifully paradoxical Latin saying: LUX UMBRA DEI EST. Light (lux) is (est) the shadow of god (umbra dei). 

I made a cheezburger cat with it, and you can also see the motto as it is used on a sundial below:

Lux umbra dei est.

Light is God's shadow.

Here's the sundial from quisnovus at Flickr with those words as its motto:

A close-up of the Latin:

And check out the eerie eyes to left and right:

When poking around on the Internet looking for other places this phrase appears, I found something similar in the Neoplatonic Renaissance scholar Marsilio Ficion (more at Wikipedia; text online): Lumen est umbra dei. 

By using the Latin lumen instead of lux, Ficino can then make this lovely play on words: Denique lumen est quasi numen quoddam in mundano hoc templo dei similitudinem referens, "light is like a certain divine power bearing the likeness of God in this worldly temple."

As I poke around in alchemical writings later today, I'll see what else I can find by way of light and shadows. :-)

Latin Reader (2): Astutam vulpem gallus voret

Here is an item for the Alchemical Latin Reader from Stoltzius's Viridarium chymicum of 1624 (PDF download); I chose this one because of the fox. This fox is both devouring a rooster (as you would expect) and being devoured in turn (paradoxically). The poem explains:

Tertia Clavis Basilii (Basil's Third Key)

E petris aquilae rigidum conjunge Draconem: 
Exuret pennas, solvet et ille nives. 
Cum sale coelesti sulphur servare memento, 
Astutam vulpem gallus ut inde voret. 
Ales mersus aquis ad vitam ex igne redibit, 
Sentiet atque parem vulpis ab ore necem.

Out of the eagle's stones (e petris aquilae), join the stiff Dragon (rigidum conjunge Draconem): He will burn the feathers (exuret pennas), and he will also melt the snows (solvet et ille nives). Remember to keep the sulphur (sulphur servare memento) with the heavenly salt (cum sale coelesti) in order that (ut inde) the rooster devour the sly fox (astutam vulpem gallus voret). The winged one (ales), dipped in the waters (mersus aquis), will return to life (ad vitam redibit) out of the fire (ex igne), and he will feel (sentiet atque) a corresponding murder (parem necem) by the mouth of the fox (vulpis ab ore).

Here's a close-up that shows the fox, and also shows how there is the alchemical symbol for iron coming out of the dragon's mouth:

For some clues to the symbolism, see this article: A fresh look at alchemy by Lawrence Principe (cached at Google). Under the heading "The golden key," Principe discusses the twelve emblems of Basilius Valentinus, which is what we find in the first section of Stolzius also: "If you can interpret it, the third key of Basilius Valentinus encodes the volatilization of gold chloride." You can see the similarity in the emblem that Principe includes, although the directions are rather different and more detailed, and Principe deciphers the symbolic language in order to describe how it might produce gold chloride. See the article (cached at Google) for details.

You can also read an English rendering of the Third Key here: The Hermetic Museum by E. A. Waite — here is what it says about the fox and the rooster: "then the Cock will swallow the Fox, and, having been drowned in the water, and quickened by the fire, will in its turn be swallowed by the Fox."

Latin Reader: Virtus Unita Fortior

Okay, I had really sworn off new Latin projects a few years ago (after my school turned down every request I made to teach Latin over a ten-year period... yes, even I can learn, eventually, to stop banging my head against the wall, ha ha). But now, with this new alchemy project, I don't think I can resist: this combination of image and text is irresistible. So, slowly but surely, I am going to start piecing together a Latin Alchemical Reader, focusing on the words that appears in emblematic images along with the Latin texts that might accompany the image. Of all my hobbies, Latin is apparently the one I cannot give up no matter how hard I try!

So, for the first item in the Alchemical Latin Reader, I want to use the image that I found in this book by Baro Urbigerus. The book is in English, but the emblematic frontispiece is in Latin. The book's title pretty much says it all: Aphorismi Urbigerani, or, Certain rules clearly demonstrating the three infallible ways of preparing the grand elixir, or circulatum majus of the philosophers : discovering the secret of secrets, and detecting the errors of vulgar chymists in their operations : contain'd in one hundred and one aphorisms : to which are added, The three ways of preparing the vegetable elixir, or circulatum minus / all deduc'd from never-erring experience by Baro Urbigerus. It's online at Hathi Trust.

The title page describes Baro Urbigerus as "a servant of God in the Kingdom of Nature," but who was this fellow exactly? It's not clear at all. The CERL Thesaurus says only "Pseudonym e. unbekannten Alchimisten, vermutl. aus England." So, our Baron Urbiger gives us a mystery to begin with. I wonder if we will ever know who he was!

Here is the emblematic frontispiece; I will translate the Latin bits one by one:

Virtus unita Fortior. Vigor (virtus) united (unita) is stronger (fortior). 

Nil sine vobis. Nothing (nil) without (sine) you (vobis). The "you" is plural. 

Per Nos omnia. Through (per) us (nos) everything (omnia). 

Pulchritudine tua captus sum. By your beauty (pulchritudine tua) I am captured (captus sum). The speaker is masculine (Apollo paired with Diana), as indicated by masculine captus.

Ulterius te vinciam. Further (ulterius) I will bind / would bind (vinciam) you (te). 

Regeneratio tua in mea Potentia. Your regeneration (regeneratio tua) is in my power (in mea Potentia).
Per te vivam. Through you (per te) I will live / would live (vivam). 

The book contains a "postscript" which is a commentary on the emblematic image: you can see what you think of the interpretation provided!

~ ~ ~

Having in our One Hundred and One Aphorisms so perspicuously laid open all the Difficulties, and so amply taught the compleat Theory and Practice of the whole Hermetic Mystery, that any ingenious Lover of Chymistry will not only be enabled to understand the most abstruse writings of the Philosophers, but also to effect any real Experiment, which is to be expected in the Progress of our Celestial Art; and yet being apt to believe, that such, as are not our Disciples, may perhaps meet with some of the Philosophical Figures, the meaning of which they may not so easily comprehend, we have judg'd it highly experient, in the Front of this our little Book to place this our Figure, by which, being a perfect Compendium of all the Philosophical Emblems, the rest maybe without any great difficulty understood. Now since this our Figure, mystically representing all our subjects and Operations, cannot but admit of many and various Interpretations, all which if we should here set down, our Aphorisms (where they are already delivered, and of which this would then be a Repetition,) would be altogether useless and insignificant: we therefore at first esteemed it very superfluous to give any farther Illustration of it. But our desire being to do all the good, we can, to the Public, we have on second Thoughts resolved with our wanted Brevity to deliver the following Explanation for the better Comprehension both of It and our Aphorisms. The Tree is a Supporter of the Motto, Virtus unita fortior: which, being to be read from the side of the Serpent, representing by the Half-Moon on its Head the Planet, under whose Influence it is born, is to be referred to it according to its particular Motto, which signifies, that, if you take it alone, it can do little or nothing in our Art, as wanting the Assistance of others. By the Green Dragon is to be understood our first undetermined Matter, comprehending all our Principles, (as is demonstrated by the Half-Moon on its Head, the Sun in its Body, and the Cross on its Tail,) and denoting by its Motto, that it can perform the whole work without being joined with any other created or artificially prepared thing: which is our first way. But this our Dragon, when copulating with our Serpent, is forced to comply with her, degrading itself from its undetermined Being for the production of our second way. Apollo with the Sun on his head, and Diana with the Half-Moon, embracing each other, shew our third way, and the Continuation of our first and second. The River, into which they descend, signifies the State, they must be reduced into, before they can be in a Capacity of being born again, and before in any of our three ways they can be brought to a perfect Spiritualization and Union. Apollo and Diana, coming out of the River in one wonderful Body, Diana having obtained all, represent our Herculean works, ready finished, and the beginning of their Conjunction, and by their going to set their foot on firm, ground, where she is to sow the noble Fruits for the Procreation, is to be understood the Continuation of their Conjunction, till they are fully united and perfected. In this Scheme also, as well as in our Aphorisms, are mystically exhibited all the principal Points of Faith and Religion, comprised in the Volumes of the Old and New Testament: whence it manifestly appears, that the Contemplation of Nature truly leads to the Comprehension of those heavenly Verities, by which alone we can expect to arrive at the Enjoyment of that blessed Immortality, to which, as to the true and ultimate End of our Creation, all our Endeavors are to be directed.

~ ~ ~

I also found this commentary online, extracted from The Golden Game by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola p. 307, note 497 (1988, and quite rare; the used copies online are very expensive!).

'Virtue united is stronger.' (Virtus unita fortior.) The virtue inherent in the Seed produces the miracle of the Tree. As the acorn becomes the oak, so does the Stone of the Philosophers grow into the Philosopher's Stone. Nil sine vobis, 'Naught without you,' says the mercurial Snake with the martial tail, to his opposite number the winged Dragon with the saturnine tail. Per Nos omnia, 'Through us, everything,' answers the latter who, being the symbol of the Materia Prima, contains its future potentialities.

'I am a captive of thy beauty,' whispers Apollo to his sister Diana, indicating his incestuous designs (and the initial domination of the female in their tryst). 'I will vanquish thee yet further,' answers Diana, pointing to the rising Waters of Dissolution. The hieroglyph, which is in the place of an arrow on her bow, is the symbol of Gaea, the Earth, which indicates the kind of earth that must be dissolved in their fiery embrace. On the other side of the Tree, as the waters recede, the Rebis~Hermaphrodite emerges, and his/her lunar face addresses its alter ego (the Sun): 'Thy Regeneration is in my power.' The other face gratefully exclaims: 'By thee [living water] I shall live.'

Roos. Alchemy and Mysticism (2)

Here are the other summary posts from Roos's Alchemy and Mysticism. I'm still on the Introduction to the book, starting today at p. 15.

---

Roos is now zooming in on German traditions, including the court of Emperor Rudolf II, "known as the German Hermes, whose Prague court was home to the most famous esoteric scientists of the day."

There is now the first image of a book by Athanasius Kircher: the Turris Babel. That's at Hathi Trust: Athanasii Kircheri Turris Babel sive Archontologia at Hathi Trust. There are some lovely plates here; definitely worth investigating later. And there is an even more lovely presentation at the University of Heidelberg's Digital Library. I'm not finding the Kircher Museum plate that Roos says is in this book (?), but there are some wonderful other plates like this one that opens the book, with the title of the book appearing on the placard to the left:

It's clear that Roos is also a fan of Fludd, which is great! I would certainly like to learn more about the "Trismegistian-Platonick-Rosy-crucian Doctor." And here is how Roos characterizes Kircher: "in his early attention to oriental and Asiatic systems of religion, he prepared the ground for the adventurous syncretism of the Theosophical Society." That definitely gets my interest; I've always wanted to learn more about Kircher.

Now going back to the origins of alchemical ideas, Roos draws a contrast between the demiurge of Plato and of Gnosticism: "While in Plato's world creation myth, Timaeus, the demiurgen, also called the poet, forms a well-proportioned cosmos out of the primal world, in the form of an organism with a soul, the Gnostic demiurge produces a terrible chaos, a corrupt and imperfect creation which, in the belief of the alchemists, must be improved and completed through their art with a new organization or reorganization."

He then links Gnosis and Cabala: "Before the Fall, according to the Gnostic-Cabalistic myths, the whole of heaven was a single human being of fine material, the giant, androgynous, primordial Adam, who is now in every human being, in the shrunken form of this invisible body, and who is waiting to be brought back to heaven."

And this passage about the imagination is great; I need to find this actual passage in Paracelsus: "The equivalent in man of the demiurgic, world-creating urge of the outer stars is the creative capacity of the imagination, which Paracelsus calls "the inner star." Imagination is not to be confused with fantasy. The former is seen as a solar, structuring force aimed at the eida, the paradigmatic forms in the real world, the latter as a lunatic delusion related to the eidola, the shadowy likenesses of the apparent world."

And look at this lovely quote from Albrecht durer: "If someone really possessed these inner ideas of which Plato speaks, then he could draw his whole life from them and create artwork after artwork without ever reaching an end."

Wow, this Paracelsus stuff reminds me of the brain plasticity thing I read the other day about imagining activities that in turn activate neural pathways: "Paracelsus likens the imagination to a magnet which, with its power of attraction, draws the things of the external world within man to reshape them there. Its activity is thus captured in the image of the inner alchemist, the sculptor or the blacksmith. It is crucial to master them for what man thinks 'is what he is, and a thing is as he thinks it. If he thinks a fire, he is a fire' (Paracelsus)."

Roos includes da Vinci's Vitruvian Man at this point:

And so we reach William Blake who "rightly described the deistic God of the progress-loving Enlightenment, who abandons the machinery of creation once he has set it in motion, leaving it to continue blindly on its course, as a Gnostic demiurge."

The next plate is from Baro Urbigerus, which shows up at Hathi Trust in an English translation: Aphorismi Urbigerani, or, Certain rules clearly demonstrating the three infallible ways of preparing the grand elixir, or circulatum majus of the philosophers : discovering the secret of secrets, and detecting the errors of vulgar chymists in their operations : contain'd in one hundred and one aphorisms : to which are added, The three ways of preparing the vegetable elixir, or circulatum minus / all deduc'd from never-erring experience by Baro Urbigerus (gotta love those 17th-century book "titles"). The book looks like a fun read, but it is poor on art; there is only one plate as follows:

The plate Roos includes (mercurial water) is from a German edition of Baro Urbigerus entitled Besondere Chymische Schriften, and when I Googled that, I found this treasure trove: Adam McLean's Gallery of alchemical images. I haven't been able to find an online edition of the German book, but find McLean's lovely collection of hand-colored images is well worth it. What a great project to handcolor the images as a form of study and meditation!

I hadn't expected all this gender stuff to be coming up, but it is fascinating; here's just a brief sample of the kinds of ideas Roos introduces here: "The climax of the Work is the moment of coniunctio, the conjunction of the male and female principle in the marriage of heaven and earth, of fiery spirit and water matter (materia from the Latin mater, mother). The indestructible product of this cosmic sex act is the lapis, the red son of the Sun."

Roos next includes two images from D. Stolcius von Stolcenberg, Viridarium chymicum (1624). It looks fascinating, but is not at Hathi Trust, alas. It is apparently an important emblem book, and I would really like to find a copy online. ... Whoo-hoo: here it is at a Swiss site: e-rara.ch, "the platform for digitized rare books from Swiss libraries." So, it's only available as PDF download, but that works! And it comes from a section of e-rara that will be really useful in general: Alchemy, Magic and Kabbalah (Foundation of the Works of C.G.Jung). Yes!!! So, back to Roos, here are the two emblems that he includes:

And I think I will stop there: so far this is turning out to be a great way to discover books to browse and read online. What a heap of books there will be by the time I get through all of Roos. :-)

Roos. Alchemy and Mysticism (1)

So, I got a Christmas present for myself, a lovely picture book from Taschen: Alchemy and Mysticism by Alexander Roos. I'm going to work through 10 pages per day (hopefully), and see just how many of these image resources I can find also in online versions! I'll label these posts as Roos to collect them.

Introduction

The first topic of the Introduction is Hermes Trismegistus, with an image of The Emerald Tablet from Khunrath's Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae, 1606. Roos includes this famous quote from a Hermetic text: "The below is as the above, and the above as the below, to perfect the wonders of the One."

There is a pair of lovely images from M. Maier, Atalanta fugiens, 1618: "The wind bears it in its belly," and "Its nurse is the Earth."

He emphasizes the pictures as code with a quote from the Rosarium philosophorum: "But where we have written something in code and in picture we have concealed the truth."

Hermaphrodite: supposed to be read as blend of sensual stimulus (Aphrodite) and intellectual appeal (Hermes).

Roos mentions the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs (prior to their decipherment by Champollion) as a "symbolic, rebus-like, esoteric script." I did some work on Horapollo back in graduate school; this sounds like a good excuse to drag those notes out again! Roos includes some of Durer's illustrations for Horapollo.

There is a wonderful emblem of Hermes from Achilles Baccius, Symbolicarum quaestionum (1555), with a Greek saying attributed to Simonides: After having spoken, I have often repented, but never after having kept silent.
ΛΑΛΗΣΑΣ ΜΕΝ ΠΟΛΛΑΚΙΣ ΜΕΤΑΝΟΗΣΕ, ΣΙΩΠΗΣΑΣ ΔΕ ΟΥΔΕΠΟΤΕ

Okay, I'll stop there and see what I can find online for these books!

... yes!

Amphitheatrvm sapientiae aeternae : solius verae, christiano-kabalisticvm, divino-magicvm, nec non physico-chymicvm, tertrivnvm, catholicon / instructore Henrico Khvnrath. Hathi Trust.

He has his dog with him on the title page! :-)

There are some astounding images here; this is the one Roos included:

I will have to come back to this book and browse!

And there are LOTS of copies of Atalanta fugiens : hoc est, Emblemata nova de secretis naturae chymica / athore Michaele Majero. Hathi Trust.

Here are the images Roos included:

And here is Achillis Bocchii Bonon. Symbolicarvm quaestionvm de vniverso genere qvas serio lvdebat libri qvinqve. Hathi Trust. This one is my favorite so far; I will definitely be coming back to this one! Here is the Hermes that Roos included with the Simonides quote below the figure of Hermes. There is also a Latin superscription: MONAS MANET IN SE, "the one abides in itself."

And it took some sleuthing, but it's possible to learn about Durer's illustrations for Horapollo here: Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in der Allegorie der Renaissance by Karl Giehlow (1915). Hathi Trust. See especially the illustrations at p. 173 and following.

So, for my first chunk of the book, I've been able to find all the illustrations in online editions of the source books that Roos is consulting. I wonder if I will be that lucky for the whole book...?! How cool that would be!

Frank Wilczek's Beautiful Design

I was going to write about Indra's Net today, but something else has intervened... I finished Frank Wilczek's Beautiful Design, and I just had to write something about it here. I had mentioned the book in my first post, and it just kept getting better and better... so now that the book has come to an end today, I'm tempted to read it over again from the start, which is the highest compliment I can pay to any book.

And its connection to alchemy is hinted at in the title; Wilczek's project is about the beauty in modern physics, and he's not kidding: beauty matters in his way of doing science. I'll admit to being a physics junkie, and I read a lot of physics books, but this book is like none of the others that I've read before. Because it is... beautiful. Just read the opening paragraphs of the book:

This book is a long meditation on a single question: Does the world embody beautiful ideas? 

Our Question may seem like a strange thing to ask. Ideas are one thing, physical bodies are quite another. What does it mean to “embody” an “idea”? Embodying ideas is what artists do. Starting from visionary conceptions, artists produce physical objects (or quasi-physical products, like musical scores that unfold into sound). 

Our Beautiful Question, then, is close to this one: Is the world a work of art? 

Posed this way, our Question leads us to others. If it makes sense to consider the world as a work of art, is it a successful work of art? Is the physical world, considered as a work of art, beautiful? For knowledge of the physical world we call on the work of scientists, but to do justice to our questions we must also bring in the insights and contributions of sympathetic artists.

Which matches up very nicely with the graphic Kevin shared at Twitter:

The alchemical treatises are not

merely texts to be read; they are

emblematic productions of image,

sign, word, and symbol, with

potent allure. -- Johanna Drucker

And you can read more from Drucker in this article she wrote for the LARB that Kathleen Crowther shared (a wonderful person in OU's History of Science department): Allegorical Knowledge: The Art of Alchemy.

Plus, now I am realizing that alchemy is going to be an excuse to take a romp through my much beloved emblem books of the seventeenth century, looking at them through an alchemical lens.

Much fun to come in 2017.........!

The Net ... and the Alkahest

From yesterday's post about Diana's Tree, I learned about The Net, another alchemical notion that resonates with classical mythology. The Wikipedia article focuses on Newton's recipe for the Net, which is an alloy of copper (Venus) and iron (Mars), as "caught" by Vulcan, the fiery god of metallurgy, using a net.

That article leads me in two directions, one alchemical... and one Indian (Indra's Net!). I'll save the Indian one for tomorrow, and follow the alchemical trail today which leads to George Starkey, an alchemist in colonial America! Born in Bermuda, he later moved to New England and attended Harvard College. He moved from New England to London in 1650, and he died in London's Great Plague of 1655.

He wrote under the pseudonym Eirenaeus Philalethes. Apparently Newton was much indebted to Starkey in his alchemical research. Starkey/Eirenaeus was a prolific writer; there is a long list of works here. One of his quests was to obtain the alkahest, a universal solvent. I will read about that one later too! Starkey even prepared an alkahest that he thought could counteract the Plague... but he succumbed to the Plague nevertheless.

Hathi Trust has a nice copy that has both the English and Latin texts of Starkey's Alkahest:

Diana's Tree

I think I am going to do this blog like a big version of the "Wikipedia Trail" posts that my students do, following one item to the next to the next, just to see where it goes. In yesterday's post about Newton and Alchemy, I was intrigued by the mention of Diana's Tree, so that is where I will start today.

Diana's Tree, Arbor Dianae, was also known as the Philosophers' Tree, Arbor Philosophorum. It is a "a dendritic amalgam of crystallized silver," named for Diana because in the alchemical world Diana stands for silver. There's a Saturn tree made of lead too! Here is a picture of the silver tree:

The Wikipedia article gives a couple of actual recipes for creating the tree, but it does not go into detail into the aspect of this that interests me, the mythological aspect we might say: "The arborescence of this amalgam, which even included fruit-like forms on its branches, led pre-modern chemical philosophers to theorize the existence of life in the kingdom of minerals."

So, I need to investigate elsewhere to find out more about that! Wikipedia led me to this article: Alchemical Interest at the Petrine Court by Robert Collis, Esoterica, Vol VII, (2005) Online peer-reviewed journal hosted by Michigan State University. It's about Peter the Great's toleration for and interest in alchemy. He sets up the project of the article as something similar to serious investigation of Newton's alchemy.

And look what it says in here about the Tree of Diana! Marvelous (bolding is mine):

Lemery propounded a theory at odds with Geoffroy, but one that still reflected an alchemical heritage drawing on the production of a Tree of Diana, and what many at the time still believed to be the encoded alchemy of the Greco-Roman myth of Vulcan’s metallic “net”. 

The footnote goes into further details:

Vulcan was the Roman equivalent to the Greek craftsman-god Hephaestus. According to myth, Vulcan produced a metallic net to hang his wife, Venus, and her lover Mars, from the ceiling, after he had caught them together in bed, in order for all Olympians to see their shame.  As William Newman, Professor of History at Indiana University, has described, many alchemists (including Isaac Newton) were fascinated with producing such a “net”, which George Starkey made from antimony regulus and copper. In alchemy, “Venus” refers to copper, “Mars” refers to iron and “Vulcan” is equated to fire. The antimony regulus added to the copper is reduced from a stibnite (antimony sulfide) by the addition of iron. See William Newman’s project on Newton’s Alchemy.

I had linked to that project yesterday (it's the one with the special Newton Sans font for the alchemical symbols), so I expect that is where the trail will lead tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here is the story of Vulcan in 17th-century art; this sculpture is from Germany (National Gallery of Ireland):

Newton and Alchemy

I'm reading a marvelous book right now by Frank Wilczek, A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design, and it contained a lovely passage on Newton and alchemy, which seems like something good to learn about today as part of my #netnarr vow to learn something alchemical every day. I thought it was such a good sign that this book led me straight to asking good starting questions.

Wikipedia gives me a lot to work with: Isaac Newton's occult studies. The article cites Keynes's essay (which Wilczek emphasized also): "Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians."

I'd never heard this apocryphal story about the lab fire and his dog Diamond:

One evening, he left the room for a few minutes, and when he came back he found that his little dog "Diamond" had overturned a candle and set fire to the precious papers, of which nothing was left but a heap of ashes. It was then that he cried, "Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done!" 

Alongside that apocryphal story is the speculative hypothesis that Newton's nervous breakdown (which did happen) might have been the result of mercury poisoning or some other alchemical mishap, which was also something Wilczek mentioned in his book.

So, reading through the Wikipedia article, I learn that Newton was interested in the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, both of which I had heard of, but Diana's Tree is new to me! I will investigate that soon. And the Angelicall Stone too.

And it looks like I will be able to learn lots more here: Chymistry of Isaac Newton. They even have a Unicode Newton Sans font to support the alchemical symbols they need.

I'm also interested in Newton's religious writings, and I can find those at The Newton Project. Such an abundance of excellent online resources!

My Latin should come in handy for the Theatrum Chemicum, which was an important source for Newton too.

I am especially attracted to this idea of the code of nature, like in my old friend the Physiologus. Here's how the Wikipedia article describes Newton's take on the prisca sapientia: "He believed that these men had hidden their knowledge in a complex code of symbolic and mathematical language that, when deciphered, would reveal an unknown knowledge of how nature works."

For Newton's Biblical studies, Wikipedia mentions the influence of Joseph Mede, who is new to me. Definitely worth investigating! This will also be an excuse to learn more about Rosicrucianism.

I need to start bookmarking! Diigo: Alchemy.