Page 17 - Book of quintessence

the gold within the mercury turned into earth as subtle as flour. Then
give it a good fire that the Mercury arise and go his way, or else and you
will you may distil and gather it, putting this upon an alembic, and in the
crucible you shall find the gold calcined and reduced into earth. And if
you will not make filings of gold, then make thereof a subtle thin plate,
as you can, and put within the Mercury all warm, and you shall have
your desire. And in this same manner you may work with silver. Then
take the calx of these two bodies, and bear them openly with you and
there shall no man know what they be. And if you will bear them more
secretly without any knowing, then mingle them with melted pitch, or
wax, or else gum. For then no man shall know it what it is. And when
you will dissolve any of these calyxes by themselves put either by
themselves in a test, or else the pitch or the wax in which they be in, and
anon shall come out very gold and silver as they were heretofore.

Now I will teach you the mastery of parting of gold from silver when
they be mingled together. Forsooth you know well that there be many
works in the which gold and silver be mingled, as in gilding of vessels
and jewels. Therefore when you will draw the one from the other, put all
that mixture into a strong water made of vitriol and of saltpetre and the
silver will be dissolved, and not the gold. Then you have that one parted
from the other. And if you will dissolve the gold to water, put then in the
corrosive water, sal ammoniac, and that water without doubt will
dissolve gold into water.

The science to draw out of fine gold quinta essentia is this. First you
shall reduce gold into calx as I told you heretofore. Then take vinegar
distilled, or else old wine purified from the faeces, and put it in a vessel
glazed, and the liquor shall be in the height of four inches, and therein
cast the calx of gold, and set it to the strong sun in summer time, there to
abide. And soon after you shall see as it were a liquor of oil, ascend up
floating above in manner of a skin or of a surface. Gather that away with
a subtle spoon or else a feather, and put it into a vessel of glass in the
which be put water heretofore. And thus gather it many times in the day
unto the time that there ascends no more. And after do vapour away the
water at the fire. And the quinta essentia of the gold will abide beneath.
And many philosophers call this quinta essentia an oil incombustible,
that is a great secret. And if you will fix this quinta essentia in our
heaven, that it may without doubt restore again to man that nature that is
lost, and reduce him again into the virtue of the strength of youth, and

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