Page 26 - Book of Composition

many sons and daughters are born and begotten, unlike both in favour
and complexion.”
Again the same wise man said: “Consider the tailor, who of cloth makes
every vesture or garment, the parts of which garments have diverse
names : which if they were naturally considered, they should be found to
be framed of the cloth itself. For it is one cloth, and one principal matter,
of which the garment is made: for a sleeve, a skirt, and a collar, and such
like, they are the parts of a garment, and have diverse names, yet cloth is
the principal matter of them. For out of that cloth threads are drawn, with
which the parts of the garment are joined together, not because this cloth
doth herein need anything diverse from itself.”
Therefore in like sort this Magistery is one thing being of itself, and
needs no other thing, because among the philosophers this Magistery is
hidden and concealed, and wheresoever it is, there it is named with a
thousand names. It is also sealed, and open to none but to the wise:
because wise men seek much after this Magistery, and seeking it they
find it, and finding it they love it, and beautify it. But the foolish sort
make a jest of it, and with them it is had of no reputation: for they know
not what it is.
And these are those names which the wise men have named in their
books, of the which sperm is one, which when it is turned, is changed
into blood. At length it is coagulated, and is made like a mixed lump of
flesh; and by such means it is done until one creature have the form of
another, that is to say the succeeding form of a man, and then it must of
necessity become a man. And of these names there is also an other name,
as a bud, as according to the colour of the apples of it and of the colour
of the nature of it, before it come to its perfection. There is also another
name, as a tree of evil granates: and as wheat and milk and many other
names, of all of which there is one root. But they give many and diverse
names unto the thing, according to the diversity of the colour, of the
effect, and of the nature of the thing, as Herizartes [Heraclius] the
philosopher says: I speak this of a truth, that nothing else brings the
artificers of this Magistery into errors, but only the variety and multitude
of the names of it. But if a man should rightly understand that these
names are nothing but colours appearing in the commixtion, he should
not stray from the true way of this Magistery.

King Calid : And I much desire to understand, whether those colours, of
which you spoke erstwhile, may be changed from one into another, from
one disposition or confection or from two or from more.

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