Page 35 - Book of Crates

mercury with the bodies. The dry particles are obtained by cooking in
the vessel until the desiccation occurs, when all the humidity leaves and
that which was white becomes red. It is what the philosophers call
mercury and sulphur.”

“How is it that the tincting is fixed and persists in the fire, whereas
the philosophers say that it is fleeting and volatile?”

“It is,” he answered, “because the fixed bodies are made fusible
with the volatile parts, and then exchange is made between the body
and the fleeting part bringing the transformation in the volatile matter.”

“Why did the philosophers call the combination othsious?”

“It is because the stone othsious is engendered every year and
because it has varied colours, which change nature each lunation. We
therefore named the compound according to this stone othsious,
because in every degree of the operation it passes from one colour to
another.”

“Why did not the philosophers call all changes of the combination
of the names to whiten or to redden?”

“Because, while entering in the compound, the tincture modifies it.
After the first cooking, it makes it white, and after the second, red. So
it was not wanted to use in a general way the terms to whiten and to
redden, because the first two compounds, the yellow and the red, are
the two only that fix tinctures.”

“What do the last two sulphurs mean?”

“The last two sulphurs are in name only; because if they were
really the two last, there would be no mixture of the bodies; but one
indicates them under the name of the last two sulphurs, although they
are not sulphurs.”

“Why do the philosophers say that nature is delighted by nature?”

31