Page 36 - Book of Crates

“It has also been said of the two sulphurs, which are sulphurs only
in name.”

“Why do the philosophers say that the fixed body is that which
imprisons and whose nature is hostile?”

“That was also said in connection with two sulphurs, which are
sulphurs only in name.”

“Why therefore this thing that retains the tingeing, which makes it
resist the fire and which mixes itself with the compound, is not visible
to the naked eye, as long as it has not been projected on the vulgar
silver, and appears only when the operation is finished?”

“It is like the drop of semen that falls in the uterus and that one
does not see: the uterus keeps the drop of semen and the blood, which
are cooked by the fire of the stomach, until the moment where the
semen takes the shape of a body and its colour. All that is done inside
the uterus, without it being seen and without it being known, until the
moment when the Creator of souls makes it appear outside then one
sees it. It is exactly the same for the thing on which you questioned
me.”

“Why did the philosophers name their compound: rust, water of
sulphur and gum, so that they said: ‘seed of gold, rust of copper, water
of copper, honeyed poison, poison pleasant to the taste’; finally why
did they employ masculine and feminine names, and names which are
neither masculine nor feminine?”

“In the composition of all these things, if they used the
denomination copper water, it was because the copper had become
liquid; or the denomination of gold seed, was because they had sown
gold there. While using the term dead gum, they were right, because it
is after the combustion of the bodies and their mortification that the
compound becomes usable and is transformed into tincting spirit. They
were also right by giving masculine names, feminine names and neutral
names, because there are among these things of the males and females,

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