Golden Fleece — Trismosin (Splendor Solis Author), 18th-Century MS

serious; their sight is not subtle enough to see the Subject, nor is
the Brain itself sufficiently stamped to settle the
price of this inestimable pearl; rather, being only
nourished, raised, relieved, and satiated, or to better say
maintained by the bitter Juice of ignorance, they render themselves
incapable of more Solid meats, to digest at the right
time and return at every opportunity, like an object
before the eyes, the art of the Stone of the Sages, which we
call the heaven of the Philosophers.

But to those I will never advise to
entangle themselves further in the vague folds of the
Golden Fleece, nor even touch with the smallest
tip of the finger or the lips only this inexhaustible Labyrinth original: "Dedale"
of their weak reach; because these scatterbrained
Brains are not called to the glorious triumph
of this degree of honor, promised and assured only to
philosophic souls, not to all comers,
nor to embroil their spirit, already capricious enough,
by daring to suck the honey of the delights of our judicious
writings; it being more appropriate, useful, and profitable to
these ignorant heads to prefer the memory of the
cost to the merit of the taste, without practicing this labor,
nor making any trial, however meager it may be,
of our divine operation; but rather to withdraw
from the verdant orchard of our precious Hesperides
the fruitless nose of their insufficiency, incapable
of the propositions too Subtle for their
head, of our excellent work, in the disproportionate
regard of their weak thoughts.

Our celestial Muse does not amuse herself either with the
indifferent caprices of everyone in general, but in
detail considers some to despise others, making
a suitable choice of her most favored and of those
whom she can recognize as true children of the Science,
benignly calling them to the happiest
rays of her golden branches, while she
distances others as much as she can from her hearths.

Rasis thinks no less in the Treatise he
made on the light of lights. No one should, he
says, presume so much Joy, without assured hope
of incurring, by certain blame, the shame that
he deserves, extending his desires beyond the imprudent
limits of his capacity, to draw at his
will from the weak springs of his feeble spirit,
the pure and clean essence of the admirable mixtures,
though unknown to them, of the perfect Elements.
Also, to speak truly, such sorts of people
putting in more than they will gather; they prepare
more confusion for themselves than contentment,
more mockery than relief, a thousand times more
subject to the apprehension of a sad
punishment than to the gain of the premeditated fruit;
without remembering the rod of Apelles,
who rebuked in two words the Scientific pre=