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

Declaration of the work, how one must proceed until its final perfection, by several similitudes, figures, colloquies, and interpretations of the Philosophers.

A rectangular watercolor illustration with a red border shows a stylized mountain scene. On the left slope of a tan-colored mountain, two figures are positioned: one higher up, seemingly gesturing or climbing, and another below him. Near the base of the mountain, a third figure lies prone or falling into a depression. On a ledge to the right, two horned animals, possibly goats or sheep, stand. A small white square object, likely a book or tablet, rests on the ground at the foot of the mountain.

Third Treatise of the said work.

This great Genius of our Science and father of the highest and rarest Philosophy, Hermes Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary founder of alchemy, elevating himself and maintaining his spirit upon the operation of the work of the Philosophers, brought forth

finally these words: (This can be said to be like an end of the world, in that heaven and earth produce well together, but no one can by heaven and earth know our two preceding doctrines, veiled by so many Hieroglyphs.) Many also having arrived at the labor have sweated much there before catching this perfection, which having reached, they explain afterward, but with more amphibological double-meaning ambiguities, and so confused that they cannot be understood, by their shadowed figures and similitudes, even too obscure for those who think to follow their steps, curiously embracing this same fortune, to be crowned with a similar palm, since they also wish to run a similar risk.

The first similitude demonstrates to us that God by his omnipotence and the infinity of his goodness, created the earth all equal, fat and fertile, without sands, without stones, without mountains, without valleys, by the influence of the stars and operation of nature, and nevertheless we see now that it retains nothing of this ancient luster, but is so disfigured from its perfection that one can hardly