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

corruptible, frangible, sandy earth, and which still somewhat tender hangs piece by piece like clusters of grapes, is ordinarily leaner, and consequently having less nourishment for the maintenance of its substance, is more tardy and has received too little humidity, or nourishing vigor, which makes it much more difficult to cook, only maintaining itself as by form of rolls or other ill-fitting matter. Now this earth cannot easily be reduced into stone if it is not extremely vaporous and filled with great humidity: but it is necessary that with the drying of the waters which proceeds from the vehement ardors and continual heats of the Sun, the humidity of the earth be always maintained there; otherwise this earth would remain as if dismal and corruptible, and would easily undo itself in pieces. That which, however, has not yet been entirely hardened and perfected in it, can in the long run become and be reduced into hard and strong stone by the continual operation of Nature assisted by the heat of the Sun and long continual decoction without intermission. Thus from the aforesaid fumes and vapors

enclosed in the pores of the Earth, when they come to join with aquatic vapors with the substance of some very subtle earth, digested and well purified by the virtue and influence of the Sun, of the other planets, and of all the Elements together, quicksilver mercury can be reduced and put into work.
But insofar as it could draw back from some subtle and flaming hardness, one can well use the sulphur of the Philosophers an alchemical principle representing the active, combustible, and masculine force, of the force and energy of which this great Hermes concludes very well, when he says: (that the virtue will be received from the superior and inferior planets, and that with its force, it surpasses and penetrates every other force, even unto precious stones.) fourth figure

A hand-colored illustration depicts a man dressed in sixteenth-century royal or noble attire, including a red doublet, trunk hose, a white ruff, and a hat with a tall red plume. He stands in an outdoor landscape, holding a sword upright in his right hand. He is positioned between two alchemical furnaces called athanors. The furnace on the left holds a glass vessel containing a red substance with a flame-like or sun-like emblem rising from it. The furnace on the right is similar. To the far right of the scene stands a stylized green tree.