Gold Not Gold

CH. I.

Potable Gold, whether it exists.

F.A.

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Gold, that most solid body and primary metal, which does not fear the raging flame of fire, which resists the corruption of the air, the rust of the earth, and the putrefaction of water: whether it can be so mastered by human labor and the ministry of art that it may be safely taken into the human body: furthermore, whether it may even turn into a healthy medicine of supreme strength, as the chemists alchemists promise: the judgment on this has long been very uncertain among the learned. Soldiers clash over this, and most believe that it remains uncertain where victory stands. The Platonists do not agree, nor do the Peripatetic schools.

M.G.

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The golden ass, that most foolish body, if it were to speak for itself (we know the ass has spoken, and we read Apuleius, and Agrippa and Nolanus have spoken for it; and lawyers often speak for gold, and sometimes are silent) would declaim for itself no differently than this: it would not only claim the first place for itself, but would declare war on all the elements for its own sake, and consider them as nothing before it. But here is the doubt: is it golden, or gilded; is it a lion, or covered in a lion's skin; is it a mystes initiate, or one carrying mysteries? Behold a face shining from afar, behold the splendid beginnings that Pindar persuades.

Pind. Olymp. 1.

Ovid. Met. 2, 2

Eup. Satyr. p. 2 27.

Why does Euphormio sing the triumph of Gold? The doors themselves rattle with gold. Golden-mouthed, and a beautiful head, whether golden, or brazen, or wooden, or earthen, when gold speaks, who is not enticed to listen? Who, listening, does not gape? Who, gaping, does not embrace it? Although it is a head, yet it is not this

Hor. l. 1. ep. 4. 6

Let the Lydian stone test the gold: the gold will test the man. A proverb among the French: It is gold, which is worth gold. But I fear that in a golden scabbard