De metallorum ortu & causis

A six-line verse against the

Chemical Cyclopes a derogatory name for alchemists, referring to their work at the fire by Tuffan Ducret,

Physician.

So that the ash-man alchemist might fill his pockets with yellow gold,
the Cyclops burns away his riches in the fire:
He fashions lead, tin, bronze, and silver into gold:
Yet from this fire, in the end, nothing but smoke escapes.
Learn, Chemical Cyclopes, not to deceive anyone.
By this art, all your labor is wasted.

He who transforms everything into yellow gold, like Midas,
will be destroyed as a gold-making Midas by starving hunger.

Eleven-syllable verses against the same

by Jean-Antoine Sarrasin,

Physician.

You ask what the vain Alchemist Chimista does,
while the wretched man burns to imitate the divine work
with the wicked arts of the Cyclopes:
Behold what a "good" imitator he is:
God created all things out of nothing,
But this man reduces whatever he or his neighbor
possesses anywhere into empty ash,
and at last, the wretch brings it back to nothing.