Le tableau des riches inventions qui sont representees dans le songe de Poliphile

to consider him. He was frolicking in his running waves, where we saw him floating in the billows and giving great jolts. With his wings of flames, he mixed the contrary qualities in various ways. We considered with pleasure the solace he took in extending his tongue of fire into the waters. One single object seemed sufficient, since our root is unique, but its accidents being many in number, and then having the luck and convenience of seeing more, it would have been a criminal sin not to use such good fortune. It would be a testimony of wanting to wallow in ignorance to refuse our eyes so many delights offered in this Palace. And since it was appropriate for us to make a complete collection of everything that could be presented, and let the spirit that is capable of it gather them, we retraced all the places and spots where there were rarities.

At the front of the hall, below, was the true, natural, and just prototype of the true Chaos the primal matter, upon which the subject of our hopes depends. There were gathered the earths thrown here and there indifferently and without art among the flowing waters, sometimes in waves and sometimes distilling in drops into the air. These were not well distinguished from the fires carried everywhere at random in this unmixed mixture, confused in the order of its proportion without symmetry. In this distinct confusion were all the planets: the Moon toward the East, Mercury to the North, the Sun was in the West, with most of the others reclining in that band. One saw Venus rolling in the South. Mars placed himself between the Sun and Mercury. Below the Sun, Mercury manifested itself, and Jupiter had his intention further West. Although in appearance these were the planets, nevertheless there was nothing at all of them but their sole powers or souls, which are the occult virtues that must be manifested through operations.

In the middle of the Chaos is a small globe happily distinguished, which is the eminent spot for the report of everything useful to this research. This small place, more capable than the whole, this part comprising its whole, this accessory more abundant than its principal, opening the point of its treasures, makes the two substances appear which are but one unique thing: the Mercurial form is in a drop or tear, and the sulfurous form in flame. From these two is mixed the unique perfect thing, the simple abundant, the compound without parts, the only indivisible thing known to the sages. From this comes the Rainceau du Deſtin Branch of Destiny, which extends uniformly out of the Chaos, from which it advances without disorder until the legitimate end. This follows its beautiful union of unity which surpasses all equality of any other desirable work. This branch of perfection, coming out of the monuments of Chaos, is bordered by the heat of the continual fire, which by the vigor of its good flame, all abundant in exquisite heat and nourished by moist abundance, caused by the antiperiſtaſe antiperistasis, the reaction of a quality to its opposite of its nourishing effect and occult virtue, gives birth to a beautiful tree. It rises quite high, three times higher than the flames rise that are nourished at its foot as its fires lengthen.

The demon Armoſtoſe Harmony or the Orderer arrives and cuts the ripe branches, making them fall into the fire to continue and nourish it with its permanent, desirable substance. This continues until the secret torch has been lit, which will lead the lovers into the dark alley that leads to the residence of the beautiful Oloclire Polia. Beyond the fire is the Duel of the two ancient serpents, newly born and so well nourished that already they are quite perfect and so full of strength and courage that, sliding and not wanting to yield to the winged one, nor he to the other, they join in cruel battle. Malicious were those who proposed to us in the past that they swallowed each other, one snatching the tail of the other with its maw, and that they thus mutually caused each other to die. For we have seen in the true figure—and perhaps it is the truth upon which every other discourse of these serpents has been projected—and have known that they strangle each other. Both strike so vividly with the tail, knotting it with rage to the other, that they split. The flying one having extended its wings on the ground to receive their bodies, which will be united within them in their putrefaction. From this they must emerge not as two, but as one, just as they were born of one mother in the same instant. This rebirth will be the pure substance which, spinning into the Branch by the blood of the Lion demembré dismembered Lion, representing the dissolution of the fixed substance, will graft the tree from which will spring the worm from which the Phœnix will be produced. Growing perfectly, it will become larger than its nest and more extended than the tree, which lacks a soul-complexion which is in the Phoenix, both informed and informing. The Phoenix extends its wings over all felicity and grows by the hours in its perfection. These hours are determined for it by the animal nourished in Memphis likely the hippopotamus or a water-clock mechanism, which, unique in nature, lets its waters flow every two of our hours, which are the happy terms comprising those of the sages.

The perfect bird, having become rare because it is of pure qualities, can fly to Heaven among the planets, and even frolic at the center of the earth. To it belongs a beautiful greatness of strength, which is that being unique, it is alone as strong as all the birds of one species who would each be as large. For this reason, it easily holds between its talons in the left hand a magnificent horn of plenty, from which, as a symbol of good fortune, a blooming rose escapes. It expands into fragrant leaves, one of which falls on an old stump, from which, by its living touch and generating faculty, there is born a small sprig that becomes a soft branch. From this branch drips a tear which transforms into the fontaine de Iouvence Fountain of Youth, over which presides Ianus Janus, the two-faced god who has become a child, as he appears to us