He thus enriches beautiful Architecture,
Drawing buried features from this desert:
And guards Beauties with so much measure,
That in his smallest designs the features are accomplished.

But when in these sweetnesses he tries his Soul,
He draws the clarity of his Water from a beautiful fire:
It is a luminous Water where the flame is nourished,
Which serves as an eternal torch without diminishing.

A subtle invention that I leave to be understood
By the gentle Curious man who can estimate it:
The water is drawn from a fire that makes no ash,
And which burns always without ever consuming.

He makes other beauties appear in other places,
In the diversity of his chaste torments:
But what touches the heart cannot be recognized
Except by the open eyes of the wisest Lovers.

You do thus, VERVILLE, and your labor equals itself
To the occult means of such rare spirits:
For to cover the fire which does not burn nor exhale,
You cover your writings with the discourses of Love.

When shall we see your Nymph in the troop of the beautiful ones
Accomplish her voyage and finish her regrets?
It will be when Love, under the shadow of its wings,
Will cover the Great Work original: "grand Oeuvre," the ultimate goal of alchemy and a thousand other secrets.

Three great Princes of India where the Sun rises,
Will make proof of the salt, the sulfur two of the primary alchemical principles and the mirror:
But since Love will be the judge of the proof,
Those who do not love will not be able to know anything of it.

Ha! how much ill I wish to those forced Souls,
Who without knowing Love despise its fires so much!
One cannot conceive of gallant thoughts,
If the thinking is not taken from an Amorous subject.

An ornate woodcut headpiece shows three panels with winged children supporting a central frame and playing among vines.

ODE.

An ornate initial C featuring a small figure and leaves.

This excellent and new book,
Equal to the ancients,
Tells all that there is of beauty
On fertile and arable earth.
But it would have been miserable,
If its second amorous father referring to Béroalde de Verville as the second creator/translator
Had not, by his helpful hand,
Returned it to the world and made it happy.

Poliphile first
Gave it what is called essence:
And the other, secondly,
Guarded it from death by his power,
Lest those who took enjoyment of it
Plunged it into the river of oblivion.
Instead, he brings it to knowledge
To be ennobled by praise.

The French will now read it,
Who did not think it was in the world:
And they will speak many praises
Of chaste, pure, and clean friendship:
When a good heart is founded on this,
Nothing but good can come to it:
Whereas he who abounds in lewdness,
Cannot arrive at honor.

Bacchus was engendered twice,
As the Poets tell us:
And this book speaks two voices,
At least to those who read it.
Now since foreigners prize
These two, I am quite deceived:
And I will say that the stars are harmful,
If its discourse is not well received.