The Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus #13

SECTION VII. 

 

Know ye then, O Sons of Science, there are seven bodies, of which gold is the first, the most perfect, the king of them, and their head, which neither the earth can corrupt nor fire devastate, nor the water change, for its complexion is equalised, and its nature regulated with respect to heat, cold, and moisture; nor is there anything in it which is superfluous, therefore the philosophers do buoy up and magnify themselves init saying that this gold, in relation of other bodies. is, as the sun amongst the stars, more splendid in Light; and as, by the power of God, every vegetable and all the fruits of the earth are perfected, so gold by the same power sustainneth all.
For as dough without a ferment cannot be fermented so when thou sublimest the body and purifiest it, separating the uncleanness from it, thou wilt then conjoin and mix them together, and put in the ferment confecting the earth and water. Then will the Ixir ferment even as dough doth ferment. Think of this, and see how the ferment in this case doth change the former natures to another thing. Observe, also, that there is no ferment otherwise than from the dough itself.
Observe, moreover, that the ferment whitens the confection and hinders it from turning, and holds the tincture lest it should fly, and rejoice the bodies, and makes them intimately to join and to enter one into another, and this is the key of the philosophers and the end of their work: and by this science, bodies are meliorated, and the operation of them, God assisting, is consummate.
But, through negligence and a false opinion of the matter, the operation may be perverted, as a mass of leaven growing corrupt, or milk turned with rennet for cheese, and musk among aromatics.
The sure colour of the golden matter for the red, and the nature thereof, is not sweetness; therefore we make of them sericum - ie Ixir; and of them we make the enamel of which we have already without and with the king's seal we have tinged the clay, and in that have set the colour of heaven, which augments the sight of them that see.
The Stone, therefore is the most precious gold without spots, evenly tempered, which neither fire nor air, nor water, nor earth is able to corrupt for it is the Universal Ferment rectifying all things in a medium composition, whose complexion is yellow and a true citrine colour.
The gold of the wise, boiled and well digested with a fiery water, makes Ixir; for the gold of the wise is more heavy than lead, which in a temperate composition is a ferment Ixir, and contrariwise, in our intemperate composition, is the confusion of the whole. For the work begins from the vegetable, next from the animal, as in a hen's egg, in which is the greatest help, and our earth is gold, of all which we make sericum, which is the ferment Ixir.


finis 


Sericum
Latin Noun
sēricum (genitive sēricī); n, second declension

1. Chinese goods, but especially silk 

Wiktionary

                   ...the fever came,
          A punctual visitant, to shake this man,
          Disarmed his voice and fanned his yellow cheek
          Into a thousand colours; while he read,
          Or mused, his sword was haunted by his touch
          Continually, like an uneasy place                          160
          In his own body. 'Twas in truth an hour
          Of universal ferment; mildest men
          Were agitated, and commotions, strife
          Of passion and opinion, filled the walls
          Of peaceful houses with unquiet sounds.
          The soil of common life was, at that time,
          Too hot to tread upon. Oft said I then,
          And not then only, "What a mockery this
          Of history, the past and that to come!
          Now do I feel how all men are deceived,                    170
          Reading of nations and their works, in faith,
          Faith given to vanity and emptiness;
          Oh! laughter for the page that would reflect
          To future times the face of what now is!"

THE PRELUDE 

BOOK NINTH 

RESIDENCE IN FRANCE 

William Wordsworth