Commenting upon this statement, the translator observes: "Those Hermetic texts which bear a spiritual interpretation and are as if a record of spiritual experience, present, like the literature of physical alchemy, the following aspects of symbolism: the marriage of sun and moon; of a mystical king and queen; a union between natures which are one at the root, but diverse in manifestation; a transmutation which follows this union and an abiding glory therein."
If we will remember that the solar-man was personified by the Ancients as the sun; and the solar-woman by the moon, we have the first and salient points of the original Hermetic secrets, however much they may have degenerated from their spiritual to their physical application. The probabilities are that owing to the disapproval of the Christian Hierarchy, only the most veiled terminology was permissible. This view is more logical than is the one that the esoteric meaning was lost sight of.
The marriage of an hypothetical or "mystical king and queen" bespeaks exaltation of the two conjoining persons, male and female, but this exaltation is in consciousness, and not in mere personality. The terms "king" and "queen" are nothing more or less than symbols of an exalted (spiritualized) state.
And, in passing, we may here mention the fact that the language of lovers testifies to this intuitional realization. "My queen!" exclaims the enraptured lover, although in social station his beloved one may be only a scullery maid; and certainly, neither the beauty nor the goodness nor the wisdom of earthly kings and queens would be sufficient to inspire the comparison.
It is ever the soul calling for the mate who, when found, will exalt the "twain-one" into the immortal powers and immortal wealth imperfectly symbolized by earthly rulers, making "right royal queens and kings of common clay."
The third aspect of the symbolism tells of "an union between two natures which are one at the root, but diverse in manifestation." And the alchemist who sought the physical interpretation of this, promised that, as earth, air, and fire and water were the elements "out of which all manifestation is composed," it only remained for someone to discover the exact proportion of each of these elementary substances in a specific compound; this accomplished, copper for example, could be dissolved into its constituent parts and re-solved again in the proportions which formed gold, a thing which we are not prepared to say could not be accomplished, but a thing which we do say, would not even be attempted by one who had found the secret of the interior transmutation, because having attained to the radiant center, he would realize the "glory of the worlds," and gold, as metal, would be to him of far less value than the emerald of the grass; the pearls of dew upon the rose; the scent of the lotus; the song of birds; the laughter of children.
How vain and foolish to imagine that a philosopher would think it worth while to search for gold, as a metal. He would not even consider the ambition worthy the parchment used to preserve the record of his labors.
But to find the golden light from the radiant center of pure and unquenchable love—that were indeed worthy of ages of research. For are we not promised, the "glory of the world" if we will seek and find? And he who truly seeks will absolutely find. What is the glory of the world? Is it fame, or wealth, or lands, or gems or kingdoms?
Love is the only glory worthy of the name.
"For Life with all its yield of joy and woe