Gower enumerates the seven bodies and the four spirits; and further explains that gold and silver are the two 'extremities,' and the other metals agree with one or other of them more or less, so as to be capable of transmutation into one of them. For this purpose, the
alchemist must go through the processes of distillation, congelation, solution, descension, sublimation, calcination, and fixation, after which he will obtain the perfect elixir of the philosopher's stone. He adds that there are really three philosopher's stones, one vegetable, capable of healing diseases; another animal, capable of assisting each of the five senses of man; and the third mineral, capable of transforming the baser metals into silver and gold.
It is easy to see how the various metals were made to answer to the seven planets. Gold, the chief of metals and yellow, of course answered to the sun; and similarly silver, to the paler moon. Mercury, the swiftest planet, must be the shifty quicksilver; Saturn, the slowest, of cold and dull influence, must be lead. The etymology of copper suggested the connexion with the Cyprian Venus. This left but two metals, iron and tin, to be adjusted; iron was suggestive of Mars, the god of war, leaving tin to Jupiter. The notion of thus naming the metals is attributed to Geber; see Thomson, Hist. of Chemistry, i. 117. In the Book of Quinte Essence, ed. Furnivall, p. 8, we find: 'a plate of venus or Iubiter,' i. e. of copper or tin.
Quicksilver, be it observed, is still called mercury; and nitrate of silver is still lunar caustic. Gold and silver are constantly termed sol and luna in the old treatises on alchemy. See further allusions in Chaucer's House of Fame, 1431-1487, as pointed out in the notes to ll. 1431, 1450, 1457, 1487 of that poem.
834. 'Whosoever pleases to utter (i. e. display) his folly.'
838. Ascaunce, possibly, perhaps; lit. 'just as if.' See note to D. 1745.
846. Al conne he, whether he know. The use of al at the beginning of a sentence containing a supposition is common in Chaucer; see Prol. 734. Cf. al be, Prol. 297; Kn. Tale, 313 (A. 1171). And see l. 861 below.
848. bothe two, both learned and unlearned alike.
853. limaille, filings, fine scrapings. 'Take fyn gold and make it into smal lymail'; Book of Quinte Essence, p. 8.
861. 'To raise a fiend, though he look never so rough,' i. e. forbidding, cross.