and the editor quotes from Rosarium Philosophorum, ‘Tres sunt lapides et tres sales sunt, ex quibus totum magisterium consistit, scilicet mineralis, plantalis et animalis.’ In the Secreta Secretorum, however, the stone seems to be one only, see the chapter ‘De lapide animali vegetabili.’
2597. who that it knewe: cp. ii. 88, and see note on Prol. 460.
2606. Hermes, i.e. Hermes Trismegistus, to whom the invention of the science was attributed.
on the ferste, ‘the very first,’ cp. vi. 1481. It may be questioned, however, whether the theory put forward by C. Stoffel in Englische Studien, xxvii. 253 ff., is the correct explanation of this expression, which survived to Elizabethan times (Shaksp., Cymb. i. 6. 165, ‘he is one the truest mannered’). He takes ‘on’ in the sense of the Latin ‘unus’ in ‘iustissimus unus,’ to mean ‘alone,’ ‘above all.’ It is perhaps more likely that the usual explanation, which regards it as an elliptical expression for ‘one who was the first,’ is correct, especially in view of such expressions as ‘two the first,’ ‘three the noblest,’ &c., which also occur in the fourteenth century. The use of ‘on’ (‘oon’) for ‘a person’ is common enough, as in the expressions ‘so good on,’ ‘so worthi on,’ ii. 1217, 1240, and ‘Oon Theloüs,’ ii. 1092. We find a similar expression in Gower’s French, e.g. Mirour, 2462.
2608. A work by Geber, ‘Super Artem Alkemie,’ in six books, translated from Arabic into Latin, may be found in MS. Ashmole 1384. It seems to treat in a practical and systematic manner of the method of transmutation of metals into gold.
2609. ‘Ortolan’ is the Englishman John Garland, called Hortulanus, for which name see the note in MS. Ashmole 1471 iv. prefixed to an English translation of his ‘Commentary on the Smaragdine Table of Hermes.’
Morien is said to have been a hermit in the mountains near Jerusalem. The two ‘books of Morien’ in the form of dialogues between him and Kalid the son of Gesid may be read in Latin (translated from Arabic) in MS. Digby 162.
2610. A short treatise of Avicen on Alchemy may be found in MS. Ashm. 1420.
2624. the parfite medicine. The inflexion is perhaps in imitation of the definite form of the English adjective, as in vii. 2168, 4994, while in l. 2522, where the accent is thrown back, we have ‘the parfit Elixir.’ It is possible, however, that this is a case of the French feminine form such as we have in i. 2677, ii. 3507, iv. 964, cp. i. 636. So perhaps ii. 3243, ‘O thou divine pourveance,’ and viii. 23, ‘O thou gentile Venus.’
2637. Carmente: cp. Godf. Vit., Panth. vi. (p. 135).