Abstract
Anonymous alchemical poetry, which flourished during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in England, consisted of laboratory texts mainly concerning recipes and practical notes about the production of the philosophers’ stone or elixir. These texts, which are not part of the authoritative writings of the famous alchemists of the time, re-purposed the Opus in a prosaic and pragmatic way. They made use of the same mysterious lexicon of the well-known alchemical treatises, but they often revisited and modified it according to their own needs. Very little attention has been given to this body of writing or to the processes of adaptation of the original Latin figurative alchemical vocabulary during vernacular translation. This paper focuses on a particular lexical item related to a transmutative procedure identifiable in a collection of fifteenth-century English recipes for making the elixir. It highlights the strategy an anonymous writer employed to coin a metaphorical formula to describe cryptically the mysterious aqua mercurialis. This formula was handed down in a corpus of manuscripts without being fully understood by copyists and users. In fact, later translators, in rendering it from English into Latin, turned it into an unsuitable expression, which led to the loss of its semantic implications.
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Introduction
The alchemical literature which flourished in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was characterized by many texts which focussed mainly on the transmutation of base metals into gold. The idea that the ‘elixir’ or ‘philosophers’ stone’ (Lapis philosophorum) was not merely a recipe for the soul’s salvation,Footnote 1 or a means to long life, but also a substance able to transform metals, was particularly attractive to practitioners more interested in the utilitarian aspect of the alchemical process than in its speculative philosophy.Footnote 2 Alchemy thus began to be practised in a context that detracted from its initial character as a general philosophy of nature and diverted it from the purpose for which it was originally intended.Footnote 3 An art which was highly regarded by the early alchemists and kept in complete secrecy became an activity for the creation of essences, tinctures and precious metals.Footnote 4 Many alchemists began to make claims about their ability to produce gold and silver through transmutation.Footnote 5
The result was a rise in the production of alchemical texts, including practical recipes focussed on laboratory experiments and composed in poetic form. As Gebrauchstexte, they are mostly anonymous either because copyists and users were more interested in the content than in passing on the authors’ names or because the authors themselves chose to remain anonymous. These poems survived in various copies for centuries until the alchemical arts declined in the early eighteenth century.Footnote 6
We do not know why many authors of alchemical texts chose to communicate their ideas and concepts in poetry. They do not explain what motivated this decision in their works. Several factors, however, could have contributed to their extensive use of the poetic form. Like most medieval scientific poetry, it is thought to be modelled on Latin didactic poetry of the classical period.Footnote 7 Poetic language—characterized by stylistic and rhetorical figures such as metaphors, symbols and mythological references—was also more suited to the enigmatic nature of alchemical science.Footnote 8 Moreover, poetry was considered a very useful means to make it easier to memorize the experimental phases of alchemy and to learn the concepts and the names of laboratory instruments.Footnote 9 Because of poetry’s metrical rules, it was more stable than prose, a feature which would have encouraged many alchemists to adopt it in contexts such as workshops, where learning was mainly based on oral explanation. On the other hand, the need to show the stages of alchemical experiments to apprentices, who were often barely literate, and the practice of alchemy by people such as craftsmen who did not know Latin caused an intensified use of spoken language. These circumstances led to the gradual neglect of Latin and, in turn, a large-scale adoption of the vernacular.Footnote 10 As a result, from the fourteenth century onwards, a rich English-language alchemical poetry emerged in England and served as a model for many other alchemists on the Continent.Footnote 11
The most striking feature which emerges from the analysis of alchemical poems is the adoption of a deliberately mysterious and often archaic language derived from the long tradition of erudite alchemical treatises. During the transmission of these texts, the extensive use of figurative terminology, which was made up of cover names, or Decknamen, and allegorical and symbolic language, facilitated personalized rewriting. Practitioners interpreted alchemical texts according to their own experience, context and experimental needs, which resulted in modifications of the processes, often by adding new ones, and in the coinage of a new and unusual lexicon.Footnote 12 The metaphorical nature and the fluidity of alchemical language implied that each copy represented a personal reinterpretation.Footnote 13 This tendency made alchemical material, which was already obscure in itself, often incoherent and exposed to contamination; but, at the same time, it produced flexibility and richness of content.Footnote 14 In the process of adaptation to the vernacular some particularly relevant terms were subjected to this process of lexical revision.Footnote 15 This is the case for the expression ‘water of mercury’, which was referred to by several metaphorical names that gave rise to various interpretations over the course of time.
This study will highlight the strategy used to render the concept of ‘water of mercury’ in some fifteenth-century Middle English recipes for the creation of the elixir. The author of these recipes decided to use an element derived from Germanic mythology, relying on the fact that its original semantic implication would not be understood by users unfamiliar with an ancient tradition which had almost completely been forgotten.
‘Mercury’ and the ‘Water of Mercury’ in the Pseudo-Lullian Corpus
Medieval English alchemy was mainly characterized by the attempt to prepare an elixir that could perfect all matter, transforming base metals into gold and silver, making plants develop more rapidly and abundantly, and bestowing health and long life on human bodies. From the fourteenth century onwards, however, alchemical research mainly focussed on the transmutation of metals and produced a large number of treatises, the most influential of which were the so-called Pseudo-Lullian texts. This corpus was made up of alchemical treatises attributed to the Catalan philosopher and theologian Raymond Lull, who lived between c. 1232 and c. 1316.Footnote 16 The earliest text of the veritable library of alchemy circulating under Lull’s name is the Testamentum, whose contents are a synthesis of metallurgical and medical alchemy and distilling practices which had become widespread during the thirteenth century. Composed in Latin around 1330, it addresses various problems concerning alchemy, its transmutational power and its inclusion within the domain of learned theoretical knowledge. In this text, alchemy is defined as an ‘art’ inaccessible to most people, belonging to natural philosophy and ranging from transmutation into ‘true gold and silver’ and the creation of precious gemstones to medicinal powers.Footnote 17 Pseudo-Lull speaks of a liquid, humidum radicale or humidum mercuriale, that has both a heuristic function, as a theoretical means by which to interpret nature and its deepest principles, and a real entity, as a concrete and materially manageable ingredient in the alchemist’s operative procedures.Footnote 18 The Testamentum is centred on the universal stone and its derivation from two mercuries: a mineral mercury, of metallic origin, and a vegetable mercury, of undefined origin. The mineral mercury is an essential substance extracted from gold and silver (sol and luna in alchemical metaphorical language) using a mysterious and powerful solvent (menstruum)Footnote 19 or aqua vitae called ‘water of the green lion’, a cover name frequently used in alchemyFootnote 20:
So, we name the ends of our stone ... on the first side is the water of the green lion fixed with metal. And on the second is the stone that was created. And in the middle of them are the sun (sol) and the moon (luna), from which our quicksilver derives, which is the liquefied, melted and rotted corpse, from which the stone was created, when it was cleansed of its original imperfections.Footnote 21
Chemical processes could also produce this solvent by mixing, dissolving and sublimating quicksilver with vitriol and saltpetre:
B denotes argent vive, which is a common substance existing in all corruptible bodies … .C denotes saltpetre … . D denotes vitriol azoqueus … . And then E denotes the menstruum which combines the three previously mentioned natures in one … and G denotes mercury, which you know.Footnote 22
The true meaning of the nomenclature used for these ingredients in the Testamentum remains indecipherable. It is unclear whether the author intended to indicate common substances or whether the quicksilver in this recipe was the essential mercury derived from lead. What further complicates the interpretation of these passages is the introduction of an additional ingredient with a vegetative capacity identified by the letter G. This vegetable mercury labelled ‘G’, ‘quem scis’ (‘which you know’), must have been an element so secret that it could not be named openly and that had the vegetative power to make other metals grow. We can therefore deduce that the use of chemical elements was an alternative to accelerate the sublimation process.Footnote 23
The reference to a vegetative mercury paved the way for new interpretations by readers of Pseudo-Lull. The development of medical theories in the fourteenth century led to the identification of wine distillate as a variant of vegetable mercury.Footnote 24 This new ingredient was used, along with mineral mercury, as a solvent in the alchemical process to create gold and silver.Footnote 25 The procedure, which became widespread mainly in the following century, involved using the unidentified entity ‘sericon’, a Deckname indicating a metallic body. Dissolved in wine vinegar, it produced a gummy substance that was used to make a potent elixir. It was a vegetable stone that, unlike mineral mercury, was edible and was thought to cure disease and prolong life.Footnote 26 Despite the spread of new experiments by vegetative mercurialists, many more Pseudo-Lullian readers were interested in using metallic mercury to produce gold. The political instability and economic difficulties that England experienced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries led to a great need for gold and, as a consequence, an extraordinary period of development in English alchemical practice to obtain it.Footnote 27 Many texts were written at this time, some of which were linked to the name of the famous alchemist George Ripley, whose writings are commentaries on Pseudo-Lullian alchemy.Footnote 28 His works, The Compound of Alchemy and the Medulla (especially its English translation, Marrow of Alchemy), constituted the most influential and frequently mentioned treatises in later centuries.
Dealing with the manufacture of the mineral stone, Ripley, too, introduced a special water that was useful for making the elixir. He stated that it was a water drawn from a menstruum composed of four elements, and he defined it as ‘fire against nature’, ‘the strongest water of the world’ and ‘mortal’.Footnote 29
In his effort to explain and to reconcile some of the apparent discrepancies in the Pseudo-Lullian corpus, Ripley transformed and renovated its principles, contributing to its dissemination among a plethora of practitioners mostly involved in chrysopoeia, that is, the artificial production of gold. This intense interest in alchemy generated a rich body of works written not only by clerics but also by craftsmen and merchants, who privileged the practical content of this erudite alchemical literature.Footnote 30
‘Water of Mercury’ in the Middle English Verses upon the Elixir
A group of texts consisting of anonymous recipes for the creation of the philosophers’ stone has been identified within Middle English alchemical works.Footnote 31 They were apparently elaborated in the context of the workshop and seem to be mostly part of the Pseudo-Lullian tradition and its derivatives, notably the works of Ripley. Despite textual variants, these texts share a set of contents about the transmutation of base metals into gold. Their notions and alchemical procedures reveal a common and popular practical tradition which developed in England during the fifteenth century.
The texts which I have selected for the present study are the two versions (A and B) of the rhymed poem Verses upon the Elixir, the rhymed poem Exposition and the late Latin prose version Terra terrae philosophicae, in which a particular expression for ‘water of mercury’ appears.Footnote 32
Verses upon the Elixir is an anonymous Middle English poem composed in the mid-fifteenth century.Footnote 33 It is preserved in thirty complete manuscripts and several fragments, making it one of the most widely reproduced late medieval alchemical poems.Footnote 34 It is a mixture of two literary traditions: the concise and practical prose recipes often found in the margins of medieval notebooks and the alchemical allegorical writings.
It plays a prominent role not only in the group of texts under investigation but also in the context of all Middle English alchemical poetry, as it shares common material with many other alchemical works of the period. The poem has come down to us in three variants: A in 105 lines, and B1 and B2 in 194 lines.Footnote 35 Version B1 includes theoretical and religious additions, names of natural and chemical substances, and explanations of the alchemical process. It also includes sections derived from another poetic text belonging to the same group, Boast of Mercury (ll. 69–76).Footnote 36 It seems that version B contains more didactic-theoretical features, while A has a more practical nature.
In terms of content, the poem describes the stages, the duration of the operations and the ingredients for producing the philosophers’ stone, dividing the whole work into six phases. First, it explains the procedure for isolating the elements of earth, water and fire by dissolving them in a special water. The next phase is the formation of a gum by means of evaporation. Then comes the phase in which aqua vitae is distilled to produce black, dry earth (nigredo), which is bathed in the same water until it turns white (albedo).
A red substance (rubedo) is then produced by heat, which, when further imbibed, that is, when the water is absorbed, produces the stone (ll. 1–38). This first operative part of the poem is followed by a second alchemical-philosophical section explaining the importance of the four elements, of the ‘sperm’ as the principle of all living beings and of the special water that makes the alchemical ‘marriage’ possible (ll. 39–54).Footnote 37 The third part (ll. 55–68) proposes another recipe for the philosophers’ stone, but with more rapid processes and with the aid of substances such as arsenic, mercury and aqua fortis. These procedures are followed by fixation, whereby the substance is transformed into a form unaffected by fire, and then imbibition, or absorption of the water. The stone obtained in this way can be used to transform copper and lead into gold and silver respectively, in a weight ratio of 1:40. The fourth part (ll. 69–81) describes the aqua perfectissima that softens and fixes metals. The fifth (ll. 82–99) describes this water’s qualities, which make everything white and brilliant, and concludes, once more, with the cycle of transformation from nigredo to rubedo. The last section gives instructions for using the resulting oil to convert mercury into gold.
Exposition is composed of 68 lines and begins with an incipit that explains the distinctiveness and secrecy of the transmutation recipe, followed by a list of key names. Its conclusion focuses on the making of the philosophers’ stone, but it is accompanied by appeals to God as the true creative force of all natural things. This text underwent alterations that, unlike those in the Verses, consist mainly of variations in the position of words and lines and that contain no additions or omissions.
The Neo-Latin cultural movement which developed during the sixteenth century and the efforts to preserve the previous scientific and literary heritage in print encouraged interest in earlier practical alchemical recipes. This evolution led some authors to revise the texts belonging to this group, stimulating the production of interpretative notes, commentaries, ancillary writings and Latin translations. Terra terrae philosophicae, the oldest manuscript of which is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1485, dating from the sixteenth century, is part of this extensive work of revision. It consists of a Latin prose translation of the poem Verses upon Elixir combined with additions from the poems Exposition and Wind and Water.Footnote 38 It was initially attributed to Ripley and consequently circulated together with his works.Footnote 39
The text was widely reproduced and was also translated into German and French. With respect to the development of the works around the Verses upon the Elixir, it represents the final and most divergent version in terms of content. Indeed, it is preserved in some manuscripts along with texts not strictly related to alchemical experiments.
Regarding the transmutational process for creating the elixir, the two versions of Verses upon the Elixir and Exposition reflect a long tradition based on Pseudo-Lullian treatises; however, they replicate the experiments to create the elixir in a more simplified, condensed and cryptic way. They share the same content but differ from each other in additions or omissions that reveal the personal approach of each composer-copyist. For this analysis, I have considered only the first stages of the alchemical process described in lines 1–9 of Verses A and B1Footnote 40 and in Exposition. They concern the dissolution of the earth by using a mysterious and powerful solvent or special water. The solvent or ‘water of mercury’ obtained by this process is called ‘water of the Wode’ (Verses A, l. 8); ‘water of the Wood’ (B, l. 8) and ‘water of Wode’ (Exposition, l. 6)Footnote 41:
Verses A | Verses B | Exposition |
|---|---|---|
Take erth of erth erthes broder Water and erth it is non other And fire of therth that berith the price And of that erth loke thou be wise The true elixir if ye list to make Erth out of erth loke that ye take. pure subtill faire and good And do it with water of theWode ffor in it therth dissoluyd must be | Take earth of earth earthes brother & water of earth, that is no other & fire of earth that beareth ye price & of the earth looke thow be wise This is ye true Elixer for to make earth out of earth looke that thou take pure subtill right faire & good & then take ye water of the wood Cleere as Cristall shineing bright | Nowe of this matter to you most clere An exposicon I do make here Wheryn I charge you secrete to be That frynde ne foo do it se Erth is withyn most fyne Water ofWode aysell of wyne ffor the moist of the grape who can it take And sericon don our maistry make But nowe be ware that ye not fayle |
In the Latin prose translation, Terra terrae philosophicae, the formula ‘water of Wode’ in these poems is translated as aqua nemoris (‘water of the wood’):
Accipe terram de terra et fratrem terrae
quae non aliud est quam Aqua et terra, et ignis de terra pretiocissima
Atque in hac terra eligenda fac vt sis prudens.
Si ergo verum Elixir facere desideras
vide vt de terra illa extrahas,
ex terra videlicet pulchra subtili et bona.
Hanc aqua nemoris imbue,
nam in hac aqua terra dissoluenda est
per tres dies idque sine igne.
…
Aqua nemoris est Acetum vini quisquis potest illud
ex humiditate vuarum extrahere potest etiam
cum eo magisterium nostrum perficere. (ll. 1–9 and 91–3)
But can this water be derived from the wood, as stated in this translation? Can it therefore be found in nature? The Latin alchemical treatises do not describe this water as an ordinary fluid but instead as the transforming substance par excellence. Its exceptional qualities constitute the essence of the whole alchemical doctrine. In medieval alchemy, mercury, which all adepts mention, is the prima materia of the Opus, the principal agent to which matter itself is subject, while it is indestructible. This prima materia is a miraculous substance with many contradictory features: it is the destroying and dissolving force of matter, but it is also the agent of the marriage between of the opposites, sun and moon, from which the most durable element in the world originates: the philosophers’ stone.
In addition to the Pseudo-Lullian corpus, references to the water of mercury can be found in other important alchemical texts. The author of De anima uses the name mercurius to define a liquid with a double essence, both living gold and extraordinary ‘water’, which must not be confused with the water found in nature.Footnote 42 The Pseudo-Arnald text Rosarium philosophorum treats this ‘aqua nostra, ipse namque est sperma’, or aqua permanens, as the medium by which all the processes of the Opus can be accomplished.Footnote 43
All this evidence points to the fact that whatever procedures, recipes, philosophical–theoretical or practical perspectives enhanced and enriched alchemical literature throughout the centuries, mercury remained constantly the essential ingredient; and the special water derived from it, the ‘water of mercury’, was the core of the whole work.Footnote 44 Without this solution or water, alchemical work could not be performed.
This is specified further in the two versions of the Verses under consideration here, where this ‘water of Wode’ appears to be the artificer of the alchemical marriage:
Verses A | Verses B |
|---|---|
But a Sperme out of a body take Wheryn is all sol lune and light Water and erth fire and fright And all comyth out of on ymage but water of the wode makith the marriage (ll. 50–54) | But a Sperme out of a body I take in which is Sol Luna life & light water & earth fire & fright all cometh but of one Image but ye water of ye wood maketh ye marriage (ll. 82–6) |
Finally, there is another element which leads to the conclusion that ‘water of Wode’ is a Deckname. In Exposition, this expression is followed by the technical terms ‘aysell of wyne’ and ‘sericon’. In contrast to the Verses, the author of Exposition enriched his material by adding references to this new alchemical approach in producing the philosophers’ stone. Since he was aware that this was an esoteric subject, he began his text by presenting the prime matters by their code names. Therefore, if he included ‘Water of Wode’ in this list, along with ‘sericon’, it was because he perceived it as a Deckname.Footnote 45
If we, therefore, consider it to be a special water, we can suppose that the original author of the Verses needed to name it with a symbolic and figurative term in order to confer on it the highest degree of secrecy. As noted above, during the fifteenth century, composers and copyists who translated Arabic, Greek and Latin alchemical terminology into Middle English often employed new coinages to preserve its mysterious character, contributing to the enrichment of Middle English technical and scientific vocabulary.Footnote 46Verses upon the Elixir can therefore be seen in the framework of this phenomenon. In interpreting the notion of ‘water of mercury’, the author tried to preserve its secret and cryptic nature. Given the importance of mercury, he wanted to find another, more enigmatic term to replace it. In doing so, he probably looked to another tradition of alchemical texts.
The God Mercury in Alchemical Texts and in the Verses upon the Elixir
The symbolic and metaphorical nature of alchemical matter, intricately related to metallurgy, inspired the use of myths about metals, their genesis and their presiding gods, which were adopted in all alchemical traditions since ancient times. In medieval Western alchemy, which was deeply indebted to Greco-Roman alchemical lore, in which metals were often connected to their namesake planet and the related god,Footnote 47 the practice of substituting planetary names for metals (gold/sol, silver/luna, quicksilver/mercurius), continued and produced other variants of cover names which alchemists could employ.Footnote 48 Alchemical symbolism made extensive use of emblems derived from these affinities or similarities. Thus, with its brilliance, the sun was associated with gold and the moon, with its light, was equated with silver. At the beginning of the development of medieval alchemy, the primary mode of representation for these symbols remained linguistic; but from the fourteenth and especially fifteenth century onwards, manuscripts were also enriched with illustrations. Alchemical iconography had important meanings to describe the symbolism associated with the various principles, elements and/or processes of the discipline and was also probably used as a mnemonic device. The symbol of quicksilver (mercury), a circle over a cross, was the same as that of the planet mercury which descended from the caduceus of the god Mercury.Footnote 49 The depiction of mercury as a deity developed in late medieval alchemical manuscripts. Until the end of fifteenth century, the images do not portray the god in his usual anthropomorphic guise, but rather allow his tutelary and symbolic presence to emerge through the depiction of his emblems: the wings, the snakes and the planet symbol.Footnote 50 In all the different contexts, Mercury continued to be the most important crux of alchemical symbolism. The god represented the volatile part of elements and, at the same time, through a highly gendered language, he symbolized the union of opposites from which the alchemical hermaphrodite originated.
The complex mixture of different traditions concerning alchemical mercury may have inspired the author of the Verses to devise a personal interpretation. In rendering ‘water of mercury’ cryptically, he used the image of the Roman god Mercury and replaced him with the god Wodan/Odin of Germanic lore. Thus, he resorted to a remote interpretation that equated the two gods according to their common attributes and that probably was still known to the Anglo-Saxons of that period.Footnote 51 Knowledge of the god Wodan is attested well after the Norman Conquest of 1066. In the twelfth century, the Anglo-Norman poet Robert Wace wrote in his Roman de Bruce:
Maïs sur tuz altres enorum
Maïsmement Mercurium,
Ki en nostre language ad nun
Woden, par grant religiun. (ll. 6777-80).Footnote 52
In certain twelfth-century documents, the lineage of Anglo-Saxon royalty was often traced back to this god, who was depicted with a crown as an ancestral king.Footnote 53 In the fourteenth century, some chronicles still refer to the identification of Mercury with Wodan:
Bot ouer alle we wirschip mest,
Mercurius & hold his fest.
Mercuri is on our langage
Woden, lord is our vsage (ll. 7263–66)Footnote 54
Þat holdeþ up þen world · & in mercurius mest ywis.
Þe heye go[d] þat in vre tonge woden icluped is (ll. 2429–30).Footnote 55
Thus, it seems that in the late Middle Ages, the comparison between Mercury and Wodan was not completely forgotten and was perhaps supported by the etymology of Wednesday. We do not know whether the author of the Verses recognized the underlying principles and prerogatives for the equivalence of the two gods. Still, if we assume that he was aware of that the two names were equivalent, then the formula ‘water of (the god) Wode’ as a translation of ‘water of (the god) Mercury’ makes more sense in the context of the alchemical recipe than ‘water of the wood’.Footnote 56
The difficulty in interpreting this expression is evident in the analysis of the textual variants found in the other manuscripts of both the A and B versions.Footnote 57 They reveal the complications faced by interpreters in rendering a term which they perceived as abstruse and cryptic. They therefore had two possible choices: either to replace the word with another expression, ‘water of them’,Footnote 58 where the pronoun recalls the two alchemical elements combined in the water of mercury, or to formulate the phrase ‘water that is so wood’,Footnote 59 referring to another homograph present in the Middle English lexicon: the adjective wode/woden, meaning ‘insane, mad, furious’.
The use of the word wode may also have been encouraged by alliterative needs. The repetition of the initial sound w- demonstrates a propensity to employ a stylistic device that had its greatest revival in England during the fourteenth century and often involved the extensive use of archaic words. The author of the Verses did not make systematic use of alliteration but was probably influenced by a traditional poetic background which sometimes emerged accidentally.Footnote 60 Examples can be found in the following couplets: ‘Then fede it forth as ye shuld do /With mylk and mete that longith therto’ (version A, ll. 31–2); ‘Then take thou meate & milke thereto/& feede ye child as thou shouldst doe’ (version B, ll. 49–50) and ‘All werkes this water makyth white and light’ (version A, v. 82); ‘for all workes this water maketh white’ (version B, v. 157), where we find a series of assonances along with the rhyme. This choice, however, was not always accepted by later copyists, who sometimes preferred to replace the alliterative word with another term that had a different meaning, thus generating a variation of semantic content.Footnote 61
Conclusions
The tendency to employ metaphorical expressions and code names and to use archaic stylistic and lexical forms, which are characteristic aspects of poetry, made alchemical poetic texts progressively more indecipherable. On the other hand, the continuous development of alchemical experiments and their technical vocabulary stimulated the creation of new terms. Scribes often intervened in the text by giving their interpretation of individual terms or phrases and thus proposed personal readings. For this reason, alchemical texts were subject to a steady stream of emendations, which meant that each copy could generate a different and autonomous text.
The Verses upon the Elixir follow this trend. Having to observe the highest level of secrecy, the author wanted to create a new figurative expression that would guarantee the enigmatic and cryptic nature of the solvent par excellence of the entire alchemical process. So, he invented a calque from Latin aqua mercurialis, replacing the name of Mercury with that of the counterpart god of Germanic tradition, Wode.
With this expedient and this exceptional coinage, the composer of the Verses contributed to the enrichment of the Middle English alchemical language. To achieve his goal, he did not employ a common lexeme but instead revived an archaism which had fallen into disuse and was therefore alien to most users. If we, therefore, assume that ‘Water of Wode’ is a figurative expression evoking the god Wodan, its translation as aqua nemoris in the Latin version of Terra terrae philosophicae is probably a misreading. Regarding it as ‘water of wood’ is incompatible with the expression that follows, ‘est Acetum vini’, which, as we have seen, is vegetable mercury, a wine distillate and not a water. He merely provided a more immediate and familiar literal translation of the term Wode, confusing it with its homograph wode, ‘wood’, and rendered it in Latin as nemoris. By doing so, he dissipated the hermetic sense of the original formula, demonstrating, at the same time, that he had achieved his purpose in the Verses, which was to preserve the secrecy of this water.
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Notes
C. T. Runstedler, ‘Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative in Middle English Poetry’, PhD Dissertation, Durham University, 2018, pp. 50–2; C. Crisciani, ‘Exemplum Christi e sapere. Sull’epistemologia di Arnaldo di Villanova’, Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences, 28, 1978, pp. 245–92; M. Pereira, ‘Arnaldo da Villanova e l’alchimia. Un’indagine preliminare’, Arxiu de textos catalans antics, 14, 1995, pp. 95–174.
As Roger Bacon declared, if the elixir could heal the body and give a person longevity, it could also make materials perfect. In his Opus tertium, he also distinguished ‘speculative’ alkimia from ‘operative’ alkimia, which was practised by people interested in creating precious metals, gems and dyes. See Roger Bacon, The ‘Opus Majus’ …, ed. J. H. Bridges, 2 vols, Oxford, 1897–1900 (reprint: Hildesheim, 1964), II, p. 215; id., De expositione enigmatum alkimie, in Part of the Opus tertium …, ed. A. G. Little, Aberdeen, 1912, pp. 83–6 (86); id., Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae et de nullitate magiae, in id., Opera quædam hactenus inedita, ed. J. Brewer (Cambridge Library Collection – Rolls), Cambridge, 2012, pp. 523–51; M. Pereira, L’oro dei filosofi: Saggio sulle idee di un alchimista del Trecento, Spoleto, 1992, pp. 48–56.
The examination of alchemical texts shows that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, organic substances were the basis for the preparation of the elixir. Among these substances, blood played an important role. As the source of life, combined with gold and silver (Sol and Luna), it was believed to produce an incorruptible metal. The use of animal substances for the composition of the elixir was linked to the philosophical idea of the reciprocity between the human body and the mineral kingdom. Subsequently, a new elixir with artificial connotations was introduced into alchemical experiments. The central element in the creation of the elixir became mercury, which, when mixed with other minerals through certain processes, made it possible to obtain a preparation capable of transforming base metals into gold. On the developments of alchemical research in the fourteenth century and the theories concerning the division between theoretical and practical alchemy, see M. Pereira, ‘Un tesoro inestimabile: elixir e “prolongatio vitae” nell’alchimia del ‘300’, Micrologus, 1, 1993, pp. 161–87; ead., ‘Teorie dell’elixir nell'alchimia latina medieval’, Micrologus, 3, 1995, pp. 103–48.
The original ancient Greco-Egyptian alchemy was concerned with metallurgy and with imitating precious metals by alloying base metals or by staining or tincturing them so that they took on the appearance of the noble ones. These scientific procedures were continued throughout antiquity until new magical elements and mysticism began to penetrate alchemical concepts. The period from the classical or Greco-Roman world to late antiquity was characterized by a desire for ascent in many aspects of human life. Alchemy underwent this shift, too, and was transformed from a scientific search for transmutation into a mystical search for personal transformation. Gnostics such as Zosimus and explicitly Christian writers such as Stephen of Alexandria recognized the parallel between gold and the soul and compared the religious idea of salvation to the purification of gold and silver. Intercultural exchange among Byzantine Christians and Muslim Arabs in the seventh century gave a new impetus to the development of alchemical theories, establishing many concepts and styles that would remain fundamental for much of later alchemy. For a history of the development of alchemy from its Greco-Egyptian origins to the twentieth century, see L. M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, Chicago, 2013.
In the fifteenth century, in the ‘Prohemium’ to his Ordinal of Alchemy, Thomas Norton, stated that alchemy had become a lucrative business for clergymen, princes, nobles, merchants, glassmakers and craftsmen. See Thomas Norton, The Ordinal of Alchemy, ed. J. Reidy (Early English Text Society, 272), London, 1975, pp. 5–6.
On this, see also L. Principe, ‘The End of Alchemy? The Repudiation and Persistence of Chrysopoeia at the Académie Royale des Sciences in the Eighteenth Century’, Osiris, 29, 2014, pp. 96–116; id., ‘Alchemy Restored’, Isis, 102, 2011, pp. 305–12.
A. Timmermann, ‘Scientific and Encyclopaedic Verse’, in Companion to Fifteenth Century Verse, ed. A. S. G. Edwards and Julia Boffey, Woodbridge, 2013, pp. 199–211.
On the influence of iconography and Bildgedicht on alchemical poetic production, see J. Telle, Sol und Luna: Literar- und alchemiegeschichtliche Studien zu einem altdeutschen Bildgedicht, mit Text- und Bildanhang, Schriften zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 2, Hurtgenwald, 1980, pp. 60–96.
The use of poetry may also have been motivated by the need to attract the attention of a potential patron. On this, see R. M. Schuler, Alchemical Poetry 1575–1700 from Previously Unpublished Manuscripts, New York, 1995, pp. xxxvi–xxxviii; and D. Kahn, ‘Alchemical Poetry in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: A Preliminary Survey and Synthesis Part II – Synthesis’, Ambix, 58, 2011, pp. 62–77 (63–4).
I. Taavitsainen and P. Päivi, ‘Vernacularisation of Medical Writing in English: A Corpus-Based Study of Scholasticism’, Early Science and Medicine, 3, 1998, pp. 157–85; L. E. Voigts: ‘Multitudes of Middle English Medical Manuscripts, or the Englishing of Science and Medicine’, in Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays, ed. M. R. Schleissner, New York and London, 1995, pp. 183–95.
The most famous didactic alchemical poems written in vernacular date back to the fifteenth century and are only attested in England by the works of Norton and Ripley and in France by those of Jean de La Fontaine and Nicolas Flamel. See Norton, The Ordinal (n. 5 above); George Ripley, Compound of Alchemy (1591), ed. S. J. Linden, Aldershot, 2001; D. Kahn, ‘Recherches sur la tradition imprimée de La Fontaine des amoureux de science de Jean de La Fontaine (1413)’, Chrysopoeia, 5, 1992–1996, pp. 323–8; R. Halleux, ‘Le mythe de Nicolas Flamel ou les mécanismes de la pseudépigraphie alchimique’, Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences, 33, 1983, pp. 234–55; Pseudo-Nicolas Flamel, Écrits alchimiques, ed. D. Kahn, Paris,1993, pp. 75–98.
On bilingualism and Fachliteratur, see T. Hunt, ‘The Languages of Medieval England’, in Mehrsprachigkeit im Mittelalter: Kulturelle, Literarische, Sprachliche und Didaktische Konstellationen in Europäischer Perspektive, ed. M. Baldzuhn and C. Putzo, Berlin and New York, 2011, pp. 59–68; L. E. Voigts, ‘Scientific and Medical Books’, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, ed. J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History), Cambridge, 1989, pp. 345–402; P. Pahta, ‘Code-Switching in Medieval Medical Writing’. in Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval English, ed. I. Taavitsainen and P. Pahta, Cambridge, 2004, pp. 73–99; T. Hunt, ‘Code-Switching in Medical Texts’, in Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain (c. 1066–1520), ed. D. A. Trotter, Woodbridge, 2000, pp. 131–48.
See W. C. Crossgrove, ‘Textual Criticism in a Fourteenth-Century Scientific Manuscript’, in Studies on Medieval Fachliteratur, ed. W. Eamon, Brussels, 1982, pp. 45–58.
The author of De anima, a twelfth-century Latin translation from of an Arabic treatise wrongly attributed to Avicenna, warns practitioners to be cautious about decoding the vocabulary of the philosophers of the alchemical texts, especially regarding the names of the ingredients of the Opus. See La “De anima” alchimique du pseudo-Avicenne, ed. S. Moureau, 2 vols, (Micrologus’ Library, 76: Alchemica Latina, 1), Florence, 2016, II, p. 107.
On this point, see the interesting dictionary of the alchemical lexicon published by M. Ruland, Lexicon alchemiae sive dictionarium alchemisticum, cum obscuriorum verborum, et rerum Hermeticarum, tum Theophrast-Paracelsicarum phrasium, planam explicationem continens, Frankfurt, 1612, especially the long list of names attributed to the philosophers’ stone on pp. 368–9.
On Pseudo-Lull, see M. Pereira, The Alchemical Corpus Attributed to Raymond Lull, London, 1989.
Il Testamentum alchemico attribuito a Raimondo Lullo: edizione del testo latino e catalano dal manoscritto Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 244, ed. M. Pereira and B. Spaggiari, Florence, 1999, lib. II, p. 306.
On the use of the humidum mercuriale in 14th- and 15th-century Latin alchemical treatises, see C. Crisciani, ‘Elisir di lunga vita (secoli XIV e XV)’, Aion (Filol.), 36, 2014, pp. 81–97.
Il Testamentum alchemico (n. 17 above), lib. II, p. 318.
This definition of mercury is found in De compositione alchemiae, a Latin text of 1144 translated from Arabic by Robert of Chester, which is believed to be the first book on alchemy available in Europe: Morienus, De compositione alchemiae, in Jacques Manget, Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, 2 vols, Geneva, 1702, I, pp. 509–19. For an English translation, see A Testament of Alchemy: Being the Revelations of Morienus to Khālid ibn Yazid, ed. and transl. L. Stavenhage, Hanover NH, 1974.
Il Testamentum alchemico (n. 17 above), lib. I, pp. 196–8: ‘Postquam diximus extrema nostri lapidis … ad primum latus est aqua leonis viridis cum metallo coniuncta. Et in secundo est lapis, qui creatus est. Et medium illorum est sol et luna, unde exit nostrum argentum vivum, quod est corpus liquefactum, fusum et putrefactum, de quo creatur lapis, quando purgatum est a sua macula originali’.
Ibid., lib. II, p. 310: ‘B significat argentum vivum, quod est substancia communis, extans in omni corpore corruptibili … C significat salem petre … . D significat vitreolum azoqueum … . Et postea menstruale significatur per E, quod continet naturas dictorum trium totaliter in unum … . Et per G significatur mercurius, quem scis’.
Several references to the sublimation of mercury can be found in medieval alchemical treatises, notably Pseudo-Geber’s Summa perfectionis and Pseudo-Arnald’s Rosarium philosophorum. The Summa, attributed to the Arabic author Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, known in Latin as Geber, who lived in the eighth century, was probably composed towards the end of thirteenth century. The Rosarium Philosophorum, attributed to the physician and alchemist Arnald of Villanova (1240–1312), consists of a collection of citations from some of the most famous medieval alchemists such as Pseudo-Lull, Pseudo-Geber and Albertus Magnus. R. Steele, ‘Practical Chemistry in the Twelfth Century Rasis de aluminibus et salibus’, Isis, 12.1, 1929, pp. 10–46 (24); The Summa perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber: A Critical Edition, Translation, and Study, ed. W. R. Newman, Leiden 1991; Rosarium philosophorum. Ein alchemistisches Florilegium des Spätmittelalters. Faksimile der illustrierten Erstausgabe Frankfurt 1550, ed. J. Telle, 2 vols, Weinheim, 1992.
The Pseudo-Lullian corpus also referred to a third mercury, the animal mercury, obtained by the distillation of urine or blood. This procedure is described in the Liber de investigatione secreti occulti (late 14th century); see M. Pereira, ‘Un lapidario alchemico: Il Liber de investigatione secreti occulti attribuito a Raimondo Lullo; Studio introduttivo ed edizione’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 1.2, 1990, pp. 549–603 (578–9).
See J. M. Rampling, ‘Transmuting Sericon: Alchemy as “Practical Exegesis” in Early Modern England’, Osiris, 29.1, 2014, pp. 19–34.
John of Rupescissa in his Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae (early 1350s) promotes the distillate of wine as an alchemical remedy to protect the body against ageing and health problems. See F. Sherwood Taylor, ‘The Idea of the Quintessence’, in Science, Medicine and History: Essays on the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice Written in Honour of Charles Singer, ed. Edgar A. Underwood, I, Oxford, 1953, pp. 247–65.
For a detailed analysis of the history of 15th-century alchemy and the dissemination of texts in the Pseudo-Lullian corpus in England, see J. M. Rampling, The Experimental Fire. Inventing English Alchemy 1300–1700, Chicago and London, 2020.
On the Ripley’s work, see ibid., pp. 73–99.
Ripley, Compound of Alchemy (n. 11 above), pp. 167–8. Ripley discusses this concept again in his Medulla, when explaining the origin of the mineral stone; see Rampling, The Experimental Fire (n. 27 above), pp. 81–6.
Statistical data relating to the most frequently discussed topics in scientific texts produced in England before and after 1500 place alchemy at the top of the scale; see R. M. Schuler, English Magical and Scientific Poems to 1700: An Annotated Bibliography, New York, 1979, p. xiv; id., Alchemical Poetry (n. 9 above), p. xxvii; D. Kahn, ‘Alchemical Poetry in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: A Preliminary Survey and Synthesis Part I – Preliminary Survey’, Ambix, 57.3, 2010, pp. 249–74 (268).
These texts, variously preserved in 130 manuscripts, have been grouped into a single corpus according to their more or less close relationships, both textual and linguistic. The poems are: Verses upon the Elixir (NIMEV 3249), Exposition (2666), Wind and Water (3257), Boast of Mercury (1276 and 3271), Mystery of Alchemists (4017), Liber Patris Sapientiae (1150), Richard Carpenter’s Work (1555, 2656 and 3255), Short Work (3721), In the sea (1561.7), On the Ground (2688), I shall you tell (1364) and Trinity (1558.5). In addition to these writings, two Latin prose versions, Terra terrae philosophicae and Alumen de Hispania, and other minor texts, poems, simple annotations, notes and illuminated scrolls (Ripley Scrolls) have been included. See Verse and Transmutation: A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry, ed. A. Timmermann (Critical Editions and Studies), Leiden and Boston, 2013, pp. 2–4. Lines and pages refer to this edition.
These poems generally circulated without a title. The current ones are derived from titles occurring in some late manuscript copies. See Verse and Transmutation (n. 31 above), pp. 215–32, 233–42 and 320–5.
Elias Ashmole, in his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, ascribed the poem Verses upon the Elixir to Pearce ‘the black monk’; but there is no evidence for this attribution, nor are there any textual or historical references to this figure. See Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum: Containing Severall Poeticall Pieces of Our Famous English Philosophers, Who Have Written the Hermetique Mysteries in Their Owne Ancient Language, ed. Elias Ashmole, London, 1652, p. 169.
Its content and style indicate that it may be contemporary with Ripley’s Compound of Alchemy and Thomas Norton’s Ordinal of Alchemy; but the older features of its vocabulary suggest a slightly earlier composition. Four of the surviving manuscripts date from the 15th century (London, British Library [hereafter BL], MS Sloane 3747, which contains the earliest version A; BL, MS Sloane 1091, which contains the earliest version B; BL, MS Sloane 3579; and BL MS, Ashmole 759). The other codices are variously dated between the 16th and 17th centuries and reveal the preservation and continued reception of the Verses until the early modern period. See Verse and Transmutation (n. 31 above), pp. 215–18.
Compared to B1, version B2 mainly shows variations regarding the position of certain sections. The practical instructions are in the first part of the text, and the philosophical passages are located in the second part. I shall therefore consider version B1, which is closest to A in the arrangement of the material.
This is a contemporary text which circulated independently, in which a personification of mercury celebrates its own virtues. As with all alchemical texts, it underwent several modifications during the sixteenth century, producing numerous variants.
The association with processes of generation and the use of biological analogy is present in most alchemical writings throughout Europe. In the anonymous German alchemical picture-poem Sol und Luna, the erotic cycle of the union of the sun and moon is central. See Telle, Sol und Luna (n. 8 above), pp. 82–96.
References to this text are omitted as they are not useful for the present analysis.
As Ashmole notes in his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (n. 33 above) p. 473, the text does not appear in Bale’s 1548 catalogue of the Ripley’s corpus. Instead, it appears for the first time, attributed to Ripley, in a list of famous English authors published by John Pitts, Relationum historicarum de rebus Anglicis, tomus primus: quatuor partes complectens, quorum elenchum pagina sequens indicat, Paris, 1619, p. 677. See also J. M. Rampling, ‘The Catalogue of the Ripley Corpus: Alchemical Writings Attributed to George Ripley (d. ca. 1490)’, Ambix, 57.2, 2010, pp. 125–201 (191–3); George Ripley, Opera omnia chemica, cum praefatione a Ludovico Combachio, Kassel, 1649, pp. 314–22.
Version B shares a similar structure and has therefore been excluded from this analysis as it is redundant.
Here, and below, my italics.
See above, n. 14 above.
See Rosarium philosophorum (n. 23 above), I, p. 6 and 51.
Given the limited space available, I include in my analysis only textual quotations from the main Latin alchemical treatises.
The expression wode water is also found in the version C of the poem entitled Short Work, a sixteenth-century text that belongs to the Corpus because of some sentences it shares with the Verses: ‘Vnto red blud he must be brought/els of him thou gettest ryght nought/retch him with ye wode water’ (ll. 55–7). It has not been considered relevant to this study because its features suggest it is a late re-elaboration of some earlier texts, including the Verses and the versions A and B of Short Work, two poems whose manuscripts date from the 15th century. On the textual and codicological issues about Short Work, see Verse and Transmutation (n. 31 above), pp. 286–8.
M. Pereira, ‘Alchemy and the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Late Middle Ages’, Speculum, 74, 1999, pp. 336–56; On the use of Middle English in scientific texts, see Voigts, ‘Multitudes of Middle English Medical Manuscripts’, (n. 10 above). On the typology of the language used in alchemical science, see O. Hannaway, The Chemist and the Word: The Didactic Origins of Chemistry, London and Baltimore, 1975.
G. Luck, Arcana Mundi. Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. A Collection of Ancient Texts, Baltimore, 2006, p. 442. See also T. Burckhardt, Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, transl. W. Stoddart, Baltimore, 1967.
In the Ars alchemiae, Michael Scot says: ‘if you wish to make luna from mercury, then put the mercury in a furnace on the day of luna (i.e., Monday) in the hour of luna, and do this in the augmentation of luna’; see S. Harrison Thomson, ‘The Texts of Michael Scot’s Ars Alchemie’, Osiris, 5, 1938, pp. 523–59 (556).
In contrast to Greek alchemical texts, in the Latin West, between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, there is evidence of the rare use of symbolic signs for metals derived from planets. One of the few surviving examples is a copy of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, De alchimia (late thirteenth century). See B. Obrist, ‘Visualization in Medieval Alchemy’, International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, 9, 2003, pp. 131–70.
It was not until the sixteenth century that the personification of the god Mercury as a man with a caduceus, winged cap and talaria, often in medieval dress, appeared in alchemical manuscripts. This personification became increasingly common from the seventeenth century onwards. Nevertheless, these late depictions indicate that, although the god Mercury was not explicitly represented because of the hermetic nature of alchemical texts, adepts knew the connection between mercury and the deity. See, e.g. the woodcut from Johann Sternhals, Ritter-Krieg, Erfurt (1595) and other images on https://www.alchemywebsite.com/amclglr5.html; accessed 11 May 2022. On the relationship between mythology and alchemy, see J. Telle, ‘Mythologie und Alchemie. Zum Fortleben der antiken Götter in der frühneuzeitlichen Alchemieliteratur‘, in Humanismus und Naturwissenschaften, ed. R. Schmitz and F. Krafft, Boppard, 1980, pp. 135–54.
Tacitus, Germania, ed. and transl. J. B. Rives (Clarendon Ancient History Series), Oxford, 1999, chs 9 and 43. On the Interpretatio Romana, see M. Hainzmann, ‘Interpretatio romana vs translatio latina. Zu einzelnen Aspekten des theonymischen Interpretationsverfahrens bei Caesar und Tacitus’, Mediterraneo antico. Economie, società, culture, 15, 2012, pp. 117–42; G. F. Chiai, R. Häussler and C. Kunst, ‘Einleitung interpretatio: religiöse Kommunikation zwischen Globalisierung und Partikularisierung’, Mediterraneo antico. Economie, società, culture, 15, 2012, pp. 13–30; C. Ando, ‘Interpretatio romana’, Classical Philology, 100, 2005, pp. 41–51; W. Spickermann, ‘Interpretatio Romana? Zeugnisse der Religion von Römern, Kelten und Germanen im Rheingebiet bis zum Ende des Bataveraufstandes’, in Die frühe römische Kaiserzeit im Ruhrgebiet, ed. D. Hopp and C. Trümpler, Essen, 2001, pp. 94–106; T. Derks, ‘The Perception of the Roman Pantheon by a Native Elite: The Example of Votive Inscriptions from Lower Germany’, in Images of the Past: Studies on Ancient Societies in North-Western Europe, ed. N. Roymans and F. Theuws (Studies in Prae- and Protohistorie, 79), Amsterdam, 1991, pp. 235–65.
Wace’s Roman de Brut: A History of the British: Text and Translation, ed. J. Weiss (Exeter Medieval English Texts and Studies), Exeter, 2002, pp. 170–71: ‘But above all others we principally honour Mercury, who in our language, with great piety, is called Woden’.
See the illustration of the Libellus de primo Saxonum uel Normannorum adventu (London, BL, MS Cotton Caligula A. viii, f. 29r, XII c.) and the Historia Anglorum by Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 66, p. 69). Symeon of Durham, Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, ecclesie: Tract on the Origins and Progress of This the Church of Durham, ed. D. Rollason, Oxford 2000; Henry Archdeacon of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum (History of the English People), ed. D. E. Greenway, Oxford, 1996.
Robert Mannyng of Brunne, The Chronicle, ed. I. Sullens (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies), Binghamton, 1996, p. 265: ‘But most of all we worship / Mercurius and observe his feast / Mercury is in our language / Woden, almighty is in our usage’. This translation is my own.
The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ed. W. A. Wright (Rolls Series, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, 86), London, 1887, p. 173: ‘That hold up the world and in Mercurius most surely / The high god that in our language we call Wodan’. This translation is my own.
Middle English Compendium, ed. F. McSparran et al., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Library, online edition, 2000–2018: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/; accessed 13 May 2021.
On the late manuscripts copies and the stemma codicum, see Verse and Transmutation (n. 31 above), pp. 216–19.
Version A, manuscripts A2, A3, C2, S1, S2, S3, S4 (16th century), l. 54: ‘water of them’.
Version B, manuscripts L1, S8, S*, S*3, S*4, Y1 (16th century), l. 8: ‘water that is so wood’; l. 86: ‘water of life’ (A6); ‘water so woed’ (Y1); ‘water that is so woode’ (L1).
According to I. Cornelius, Reconstructing Alliterative Verse: The Pursuit of a Medieval Meter (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 99), Cambridge, 2017, p. 6, the persistence of a conventional ancient lexicon within the alliterative verse is a consequence of the use of the vernacular in a popular environment. It can therefore be assumed that the author of the Verses knew a certain number of alliterative words that he could use on certain occasions.
The pronoun ‘it’ in l. 31 of version A was replaced by ‘ye child’ in l. 50 in version B; the word ‘werkes’ in l. 82 (version A)/157 (version B) was replaced by ‘clerks’ in some later copies, as evidenced by manuscripts A2, A3, C1, C2, F*, S1, S2, S4, S#, of version A, and manuscripts P1, W1 of version B. See Verse and Transmutation (n. 31 above), pp. 78 and 216–17.
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Bulotta, D. A New Cover Name for Latin Mercurius in Some Fifteenth-Century English Alchemical Recipes. Int class trad 30, 139–155 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-022-00623-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-022-00623-9