The King Showing Himself to All the World

to become thick and brown: and even if it seems that some corporeal Corporalische: physical or solid matter quality can still be noticed, it eventually consumes itself, and the body becomes a spiritual essence through and through. I say, therefore, that this art is nothing other than to dissolve solviren: to break down from a solid to a liquid the Stone Stein: the alchemical matter in its transformative state and coagulate coaguliren: to thicken or turn a liquid/vapor back into a solid it again, which must be accomplished solely through putrefaction putrefaction: the process of decay or "rotting" that purifies the matter. For the craftsman Artifex of our work must first dissolve the stone, then coagulate it, because our work opus nostrum is nothing other than to create a perfect solution solutionem and coagulation coagulationem; and unless everything is turned into water, there is no way to reach the art. For both of these, namely the solution of the Body and the Coagulation of the Spirit, will occur in a single operation, and one does not happen without the other. For dissolving the Body and coagulating the spirit is a work of Nature, and thus Gold Aurum and Silver Argentum are dissolved into the radical parts of their own kind, and this moisture is called Permanent Water Aqua permanens: a philosophical solvent that does not wet the hands, representing the stabilized "mercury" of the metals. original Latin: "Artifex enim nostri operis primò debet lapidem solvere, deinde coagulare, quoniam opus nostrum nihil aliud est quam facere perfectam solutionem & coagulationem , & nisi quodlibet vertatur in aquam, nullatenus pervenitur ad artem. Hæc enim ambo, scilicet solutio Corporis & Coagulatio Spiritus, erunt in operatione una, & non fit unum sine altero. Nam solvere Corpus & coagulare spiritus est opus Naturæ, sicque dissolvitur Aurum & Argentum in rebus radicalibus sui generis, & hæc humiditas dicitur Aqua permanens."

Although solution and coagulation are distinct, and one follows the other, they nevertheless require only a single operation—namely, the medium of heat—so that the two principal Elements, Water and Earth, can be clearly demonstrated and placed before one's eyes, as in which...