Philosophical Dialogue between the Flying Mercury and a Common Smelter

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...avoid it, for one finds oneself cheated by you from front to back, no matter how clever one wishes to be.

Mercurius. My dear Smelter, this work is far from changing my form; I still look just as pure and shiny as I ever did. For as long as I am not forced out of my running form Mercury's "running form" refers to its natural state as a liquid metal, often called quicksilver., and my innermost is turned outward—this is what is meant by "clipping my wings" A famous alchemical metaphor. Clipping the wings of Mercury represents "fixing" the metal, or transforming it from a volatile liquid that evaporates into a stable solid.—and I appear to you in my young Crystalline form, entirely pure and spiritual, then nothing can be accomplished with me. For those things which are added by you in an entirely irrational manner to give me my beauty or pure form only spoil and stain my innermost being; they are truly more harmful than useful to me, and I am only prevented from fulfilling what you should naturally require of me. You will certainly achieve nothing with me through your own cleverness, for unless you learn to recognize me rightly and seek to gain something through natural means and ways, you may wait for all eternity for anything profitable from me. I can tolerate neither too much cold nor too much heat; instead, whoever hopes to make something of me must hit upon the right middle path.

Schmelzer. Ah, my masters have turned your gray coat around so many times and employed so many Laborants Laborants: Laboratory assistants or workers who performed the manual tasks of chemical experiments, such as tending furnaces, under the direction of a master alchemist. who have sublimated Sublimation: The process of heating a substance until it turns into vapor and then collects again as a solid. In alchemy, this was used to "purify" mercury. and precipitated Precipitation: A process where a solid substance is made to separate from a liquid solution, often changing color during the reaction. you—now white, now yellow, now red—and performed so many futile works on you in such intense fires, that I should believe that in hell The text cuts off here; the catchword "dirs" suggests the next page continues "to you" or "for you" (dir).