Handwritten translation of the Emerald Tablet by Sir Isaac Newton The Emerald Tablet, also known as the Smaragdine Table, or Tabula Smaragdina, is a compact and cryptic piece of Hermetica reputed to contain the secret of the prima materia and its transmutation. It was highly regarded by European alchemists as the foundation of their art and its Hermetic tradition. The original source of the Emerald Tablet is unknown. Although Hermes Trismegistus is the author named in the text, its first known appearance is in a book written in Arabic between the sixth and eighth centuries. The text was first translated into Latin in the twelfth century. Numerous translations, interpretations and commentaries followed. The contents describe the original matter of the universe, the purest form of anything ever created. A translation by Isaac Newton is found among his alchemical papers that are currently housed in Kings College Library, Cambridge University. Tis true without lying, certain & most true. That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing And as all things have been & arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended. Isaac Newton wrote fellow alchemist Robert Boyle a letter urging him to keep “high silence” in publicly discussing the principles of alchemy. “Because the way by the Mercurial principle may be impregnated has been thought fit to be concealed by others that have know it,” Newton wrote, “and therefore may possibly be an inlet to something more noble that is not to be communicated without immense damage to the world if there be any verity in [the warning of the] Hermetic writers. There are other things besides the transmutation of metals which none but they understand.” According to B.J.T. Dobbs in The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy (Cambridge University Press, 1984), “The fact that Newton never published a work on alchemy cannot be taken to mean that he knew he had failed [at the Great Work]. On the contrary, it probably means that he had enough success to think that he might be on the track of something of fundamental importance and so had good reason for keeping his ‘high silence,’ even though there is nothing to indicate that he himself was searching for that mysterious “inlet to something more noble.” webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/mss/dipl/ALCH00017
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 19:55:46 +0000
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