The Two Monks Discuss Alchemy
Previously: The two monks invent music. The two monks draw some birds. The two monks draw Atlas holding up the world.
The Splendor Solis is a sixteenth-century illustrated manuscript depicting the alchemical death and rebirth of a king, the seven known planets, and the union of the Red King and White Queen.
MONK #1: This one I understand well enough, I think
MONK #2: “Let us seek the natures of the four elements”?
MONK #1: Just so
MONK #2: the four elements being…?
MONK #1: Well, the three primes, of course
the first prime being sulfur, the second mercury, the third salt, or body…
MONK #2: What about air and earth and so on? I thought those were the classical elements
MONK #1: Oh, classically, certainly they are the elements
But they speak here of alchemical elements
MONK #2: And where does bile enter into it?
MONK #1: oh dear, I’d forgotten about bile
I’m sure they must have meant bile as well
Shall we say five elements?
MONK #2: Well, is it black bile, or yellow bile?
MONK #1: oh dear oh dear
better say six elements, just to be sure
MONK #2: Now the border I understand well enough
I can do a border of flowers and birds standing on my head and in my sleep
I am sorry, that sounds like boasting, doesn’t it
I don’t mean to say I consider myself especially good at birds and flowers
Nor especially bad neither
MONK #1: I know just what you mean
MONK #2: I really didn’t mean to boast
I only mentioned it because I can’t quite figure out what we’re meant to do with this fellow in the middle
nor why he’s putting his armored feet in a fountain where it’s sure to rust the greaves
MONK #1: It’s a solleret, if it’s his feet you’re worried about
MONK #2: Pardon?
MONK #1: Well, the greaves go over the shins, and the solleret is the foot part
MONK #2: Is that so?
MONK #1: Yes, my eldest brother Frederick was a soldier, you know
MONK #2: Does anybody wear hauberks anymore?
MONK #1: I’m afraid not
MONK #2: I see
I’ll make a note of that
And I’ve got the bit on his shield right?
…”From two waters make one, you who seek to make the Sun and the Moon, and give it to drink to the unworthy, and where you must, with the dead, then from the water remake again, and you will have multiplied the Stone.”
MONK #1: It matches what I’ve got here
MONK #2: Do you mind if I ask another question?
MONK #1: Not at all
MONK #2: What do you suppose alchemy is?
MONK #1: I think it’s a sort of recipe-book for collecting rocks
MONK #2: Hm
MONK #1: Now why this plate hasn’t got a caption I can’t figure out for the soul of me
MONK #2: Why isn’t he helping the other king drowning in the background?
MONK #1: That’s what I’d like to know
MONK #2: They’re both kings
Even if common pity doesn’t move him, you would think that fellow-feeling for a king would
MONK #1: If nothing else, he could send that bird out for help
MONK #2: If this is where alchemy leads then you can have it
MONK #1: !
MONK #2: Oh, I don’t mean you you, I just mean a general you
MONK #1: I was going to say!
MONK #2: You wouldn’t stand around looking at a bird while a king drowned not twenty feet away from you
MONK #1: Well, they say you never know how you’ll react in a crisis until it happens
MONK #2: You’d act stoutly, and rightly. I know
MONK #1: Thank you
MONK #2: Thank you. You wouldn’t stand about…not like whatever this is. Alchemy forsooth
MONK #1: Oh, perhaps the old king survived his drowning after all
MONK #2: The swamp man?
MONK #1: Maybe he’ll look better after that angel has toweled him off
MONK #2: And you’re sure we’ve got the monkeys and the deer right in the foreground?
MONK #1: Yes, the deer have recently lost a bet and the monkeys insist on their paying up promptly
MONK #1: And now the king is restored and sharing a torso with the angel?
MONK #2: I think these are two new things
I don’t think the king is here at all
MONK #1: …Are you quite sure we’ve got the four humors right?
MONK #2: I’m not at all sure, I’m afraid
MONK #1: What if it’s red, black, putrefaction, spirit?
MONK #2: Unless it’s gold, air, Jupiter, and the Moon —
MONK #2: I’ve decided the problem lies in trying to understand it
and as long as whatever we illustrate matches what the instructions say, that’s all that matters to me
MONK #1: Gold head, big sword, disarticulated fellow, gondola, three-story temple?
MONK #2: That’s what I’ve got here
MONK #1: Then I suppose we’re done with this one?
MONK #2: I suppose we are
MONK #1: so that’s what alchemy is really for: cockfighting
MONK #2: I think that’s tacky, I really do
MONK #1: I couldn’t agree with you more
MONK #2: I know you’re really not supposed to say that sort of thing nowadays
MONK #1: Not at all! Not at all!
MONK #2: Everybody loves a bear-baiting, everybody loves a cockfight
MONK #1: I can’t understand it!
MONK #2: If I happen to see, in the course of an ordinary day, two or more birds fighting in their legitimate environment, of their own free will, then of course I will stop to watch
MONK #1: Who wouldn’t!
MONK #2: For there I would behold Nature behaving according to her own best precepts, valor, skill, contending for mastery, and order
MONK #1: You would! You would!
MONK #2: But to stuff three doves into a great flask — to say nothing of dyeing one of them the most unnatural carmine — and to force them to fight in desperation for breathing-room —
MONK #1: To say nothing of the dye!
MONK #2: Well, all I can say is that if that’s how you make rocks, then you can have your damned rocks, and the back of my hand to you
I beg your pardon for cursing but I meant every word
MONK #1: Not at all! Not at all!
MONK #1: Oh! Do you see, it looks like it’s rather worked out well for the birds in the end…?
MONK #2: If you call presiding over a rather monstrous-looking battle, while a chariot pulled by wolves races across the heavens rather well…
MONK #1: Perhaps we had better take a break
MONK #2: Oh, I am sorry
I spoke harshly, and out of order, and I am sorry
I only mean — whatever happened to illustrating a nice Book of Hours? Maidens reading by a river, or well-ordered birds listening to a sermon in a tree…not stuffed into a bottle and forced to fight for man’s amusement, or kings letting other kings drown
the sort of thing that makes sense —
I think it’s aether, women, first principles, and sand, is the right order for the four elements —
MONK #1: I believe I hear the bell for lunch
[Images via]
The chaps who illustrated the manuscript were hitting the ergot pretty hard
I’ve been drowning in melancholy recently and somehow these two monks appear to have fixed me.