CHAPTER XII

ALCHEMY IN THE TIME OF JOHN
GOWER AND GEOFFREY CHAUCER

FROM the fourteenth to the sixteenth century the al¬
chemist played a part in the life of the English people, as
is shown by the frequency with which he is introduced into the
literature and plays of the period.

Both John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer allude to the decep¬
tions that were being practised in their time by the pseudo-al¬
chemists and to the pretentiousness of their claims. From the
knowledge of the science they show in their works it is probable
that they both had had some practical experience in the art.
Ashmole, indeed, declares that Chaucer “knew the mystery”
and was “ a judicious philosopher and is ranked among Hermetic
Philosophers, and his master in this science was John Gower.”
He says that the first acquaintance between them began at the
Inner Temple, where “ Sir John studied the laws and whither
Chaucer came to follow the like course of studies upon his re¬
turn out of France. They became great friends, and soon per¬
ceived the similitude of their manners and quickly joined in
friendship and labours.”

Gower appears to have believed in the doctrine of the ‘ three
stones,’ vegetable, animal, and mineral. He thus alludes to the
doctrines of alchemy in the Confessio Amantis :

These olde philosophres wise
By wey of kinde in sundry wise
Three stones made through clergy.

The firste if I shall specify,

Was called vegetabilis ,

Of which the propre vertue is
To mannes hele for to serve
As for to kepe and to preserve

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ALCHEMY IN THE TIME OF GOWER

The body from sikenesses alle,

Till deth of kinde upon him falle.

The stone seconde I thee behote
Is lapis animalis hote.

The whose vertue is propre and couth
For ear and eye and nose and mouth,
Wherof a man may here and se
And smelle and taste in his degre.

The thirdde stone in speciall
By name is called miner all,

Which the metalles of every mine
Attemper till that they ben fine,

And purify them by such a wey
That all the vice goth awey
Of rust, of stinke and of hardnesse.

And whan they ben of such clennesse,

This minerall, so as I finde,

Transformeth all the firste kinde
And maketh hem able to conceive
Through his vertue and to receive
Both in substaunce and in figure
Of golde and silver the nature.

Elias Ashmole describes the pseudo-alchemists as

quacking Mountebanks, nibbling sciolists, and ignorant juglers.
Let philosophers say what they can and wise men give never so
good counsell no warning will serve, they must be couzened, nay
they have a greedy appetite thereunto ; but it has been ever so, so
strong and powerfull a misleader is covetousness.

Norton describes these cheats, Ripley dissects them to the bone
and scourgeth them naked to the view of all,

For covetous men that findeth never
Though thy seke it once and ever.

In The Canon's Yeoman's Tale , written about 1390, Chaucer
throws further light on the methods of the pseudo-alchemists,
who were evidently common at the time. It will be remem¬
bered that the pilgrims, while ambling along on their way to
the city, were overtaken by a man clad in black and very
shabby. He was a canon of the Church, and was followed

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LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

by his yeoman, who attached himself to the cavalcade and began
to tell the travellers what a wonderful man his master was and
how he could make all the gold he required. The Canon tries
to stop his gossip and then rides off, while the Yeoman relates
his tale of the disappointments he had met with in practising the
art, declares that alchemists are fools, and tells of

the Philosophres Stone,

Elixer called, we seek faste everyone,

• • • • •

For all oure craft, whan we have al y-do,

With al oure sleighte, he will not come us to.

From the subsequent observations of the Canon’s Yeoman,
it would appear as if some sudden resentment had determined
Chaucer to interrupt the regular course of his work in order to
insert a satire against the alchemists.

He thus proceeds to tell of the work in which the Yeoman
engaged and how he blew the fire till his heart grew faint :

What should I tellen each proportion
Of thinges whiche that we work upon ;

As on five or six ounces, may well be,

Of silver, or some other quantity ;

And busy me to telle you the names
Of orpiment,1 burnt bones, iron squames,2
That into powder grounden be full small !

And in an earthen pot how put is all,

And salt put in, and also pepper,

Before these powders that I speak of here,

And well y-covered with a lamp of glass
And muchel other thing which that there was,

And of the pot and glasses enlutyng3
That of the air mighte passe out no thing,

And of the easy fire, and smart also
Which that was made, and of the care, and woe
That we had in our matters subliming
And in amalgaming and calcining,

Of quick-silver, called mercury crude ;

For all our sleightes we can not conclude.

1 Trisulphide of arsenic.

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Sealing with lute.

2 Scales.

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ALCHEMY IN THE TIME OF CHAUCER

Our orpiment and sublimed mercurie,

Our grounden litarge 1 eke on the porfurie,

Of each of these of ounces a certain,

Nought helpeth us, our labour is in vain.

The formula here given, consisting of arsenic, bone-ash, and
iron scales, was for an amalgam well known to alchemists of the
time. He continues :

There is also full many another thing
That is unto our craft appertaining,

Though I in order them not rehearse can
Bycause that I am an untaught man ;

Yet will I tell them as they come to mind,

Though I ne can not set them in their kind —

As bool Armenian,2 verdigris, borax,

And sundry vessels made of earth and glass ;

Our urinals and our decensories,3
Vials, crucibles, and sublimatories,

Distilling flasks and alembics eke,

And other such, that are not worth a leek —

Not needeth it for to rehearse them all
Waters rubifying and bull’s gall,

Arsenic, sal ammoniac, and brimstone,

And herbes could I tell each many one,

As agrimony, valerian, lunary 4

And other such, if I should choose to tary.

He then proceeds to mention other materials such as

Salt of Tartar, alkali, and sal-preparat,

And combusted matter and coagulate,

Rat’s bane 6 and our matter enbibing,

And eke of our matter embodying,

And of our silver citrinacion,6
Our cementing and fermentation,

Our ingottes, testes, and many more.

He concludes with an allusion to the doctrine of the ‘four
spirits’ and the ‘seven bodies,’ which has been called the al¬
chemist’s creed.

1 White lead. 2 Armenian bole or clay.

3 Vessels employed for distilling per descensum.

4 Moonwort. 5 Arsenic. 6 Turning lemon-colour.

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LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

I will you tell as was me taught also
The four spirits and the bodies seven,

By order, as oft I heard my lord them neven.1

The first spirit quick-silver called is,

The second orpiment, the third I wis
Sal-ammoniac, and the fourth brimstone.

The bodies seven eke, lo, them hear anon :

Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe,2
Mars iron, Mercury quick-silver we clepe,

Saturnus lead, and Jupiter is tin,

And Venus copper, by my father’s kin !

This cursed craft whoso will exercise
He shall no good have that shall him suffice ;

For all the good he spendeth thereabout
He lose shall — thereof I have no doubt.

Whoso that listeth out of his folly

Let him come forth and learn to multiply !

• •••••

But everything that shineth like to gold
Is not gold, as that I have heard it told,

Nor every apple fair unto the eye

Is not good, whatsoe’er men shout and cry.

Goethe, in Faust , thus pictures the alchemist :

Who in his dusky workshop bending
With proved adepts in company
Made, from his recipes unending,

Opposing substances agree.

Later he gives the following description of a process in the
symbolic language of the art:

There was a Lion red, a wooer daring,

Within the Lily’s tepid bath espoused,

And both, tormented then by flame unsparing,

By turns in either bridal chamber housed.

If then appeared, with colours splendid,

The Young Queen in her crystal shell,

This was the medicine — the patient’s woes soon
ended,

And none demanded — who got well?

Goethe is said to have drawn this description partly from
Paracelsus and partly from Welling’s Opus Mago Cabbalisticum.

1 Name. 2 Call.

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ALCHEMY IN THE TIME OF CHAUCER

The “Lion red” is cinnabar, called “a wooer daring” on ac¬
count of the rapidity with which it united intimately with other
bodies. The “Lily” is a preparation of antimony which was
known as Lilium Paracelsi. In alchemical language red was the
masculine and white the feminine colour. The glass alembic,
which consisted of the two chambers (body and head), in which
the substances were placed, was first put in a “tepid bath” and
gradually heated, “tormented then by flame unsparing,” the
two bodies being drawn from the “bridal chamber ” in the lower
part to another, meaning that their wedded fumes were forced
by the heat into the upper chamber, or head. If then the
“Young Queen,” or the sublimated substance, appeared with
brilliant colours in the upper chamber, the proper result was
obtained, and this signified the true “medicine.”

John Lyly, in his comedy Gallathea , written in 1592, thus
satirizes the alchemist. Raffe, a simple-minded fellow who
is shipwrecked on a strange shore, meets with Peter, an al¬
chemist’s boy, who tells him of the wonders of alchemy and
the greatness of his master. “A little more than a man,” he de¬
clares, “and a haires bredth lesse than a god. Hee can make thy
cap gold, and by multiplication of one grote three old angels.”
Peter assures Raffe that alchemy is a very secret science, for
“none almost can understand the language of it, and it has as
many termes impossible to be uttered as the arte to be com¬
passed.” Much to Raffe’s delight the alchemist consents to take
him into his service, in which he hopes soon to get rich, but he
quickly tires of the hard work in the laboratory and abandons
his master no richer than he was before.

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