The green copper stone was hard, but gradually it yielded to the importunities of the huge, pounding pestle, like a vertical battering ram. This first treatment was intended only to reduce the pieces of its mass in size. Stant quatuor lapides in modum crucis, four stones are set up in the form of a cross: So began the ancient direction for the construction of a furnace; this had been done during Vergil’s absence under Clemens’ direction, and on this foundation the work erected immediately afterward of iron rods crisscrossed in squares. Over these a hearth was laid of Babylonian clay well-kneaded with horse dung, three fingers thick, in a circle, punctured with holes by a round stick, and left to dry. Around and up from this hearth, of the same clay and of small stones, a wall was built up in modum ollae, in the form of a pot.
“Narrower from the middle upward, you will observe,” Clemens pointed out for perhaps the tenth time, “and higher than wide. So I have always built my furnaces, and so I built yours. The clay was macerated and triturated and washed and strained, believe me, fully an hundred times. The horses were all maiden mares, pure white in color, fed upon mallows and apples and grass plucked — plucked, mind you, not cut — from rocky hilltops such as we might be perfectly sure had never been tilled, for three days, after which we might be certain that they had thoroughly passed all gross fodder. As for the four iron bands binding the outside of the furnace, they were, needless to say, newly forged. For tempering them, I obtained an oxhorn from one of the sacrificial animals and burned it on a fire of lignum vitae, scraped it, mixed it with the purest salt I had in my elaboratory a third part, and ground them vigorously together. I put the irons in the same fire till they were white hot, sprinkled the preparations over it on every which side, opened out the coals and quickly blew all over, but seeing that the tempering did not fall off. Immediately I withdrew the bands and quenched them evenly in water, took them from there, and dried all gently over a fire.”
“As for the water, ha ha!” — he chuckled and he rubbed his hands together — “I did not use ordinary water, all corrupted with gross earths and impure salts and what-have-you, no. Instead, I procured a three-year-old goat and tied it up indoors for three days without food. On the fourth I gave it fern to eat and nothing else for two days. Then I enclosed it in a cask perforated underneath and under the holes I placed a separate water-tight container and for two days and three nights I collected its urine. With this same water I also tempered all the tools of steel and iron.”
Vergil said that this was well done. He hearkened a moment to the pounding of the mill, then added, gravely, “It is fortunate that there was fern.”
Promptly, Clemens said, “Had there not been, I should have tempered with the urine of a small boy.”
Small Morlinus, who had been listening at odd moments, looked up expectantly at this; but Clemens, who had not observed him, amended, “A small, red-haired boy,” and the face of Morlinus, who was dark, fell.
Vergil raised his wand and the mill fell silent. The green ore was removed and piled in a heap and burned like lime. It did not lose color, but it lost much of its hardness; after which it was cooled, returned to the mill, and broken up small. It was then ready for the furnace.
Vergil addressed his adepts and their helpers. “We are now approaching the more delicate parts of the work,” he reminded them, “although the casting and founding will be, of course, next to the burnishing, the most delicate parts of all. You have all bathed and prayed and sacrificed. More than a willingness to work together is required. Any degree of impatience, any loss of temper, might, at a crucial moment, result in irreparable damage. Are all things well with all of you at home? Reflect, and, if not, then withdraw. Your wages shall in any case continue, and there are other works you can engage in until this one is complete.”
He paused. There was silence. No one withdrew.
His voice was very low but very distinct. He looked at each in turn with his clear, gray-green eyes. “We have now to go on with our task of making a virgin mirror. It is important to the honor of this house that we do not fail. And it is important to me in another particular as well. I know it is not necessary that you should know how or why, that your merely knowing it is so will be sufficient for you. If I have offended any of you at any time, forgive me. If any of you have offended me at any time, forgive you I freely do. And if any of you have offended against each other, will you not declare it now? — if any of you feel that another has given you cause for grievance, will you not reveal it now? — so that we may proceed in perfect purity and amity and confidence of heart.”
There was another silence. Then followed a few low-voiced conversations, several shook hands and returned to their places. Vergil had half turned his head as if to give directions, when the thin, piping treble of Morlinus was heard. “Iohan, when the Master told you to take me and instruct me and you said that you would beat me if I learned ill and I said that I gave you leave — ”
Iohan, in some surprise, nodded.
“So I had no right to curse at you when you did beat me because I smudged my letters or wrote them backward or drew pictures instead. And I ask your forgiveness for cursing at you when you couldn’t hear me and for calling you a bear with a sore cod and a son of a whore and a dirty old fig-polucker and a blind bawd’s pimp and a hussy-hopper and . . .”
His vocabulary was both remarkable and extended. Iohan’s face beneath his bristly beard grew red as wine, and his thick and hairy fingers began to twitch. At length when the boy drew a breath, and began anew with, “Also, I ask your forgiveness for having said about you and your wife — ” Iohan, his vast chest heaved up and his nostrils round with rage, bawled out at the top of his voice. “Enough, enough! I forgive you for everything you said and you don’t have to say any of it all over again!”
Then, as if suddenly aware of the echo, he repeated, in a small, abashed tone, “I forgive you, boy. . . .”
• • •
Red-hot coals were now placed in the furnace and small pieces of ore spread out on top, then more coals, then the ore again, and so on until the furnace was filled. All was swift, sure, silent; no foot slipped upon the carefully sanded floor. Some time passed and Vergil drew Clemens’ attention to a vessel placed some way below and apart, where unto a flow of metal was directed by channels graved for the purpose. An iridescent sheen was on its thick and scummy surface.
“Now the lead begins to separate,” he said.
“Some will still remain, unless — ”
“Some should remain, to serve to hold the tin and copper together well, and to help give the bronze a good polish.”
The bellows were not now needed, for the wind, entering into the opening below, drew the flames well. Clemens said, “This should now remain heating a very long time, and although we have a proverb: ‘The eye of the Master melts the metal,’ still, the Master’s eye is not needed at the moment. Come and sit down and let me read something to you.”
A divan had been set up against the wall and spread with carpets and cushions and fleeces. The colors clashed, Vergil noted abstractly. A woman would have seen to it that they didn’t, but it had been long since there was — except for brief visits — a woman in the House of the Brazen Head. He seated himself and, catching the eye of Morlinus, he beckoned him.
“Yes, lo . . . yes, master?”
“Tell them in the house to prepare me a small bowl of hot pease soup with thin dry bread grated on the top, and a slice of fried sausage. . . . Now, Ser Clemens, what is this that you have to read to me?”
“You sound like a pregnant woman, with your sudden and specific urge for a snack.”
“Yes, I daresay I do. I suppose in some way I am.”
Clemens shrugged. “God send thee a good delivery, then. What I have to read to you?” He held up the little book which he had been engaged in reading on Vergil’s return. “This I found in my own library. It is called On Cathayan Bronze, and it is as full of good things as an egg is of meat. Let me read you the chapter I have
marked.
“Concerning Mirrors. Sorcery works against Nature, magic works with it. Of all the means of magic, the most important are the sword and the mirror, the ordinary uses to which warriors and women put these objects being of little significance to the Superior Man. Concerning swords and their power to compel daemons, we will speak in another chapter. The learned Covuvonius sayeth, ‘When you look at yourself in a mirror, you observe only your own appearance; your fortune or misfortune can be read by seeing yourself reflected in other.’ This reminds us that mirrors ought not to be used for such foolish purposes as merely looking at one’s self, but rather for the Eight Essential Functions, and these are they: To ward off evil influences, confuse daemons, assist physicians by reflecting the interior of the patient’s body, protect the dead by giving light to the graves in which they are placed, to assimilate and simulate the brightness and power of the Sun and the Moon, reflect inner thoughts and moods and elevate them to happier ends, for divination, for reflecting in visible form the shapes of invisible spirits haunting the earth; and similar works of moment and magnitude. Emperor Hisuanuanius —
“A curious tongue,” said Clemens, leaving off and looking up. A sharp hot smell was in the air. “Like the hissing of serpents.” He sniffed. “It comes along all we now.”
“Serpents mean wisdom,” Virgil pointed out. “Furthermore, in the Hebrew tongue the word nachash, which is ‘serpent,’ also means ‘copper’ or ‘bronze’ . . . also ‘magic’ — or” he asked himself thoughtfully, “is it ‘sorcery’? Pray, read on.”
“Emperor Hisuanuanius had thirteen mirrors, one for each month of the regular year and one for the intercalary month of leap years, the particular month of each being indicated by the zodiacal animal thereon and the asterism to which it corresponded; and each successive mirror after that of the first month was increased in diameter by one inch.”
Clemens interrupted himself to comment that this was mere artsy trickery, for, after all, no one month was more or less important than any other month.
“On the back of each was graven the Four quadrants of the Uranoscope, thus: the Sombre Warrior in the north, the Vermilion Phoenix in the south, in the east the Azure Dragon, and in the west the Milk-white Tiger.” [“Now, that idea, I rather like,” Clemens said. Vergil nodded.] “(Others say that locusts were also shewn, the winged locusts meriting a numerous posterity because they live in harmonious clusters.) “All magic mirrors must reflect the Six Limits of Space, comprising the four cardinal points plus zenith and nadir. They must be round as the heavens and yet square as the earth, and he who makes one must conjure it, Be thou like the Sun, like the Moon, like Water, and like Gold, clear and bright and reflecting what is in thy heart. Some authorities further distinguish between sunlight and moonlight mirrors. We will now explain the art by which the design on the back of a magic mirror is cast upon a wall or screen when a light strikes its front or reflecting surface . . .
“If you would safely capture tiger cubs, you must carry with you a large mirror and place it in the path to be followed by the tigress, for, great as is her rage and grief, on perceiving her reflection, she is sure to forget all else and linger to admire it till the fall of night. . . . “The best alloy for mirror bronze [“What?” asked Vergil. “No more tigresses?”] . . . will consist in seventeen parts of copper to eight parts of tin [“This is rather less tin than we in Europe are accustomed to use for ordinary mirrors, but it approximates Egyptian usage quite closely, as well as our bell-metal.”] . . . Moonlight may be obtained by hanging a well-prepared mirror on a tree during the full of the moon and then distilling the dew which forms on its face. If this is done properly, a translucent container of it will give bright light in the darkness at any time; but if not, it will only shine according to the phases of the moon itself.
“Solar fire for kindling the sacrificial flames may be caught in a concave mirror cast at high noon exactly on the solstice.
“And now we will speak of molds and wax and stamps and clay and potter’s wheels to shape the curvèd surfaces. . . .
“The bronzefounder borrows from the sculptor and the woodcarver borrows from both, the potter imitating the bronze-founder and in turn being imitated by the lapidary who influences the sculptor; thus turns the wheel, bringing up water to quicken all the fields and furrows . . . Suquas sayeth that, in casting mirrors, the ancients would give the large mirrors a plane surface and the small ones a convex surface; for all mirrors will relfect a man’s face large if they are concave and small if they are convex; and by reflecting the human face in reduced size, a mirror may be small and yet take in a man’s face complete, though the reflected image will correspond in size to the size of the mirror.”
Clemens looked up from his reading. “This is an important passage,” he said.
Vergil’s small bowl of pease soup had just arrived, he took a mouthful of it. “Yes, most important,” he said, rising and starting across the room toward the furnace.
“Surely it is cool by now,” he said, with a curious air, to his inquiring friend.
Clemens took hold of him by the sleeve and drew him to a halt. “Cool by now? What ails you? You look strange and fevery. It is not even sufficiently heated by now . . . Or do you mistake the soup for the ore? First the copper must be baked, then smelted, there are the crucibles to make, the residual leads must be further purified, the molds have yet to be designed, let alone made . . . This is for the moment enough, surely — ”
“Enough . . .” Vergil repeated the word with a sick look and a low sigh. But, Clemens representing to him the bad effect that any display of impatience would have upon the adepts and the workmen, he returned to his seat, and to a discussion of the little book On Cathayan Bronze; a copy of which he presently directed his scribe to make.
Thus, with due precautions both mechanical and astrological, with attentions alchemical and metallurgical, the work slowly proceeded. The crucibles were made, of two parts of raw clay and three of fired clay, kneaded in warm water with hammers and hands to the sound of a rhythmic old Etruscan chant, on the principle that “the voice is good for the mixture”; and the clay molded on wood, covered with dry ashes, and placed near the fire. Meanwhile, the tin was being attended to in accordance with its own peculiar needs. Copper and coals were next put in crucibles and set upon the furnace-hearth, stirred carefully with the wooden-handled long and thin and curved rod. From time to time each crucible was lifted with long tongs and moved a little to prevent its sticking to the hearth, and, by and by all the copper melted and was poured off into the trenches.
“Observe, adepts and workmen,” Clemens pointed out, in a deep, moved voice, “the lesson philosophical which this process teaches us. The metal must die in order to live. It must be destroyed in order for it to be created. Burned in the fire which utterly annuls all manner of form and life, in order for it to be given new form and new life. Where else do we see anything like this? Why, in that seed which is cast into the very earth itself, there to die and there to rot, and there nevertheless to quicken with life again, to grow and to come forth and to flourish. Don’t think, then, when it comes your time to be given to the flames or to the earth, that you will remain ashes or earth forever, for nature and philosophy alike combine to teach you better . . .”
Vergil listened as carefully and as humbly as the forgeboy seemed to, and for all his attention yet something stirred in a corner of his mind and he could neither focus on it nor hear what it had to say. Clemens went on to declare that to alchemy there was no distinction between organic and inorganic life, that the ore which came from the earth and the seed which came from the earth were but brother and sister; so, listening, Vergil gradually allowed the oddly summoning thought to vanish once again.
The speculum proper consisted of two parts: the actual reflecting surface and the cover, fastened to the surface with screws and studs and clasps and catches; the entire product rather resembling a large locket. Some of these smaller pieces would be wrought by ha
nd, some cast in molds like the larger pieces. In preparation for making the molds they now began the refining of the wax. Tallow, coarse and stinking, would not do; nothing but pure wax of bees would do. In many matters concerning the artificing of a major speculum, The Text-book of Rufo, the Chalceocicon of Theodorus, and The Manual of Mary of Egypt differed, but in this one point they were unanimous: the wax must be gathered from the combs of bees that had fed on Mount Caucasus — and nowhere else. Certain vertue hath the soil of this Great Mount, Mary had written. Great is that vertue, and is passed along to all plants and herbs nurtured in that soil, and from nectars of said plants passed on to the wax of bees feeding thereon, and thence to all things molded therewith. Rufo said that certain substances derived from the mineral content of the mountain passed into the clay molded around the wax at the time that the wax itself melted in the fiery heat of the kiln, and were in turn passed on to the metal founded in the clay molds when the heat of the founding activated these residues once again. Theodorus attempted to connect the matter with the blood of Prometheus, shed upon the crag of Caucasus when the eagles tore at his liver for his presumption in bringing fire hid in fennel stalks to the children of men — the flowers thus fructified by this blood forever after retaining what Mary called vertue. And certain it is, he concluded, that no other fire but that of fennel will do for working this wax if it is to be of most effect.
The Phoenix and the Mirror Page 16