A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery: Birds
Birds of all kinds appear in alchemical texts. The birth of the philosopher’s stone from the union of the male and female substances at the *chemical wedding is frequently compared to the birth of a bird or chick from the philosopher’s *egg or vessel (see Bird of Hermes).
Some of the vessels in which the opus is carried out are named after birds: the *pelican (or *goose or gander), the *cormorant and the *stork. The pelican is also a symbol of the stage known as the *multiplicatio, where the quality and quantity of the Stone are augmented by a repeated process of *solve et coagula (dissolution and coagulation).
The four main stages of the opus are likewise symbolized by birds: the black *nigredo by the *crow or *raven, the multi-coloured or rainbow stage by the argus, *peacock or peacock’s tail, the white *albedo by the *swan or *dove, and the red *rubedo by the *phoenix. Paracelsus described this succession of colours and stages:
‘This black substance is the bird which flies by night without wings, which … [is] changed into the blackness of a crow’s head. Then it assumes the tail of a peacock, and subsequently,
acquires the wings of a swan. Lastly it takes the highest red colour’ (PW, 104-5). InJ onson’s TheAlchemistFace assures Mammon that he has put the matter in the alembic through the ‘seueral colours … the crow, The peacocks taile, the plumed swan’ (2.2.26-7).
Michael Maier’sAtalantafugiens uses the raven as an image for the nigredo at the beginning of the opus and the *vulture for a symbol of the consummation of the opus. In other contexts birds, *rain and *dew are closely associated. Within the alembic the *mercurial spirit goes through its repeated cycle of circulations, *distillations and *sublimations. Freed from the prison of crous birds of prey matter (the body), the spirit rises as a volatile vapour to the top of the vessel where it condenses and descends as showers of rain, tears or dew
from heaven onto the dead, blackened bodies below, cleansing and whitening them (see ablution).
A ChymicallDictionary (1650) defines the Hermetic bird as ‘the Mercury of Philosophers, which ascends, and then descends for nourishment’. All volatile substances, vapours, fumes,
spirits or souls, which rise to the top of the alembic and fall as rain, are symbolized by flying birds (fig. 5).
Sir George Ripley wrote: ‘Therefore thy Water out of the Erth thou draw,/ And make the soul therwyth for to assend; / Then downe agayne into the Erth hyt throw,/ That they oft
tymes so assend and dessend’, which ‘Waters some men call/ … Byrds’ (TCB, 152).
Another dramatic image encountered in the alchemical texts is that of the ‘amorous birds of prey’ who simultaneously copulate with and devour one another in a cannibalistic merging. This image symbolizes the paradoxical process of solve et coagula (dissolve and coagulate) which the alchemist must continually reiterate throughout the opus in
order to purify the matter of the Stone in the alembic.
The ‘solve’ is the separation or death, the ‘coagula’ is the union which occurs at the * chemical wedding of male (*sulphur) and female (*argent vive or mercury). The antagonism and destruction of the amorous birds paradoxically brings about the interpenetration, mixing and union of substances
and qualities at this union (fig. 6)
. The epigram to the eighth emblem of The Book ofLambspring reads: ‘Here are Two Birds, great and strong- the body and spirit; one devours the other’ (HM, 1:291). These birds are variously represented by *ravens, vultures, and *hen and cock. Bird of Hermes
The ‘amorous birds of prey’ occur in an alchemical context in Andrew Marvell’s ‘To his Coy Mistress’ which urges male and female to unite:
‘Now let us sport us while we may;/ And now, like am’rous birds of prey, / Rather at once our Time devour’ (lines 37-9). A variant of this motif is that of the winged bird who devours the wingless bird, signifying the simultaneous dissolution of the fixed matter (wingless bird) by the volatile spirit (winged bird), and the fixation (by the wingless bird) of the volatile substance ( the winged bird).
The act of ingestion in alchemy, as in the purely Christian mysteries, is an emblem of the union of the consumer with the consumed. It is an image of sacrifice which leads to
integration. Other hieroglyphs of this process are the *uroboros, the serpent which swallows its own tail and unites in a perfect circle, the *Bird of Hermes which eats its own wings, and that of *Saturn who ingests the mercurial *child. See Argus, feathers.
Bird of Hermes philosophical mercury (*Mercuri us) at various stages of the opus. The Bird of Hermes symbolizes the mercurial vapours as they ascend in the alembic during *distillation and *sublimation, and descend as celestial
*rain or *dew, washing the black earth (the dead bodies) below (see ablution). Calid wrote that during the *calcination, when the matter in the vessel has been heated for a week in the *sand-bath, ‘the Volatile ascends into theAlembeckwhich we callAvisHermetis’ (BookeoftheSecrets, 119).
The Bird of Hermes is the name of the philosophical bird or chick born from the vessel of the philosopher’s *egg. The birth of the *philosopher’s stone from the union of male and female substances at the *chemical wedding is frequently compared to the birth of a bird. Philalethes wrote: ‘Join heaven to earth [male and female] … and you will see in the middle of the firmament the bird of Hermes’ (HM, 2:263).
The birth of this bird during the sublimation of the matter is described by Aristotle: ‘Therefore burn it with a dry Fire, that it may bring forth a Son, and keep him warily lest he fly away into smoke; and this is that which the Philosopher saith in his Turba.
Whiten the earth, and Sublime it quickly with Fire, untill the Spirit which thou shalt finde in it goe forth of it, and it is called Hermes Bird; for that which ascends higher is efficacious purity but that which fals to the bottome, is drosse and corruption’ (in Fe, 70 ). Aristotle identified the Hermes Bird with the *white foliated earth, the *quintessence.
The hatching of the bird is described inAndreae’s The Chymical Wedding: ‘Our Egg being now ready was taken out; but it needed no cracking, for the Bird that was in it soon freed
himself’ (155). During the process known as the *cibation, the newly born bird is nourished with* ‘milk’ (mercurial water) and placed in a sweat bath where he loses all his feathers and is thus tamed.
Another version of the cibationis represented in theEmblematicall Scrowles attributed to Sir George Ripley, where the Bird of Hermes consumes its own feathers under the sweating heat of a flaming sun (fig. 7).
The title of the verse accompanying the emblem reads: ‘The Bird of Hermes is my name, Eating my wings to make me tame’. The taming of the elusive mercurial bird is a key task in the work of maturing the philosopher’s stone. Mercuri us must be captured and tamed so that he ecomes the alchemist’s willing servant, a force controlled and directed
rather than one which is overwhelming and out of control. Paracelsus wrote: ‘Verily by the dissolution of that same natural mixtion our Mercury is tamed or subjected’ (Aurora, 48).
In Ben Jonson’s Mercurie Vindicated from tlieAlclieniists at Court, Vulcan says of the taming of Mercuri us: ‘Begin your charme, sound musique, circle him in, and take him: If he will not obey, bind him’ (lines 112-13).
The image from the Ripley Scrowles of the sacred bird eating its own wings signifies both the dissolution of that which is fixed and the fixation of the volatile aspect of the Stone’s matter.
It is synonymous with the process symbolized by the *beheading of the bird. The *blood of the bird is a name for the miraculous healing*elixir of the alchemists.
Nicolas Flamel wrote of the birth of the philosopher’s stone: ‘there will come out a chicken, that will deliver you with its blood from all diseases, and feed you with its flesh and clothe you with its feathers, and shelter you from the cold’ (HM, 1: 146). ~ Lyndy Abraham, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, Page 46-50
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