Chapter XXIX. What Things Are Under the Power of Mercury, and Are Called Mercurial

The Philosophy of Natural Magic, by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, L. W. de Laurence ed. [1913], at sacred-texts.com

CHAPTER XXIX.

What Things Are Under the Power of Mercury, and Are Called Mercurial.

Things under Mercury are these: Amongst Elements, water, though it moves all things indistinctly. Amongst humors, those especially which are mixed, as also the animal spirit. Amongst tastes, those that are various, strange, and mixed. Amongst metals, quick-silver, tin, and the silver marcasite. Amongst stones, the emerald, achate or agate, red marble, and topaz, and those which are of divers colors and various

p. 108

figures naturally; and those that are artificial, as glass; and those which have a color mixed with green and yellow. Amongst plants and trees, the hazel, five-leaved grass, the herb mercury, fumitory, pimpernel, marjoram, parsley, and such as have shorter and less leaves, being compounded of mixed natures and divers colors. Animals, also, that are of quick sense, ingenious, strong, inconstant, and swift; and such as become easily acquainted with men, as dogs, weasels, apes, foxes, the hart and mule; and all animals that are of both sexes, and those which can change their sex, as the hare, civet cat, and such like. Amongst birds, those which are naturally witty, melodious and inconstant, as the linnet, nightingale, blackbird, lark, thrush, the gnat-snapper, the bird calandra, the parrot, the pie, the bird ibis, the bird porphyrio, the black beetle with one horn, and the sea-bird trochilus, which goes into the crocodile's mouth for its food. Amongst fishes, the fish called pour-contrel, for deceitfulness and changeableness; the fork-fish for its industry, and the mullet, also, that shakes off the bait on the hook with his tail.