Annotation - Chapter 14, Page 129

• (129:10) "The wife is the sof and the sweet you see which is took off by the sharp and the salty"

Goodparley is now talking alchemical allegory. Medieval European alchemists were looking for the Philosopher's Stone rather than the 1 Big 1, but their methods and language are the same: poetic stories about a character's spiritual quest are believed to illustrate physical processes, and vice versa. (The allegories were also meant to hide the alchemist's secrets from a casual reader; here are some examples of alchemical writing.) And, as occasionally happened with medieval alchemy, Goodparley's questionable reasoning has arrived at results that are not entirely untrue. The puns in this section are fast and furious: assits = acids, catwl twis = catalyst, res and due = residue, new clear = nuclear, break and thru the barren year = break through the barrier. EB

According to alchemists, all metals were made from three elements: sulphur, salt, and quicksilver. RG

Hoban comments via email: "In Pilgermann, Bembel Rudzuk mentions the alchemy of Abraham's going into the furnace and coming out again and on the opposite page he points out the "wind alchemy" of the sails of the dhow. I think elsewhere I've cited the hot and the dry and the cold and the wet but I don't remember where. I read Fulcanelli on alchemy and it comes up here and there in my writing." RH