THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS.
afresh ; wherefore it was at last granted that, the year being divided, Proserpina should, by alternate courses, remain one six months with her husband, and other six months with her mother. Not long after this, Theseus and Perithous, in an over- hardy adventure, attempted to fetch her from Pluto s bed, who, being weary with travel and sitting down upon a stone in hell to rest them selves, had not the power to rise again, but sat there forever. Proserpina therefore remained queen of hell, in whose honour there was this great privilege granted ; that, although it were enacted that none that went down to hell should have the power ever to return from thence; yet was this singular exception annexed to this law, that if any presented Proserpina with a golden bough, it should be lawful for him to go and come at his pleasure. Now there was but one only such a bough in a spacious and shady grove, which was not a plant neither of itself, but bud ded from a tree of another kind, like a rope of gum, which being plucked off, another would instantly spring out. This fable seems to pertain to nature, and to dive into that rich and plentiful efficacy and va riety of subalternal creatures, from whom what soever we have is derived, and to them doth again return. By Proserpina, the ancients meant that ethe real spirit, which being separated from the upper globe, is shut up and detained under the earth, re presented by Pluto, which the poet well express ed thus : "Sive recens tellus, seductaque nuper ah alto .4;there,cognati retinebat semina coeli." Whether the youngling Tellus (that of late Was from the high-rear d tether separate) Did yet contain her teeming womb within The living seeds of heaven, her nearest kin. This spirit is feigned to be rapted by the earth, because nothing can withhold it, when it hath time and leisure to escape. It is therefore caught and stayed by a sudden contraction, no otherwise than if a man should go about to mix air with water, which can be done by no means, but by a speedy and rapid agitation, as may be seen in froth, wherein the air is rapted by the water. Neither is it inelegantly added that Proserpina was rapt as she was gathering Narcissus flowers in the valleys, because Narcissus hath his name from slowness or stupidity : for, indeed, then is this spirit most prepared and fitted to be snatched by terrestrial matter, when it begins to be coagu lated, and become as it were slow. Rightly is Proserpina honoured more than any of the other god s bed-fellows, in being styled the Lady of Dis, because this spirit doth rule and sway all things in those lower regions, Pluto abiding stupid and ignorant. This spirit, the power celestial, shadowed by Ceres, strives with infinite sedulity, to recover and get again: for that brand or burning torch of aether which Ceres carried in her hand, doth doubtless signify the sun, which erilighteneth the whole circuit of the earth, and would be of the greatest moment to recover Proserpina, if pos sibly it might be. But Proserpina abides still, the reason of which is accurately and excellently propounded in the condition between Jupiter and Ceres : for first it is most certain there are two ways to keep spirit in solid and terrestrial matter : the one by constipa tion and obstruction, which is mere imprisonment and constraint ; the other by administration or pro portionable nutriment, which it receives willingly and of its own accord ; for after that the included spirit begins to feed and nourish itself, it makes no haste to be gone, but is, as it were, linked to its earth : and this is pointed at by Proserpina her eating of pomegranate; which, if she had not done, she had long since been recovered by Ceres with her torch, compassing the earth. Now, as concerning that spirit which is in metals and minerals, it is chiefly perchance restrained by so lidity of mass : but that which is in plants and animals inhabits a porous body, and hath open passage to be gone in a manner as it lists, were it not that it willingly abides of its own accord, by reason of the relish it finds in its entertainment. The second condition concerning the six months custom, it is no other than an elegant description of the division of the year, seeing this spirit mixed with the earth appears above ground in vegetable bodies during the summer months, and in the winter sinks down again. Now as concerning Theseus and Perithous, and their attempt to bring Proserpina quite away ; the meaning of it is, that it oftentimes comes to pass that some more subtle spirits descending with divers bodies to the earth, never come to suck of any subalteran spirit, whereby to unite it unto them, and so to bring it away. But, on the contrary, are coagulated themselves, und never rise more, that Proserpina should be by that means augmented with inhabitants and dominion All that we can say concerning that sprig ot gold is hardly able to defend us from the violence of the chymists, if in this regard they set upon us, seeing they promise by that their elixir to effect golden mountains, and the restoring of natural bodies, as it were from the portal of hell. But, concerning chymistry, and those perpetual suitors for that philosophical elixir, we know certainly that their theory is without grounds, and we sus pect that their practice also is without certain re ward. And therefore, omiting these, of this last part of the parable, this is my opinion, I am in duced to believe by many figures of the ancients, that the conservation and restoration of natural bodies, in some sort, was not esteemed by them as a thing impossible to be attained, but as a thing abstruse and full of difficulties, and so they sem
