what thou seekest after, and what thou wilt have, what dost thou desire to make? _Alch._ The Philosophers stone. _Merc._ Out of what matter therefore wilt thou make it? _Alch._ Of our Mercury. _Merc._ O my Philosopher, now I wil leave you, for I am not yours. _Alch._ O thou art but a devill, and wilt seduce mee. _Merc._ Truly my Philosopher thou art a devill to mee, not I to thee: for thou dost deale most sordidly with mee, after a devillish manner. _Alch._ O what doe I hear? this certainly is a devill indeed, for I do all things according to the writings of Philosophers, and know very well how to work. _Merc._ Thou knowest very well, for thou dost more then thou knowest, or readst of: for the Philosophers said, that Nature is to be mixed with Natures; and they command nothing to bee done without Nature; but thou dost mix mee with almost all the sordidst things that bee, as dung. _Alch._ I doe nothing besides Nature; but I sow seed into its own earth, as the Philosophers have said. _Merc._ Thou sowest mee in dung, and in time of harvest I do vanish away, and thou art wont to reap dung. _Alc._ Yet so the Philosophers have wrote, that in the dunghill their matter is to be sought for. _Merc._ It is true what they have written; but thou understandest their letter, and not their sense, and meaning. _Alch._ Now happily I see that thou art Mercury; but thou wilt not obey mee. And he began to conjure him again, saying, _Vx Vx_. But Mercury laughing answered, Thou shalt doe no good, my friend. _Alch._ They do not speak without ground, when they say thou art of a strange nature, inconstant, and volatile. _Merc._ Dost thou say, that I am inconstant, I resolve thee thus, I am constant unto a constant Artificer; fixed to him, that is of a fixed mind, but thou, and such as thou art, are inconstant, running from one thing unto another, from one matter unto another. _Alch._ Tell me therefore if thou art that Mercury, which the Philosophers wrote of, which they said was, together with sulphur, and salt the principall of all things, or must I seek after another? _Mer._ Truly the fruit doth not fal far from the tree, but I seek not mine own praise, I am the same as I was, but my years are differing. From the beginning I was young, so long as I was alone, but now I am older, yet the same as I was before. _Alch._ Now thou pleasest me, because now thou art older: for I alwaies sought after such a one, that was more ripe, and fixed, that I might so much the more easily accord with him. _Merc._ Thou dost in vain look after mee in my old age, who didst not know mee in my youth. _Alch._ Did not I know thee, who have worked with thee divers wayes, as thou thy selfe hast said? and yet I will not leave off till I have made the Philosophers Stone. _Merc._ O what a miserable case am I in? What shall I do? I must now be mixed again with dung, and be tormented. O wretch that I am! I beseech thee good Master Philosopher, doe not mix me so much with hogs dung;