And once more. "Take our two serpents, which are to be found everywhere on the face of the earth: tie them in a love-knot and shut them up in the Arabian _caraha_. This is the first labour; but the next is more difficult. Thou must encamp against them with the fire of nature, and be sure thou dost bring thy line round about. Circle them in and stop all avenues that they find no relief. Continue this siege patiently, and they turn into an ugly venomous black toad, which will be transformed to a horrible devouring dragon, creeping and weltering in the bottom of her cave without wings. Touch her not by any means, for there is not on earth such a vehement transcending poison. As thou hast begun so proceed, and this dragon will turn into a swan. Henceforth I will show thee how to fortify thy fire till the phoenix appear: it is a red bird of a most deep colour, with a shining fiery hue. Feed this bird with the fire of his father and the ether of his mother: for the first is meat and the second is drink, and without this last he attains not to his full glory. Be sure to understand this secret," etc., etc. The alchemists spoke of twelve gates through which he who would attain to the palace of true art must pass: these twelve gates were to be unlocked by twelve keys, descriptions of which, couched in strange and symbolical language, were given in alchemical treatises. Thus in "Ripley reviv'd"[2] we read that Canon Ripley, of Bridlington, who lived in the time of Edward IV., sang thus of the first gate, which was "Calcination:"-- "The battle's fought, the conquest won, The Lyon dead reviv'd; The eagle's dead which did him slay, And both of sense depriv'd. The showers cease, the dews which fell For six weeks do not rise; The ugly toad that did so swell With swelling bursts and dies." And of the third gate, or "Conjunction," we find the Canon saying-- "He was a king, yet dead as dead could be; His sister a queen, Who when her brother she did breathless see, The like was never seen, She cryes Until her eyes With over-weeping were waxed dim-- So long till her tears Reach'd up to her ears: The queen sunk, but the king did swim." In some books these gates and keys are symbolically represented in drawings, _e.g._ in a pamphlet by Paracelsus, called "Tripus Aureus, hoc est Tres Tractates chymici selectissimi." (Frankfurt, 1618.)