Translation Suggestions

[Andro]

The purpose of this thread is for people to suggest Alchemical (& Related) Texts that they genuinely want to have/read, but are not currently available in English or in their native language. This thread is also a sort of spin-off from the Crowdfunding Translations thread.

The intention here is to create a 'pool' of potential texts for translation and to see if there is actually any real interest in such a project.

A pool of potential professional alchemical translators (from/to various languages) is already 'in the making', and emails from various (potential) translators offering their services have already been received in this Forum's Inbox.

The Source Texts may be in German, Latin, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Sanskrit, etc...

So please, post your suggestions here and let's see if there is any interest to begin with!

You are all welcome and invited to post here the text(s) you would like to have translated (and are also willing to fund). You can also second/back/repeat/approve a text suggested by someone else, as this will be an even better indicator of general interest.

Let's see how this goes...

[JDP]

How about Lorenzo Ventura's treatise on making the Philosophers' Stone entitled "De ratione conficiendi lapidis philosophici"? As far as I can tell, the original Latin text was only fully translated into German and no other vernacular. I have scans of a manuscript at the British Library (Sloane 2174) that has several chapters of it translated into English, but the handwriting is unfortunately quite difficult to read. Bacstrom's "Essay on Alchemy" (a.k.a. "Bacstrom's Alchemical Anthology") has several extracts from it. But no full English translation of the treatise is known to exist. I was planning on eventually having this translated from the German version, unless someone can find a Latin translator who can work with the original Latin text and can also beat the translation rate of my German translator ($0.03 per word.)

[sam]

I have this one in the pipe, its the last one from I.C.H. thats not available in English and very good:

The seven sacret basic pillars of eternity and time In clear symbols, for the advancement of all wisdom seekers In addition to the Fountain of wisdom and knowledge of nature, the Principles of true alchemy, and four strange letters from an Adept -- by AdaMah Booz (aka I.C.H.)

The German title reads:

Die sieben heiligen Grundsäulen der Ewigkeit und Zeit.
In deutlichen Sinnbildern, zum Besten aller Weisheit Suchenden.

This book is available in Fraktur from google books.
It follows the tradition of the "Hermes Natural Path" and the "13 Secret Letters".

The original has 144 pages and the full title reads:

The seven sacred basic pillars of eternity and time
In clear symbols, for the advancement of all wisdom seekers
In addition to the Fountain of wisdom and knowledge of nature, the Principles of true alchemy,
and four strange letters from an Adept

Igneus est ollis vigor, et coelestis origo Seminibus.
Virgil Aen. VI.


Chapter Headings:

Introduction
Marsil. Ficinus in the Comment. on Plato's Symposium. Chap. . 4
Ebenderf. the philosopher's stone:
Agrippa de occult. philos. I 22nd
The power and workings of peculiar names.
Of the intelligences and demons.
Ghosts, signs and sigils.
Of the signatures and characters of natural things.
That the whole world is distributed under the moon and everything inside it among the planets.
Of the number seven and its scale.
J. B. Theosophist. letter.
Signatura Rerum de.
Tabul. Pricipior.
Triple life.
Rob. de Fluck. Protective pamphlet of the Rosicrucian Society.
That there are many wonderful and important secrets that lie hidden beneath the shell and external shape of things or creatures.
V. Welling Opus Magzo-Cabbalist.
Fountain of wisdom and knowledge of nature
First chapter.
What the Well of wise sey.
Second Chapter.
How many of these wells exist.
Chapter Three.
As the fountain of the wise will be animalistic.
Chapter Four,
As the fountain will be of the vegetable world.
Chapter Five.
As the fountain will be of the mineral world.
Chapter Six.
As the fountain of the wise men of gold will be.
CHAPTER seven.
As the fountain of the wise men of silver will be.
CHAPTER eight.
As the fountain of the wise of iron will be.
Chapter Nine.
As the fountain of the wise of copper will be.
Chapter Ten.
As the fountain of the wise of tin will be.
Chapter eleven.
As the fountain of the wise of lead will be.
CHAPTER twelve.
As the fountain of the wise of mercury will be.
CHAPTER thirteen.
How will our well be known and revealed.
CHAPTER fourteen.
Whether our Brunn to regain its perfection, mean gold and silver have necessary.
CHAPTER fifteen.
How much of our fountain of his gold and silver to his perfection was necessary.
Principles of true alchemy.
The most correct Hermetic figure.
Preview (for the operation).
Four strange letters of an Adept.

[Andro]

Just a reminder:

If there is a text that you would like to support translating, or if someone else has already mentioned a text that you would also like to support translating, just say so here on this thread.

This trial/initiative is not limited to only one language or only one translator, in the end you only support a combo that agrees with you...

But we need more text suggestions, as well as more than one person interested in any suggested text...

Let's see how/if it goes...

[Weidenfeld]

I would like to see translated the following French texts either into German or English:

1) KERDANEK DE PORNIC, DISCIPLE DE DOM PERNETY Le livre des XXII feuillettes hermetiques (1763).

2) Burgsthal, Richard, LES PRECIEUX VITRAUX QUI ORNENT SES FENETRES,

3) Jean BROUAUT or BROUAULT.
Traité de l'eau de vie ou anatomie theorique et pratique du vin, divisé en trois livres. [Publié par I. Balesdens.]
I believe to remember that there might be an English translation (title 3) formerly carried out by Joseph Zabinsky, however I could be mistaken)

@Salazius: maybe you already know these titles and we might very appreciate your own opinion about these works.

[Hellin Hermetist]

I would like to see translated the following French texts either into German or English:

1) KERDANEK DE PORNIC, DISCIPLE DE DOM PERNETY Le livre des XXII feuillettes hermetiques (1763).

2) Burgsthal, Richard, LES PRECIEUX VITRAUX QUI ORNENT SES FENETRES,

3) Jean BROUAUT or BROUAULT.
Traité de l'eau de vie ou anatomie theorique et pratique du vin, divisé en trois livres. [Publié par I. Balesdens.]
I believe to remember that there might be an English translation (title 3) formerly carried out by Joseph Zabinsky, however I could be mistaken)

@Salazius: maybe you already know these titles and we might very appreciate your own opinion about these works.

The first one (Livre se XXII feuilletes) is the common work in which the alchemist use starry regulus of antimony to purify common mercury. I dont know the second one. Brouault's work is what its title says. It teaches you some methods to distill common spirit of wine and remove the excess humidity from it, after that to remove the phlegm from your wine, the acidic and oily substances and to purify tartar. The third book teaches you how to extract herbal essences using highly rectified spirit of wine. This book also makes reference to some curious experiments where you use bottles under vacuum to create artificial and perpetual moving springs. Its an interesting reading but Gosset's "Revelations Cabalistiques d'une Medecine Universelle tirée du vin, avec une manière d’extraire le sel de rosée, et une Dissertation sur les Lampes Sépulchrales" is a better choice if you want to work with wine.

[Hellin Hermetist]

I would like to see the following works. I think that none of them has been translated neither to English nor French.

i) Johannes Chrysippus Fanianus, De arte metallicae metamorphoseos ad Philoponum (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume I)
ii) Joannes Isaac Hollandus, Operum mineralium, sive de lapide philosophico (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume III)
iii) Raymond Lulle, Testament Theorica et Practica, Compendium artis metallorum (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume IV)
iv) Raymond Lulle, Codicilus
v) Works of Andreas Brentzius (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume 4)
vi) Works of Christiano Adolphi Balduini (Most of them you can find in googlebooks in Latin form)

Ps 1: Does anyone know why the works of Lulle have not been translated, while they are mentioned as most valuable texts by most classical authors?
Ps 2: Τhe opinion of anyone who have studied any of the above works should be much appreciated.

[JDP]

I would like to see the following works. I think that none of them has been translated neither to English nor French.

i) Johannes Chrysippus Fanianus, De arte metallicae metamorphoseos ad Philoponum (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume I)
ii) Joannes Isaac Hollandus, Operum mineralium, sive de lapide philosophico (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume III)
iii) Raymond Lulle, Testament Theorica et Practica, Compendium artis metallorum (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume IV)
iv) Raymond Lulle, Codicilus
v) Works of Andreas Brentzius (Theatrum Chemicum, Volume 4)
vi) Works of Christiano Adolphi Balduini (Most of them you can find in googlebooks in Latin form)

Ps 1: Does anyone know why the works of Lulle have not been translated, while they are mentioned as most valuable texts by most classical authors?
Ps 2: Τhe opinion of anyone who have studied any of the above works should be much appreciated.

Many alchemical works attributed to Ramon Llull are available in English translation at the Oxford and British Libraries in several manuscripts (I think that some of these manuscripts might have been part of Richard Russell's collection of English translations of works attributed to Llull that he announced he was going to publish but never actually did. See the introduction of his published translation of Geber's works.) Some of them are written in good, legible handwritings.

For those who can read Spanish, Catalan and/or Italian, several of his works (The Testament, Experiments, Compendium, Book of the Quintessence, etc.) are even more readily available in published editions.

Regarding my opinion of the works attributed to Llull that I have read so far: Quite frankly, much like the works attributed to Paracelsus, I find them to be rather overrated. Lullian alchemical texts tend to be obscure in style, often contain false or misleading "recipes" (like distillations of spirit of wine), and they also often employ cumbersome "alphabets", which far from making things easier for the reader (as the author pretends) actually make it harder, since besides trying to interpret the obscurities of the text he now will find himself confronted with the additional tedious task of having to memorize what each of the letters of these alphabets mean. To complicate things further, the meanings of these letters are not always the same in all these works, often they are different from one text to the next.

[Kiorionis]

This Chinese text translated into English:

The Zhong Lü Chuan Dao Ji (鐘呂傳道集/钟吕传道集)

The book is a dialogue between two of the eight immortal Taoist alchemists on alchemical terminology and methods, such as the five classes of immortality reached through internal practices (Ghost, Human, Earth, Spirit, Celestial), as well as a discussion on the united practices of xing and ming.

[Kiorionis]

If there is a text that you would like to support translating, or if someone else has already mentioned a text that you would also like to support translating, just say so here on this thread.

It would be much easier to support a text if a synopses is given along with the title. I'm not sure everyone has heard of some of these books, and might not know what they're about, and probably wouldn't support it based solely on a title in a language they can't read.